Merry Christmas

Gracie does not enjoy her Mrs. Paws outfit and her papa thinks it is mean, but every kitten should be dressed in Santa gear for some pics, right?

I hope everyone had a great Christmas that didn't involve driving and traffic and family family drama. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a drunken bar brawl. I actually managed to have zero traffic and a nice family visit for Christmas.

Well that was lame...

Company X had their big holiday bash on Thursday night. What a waste of time and money! 3 parties ago, the food was actually good. Then they moved the party to a different location last year and the food was barely edible. They had the same location this year and supposedly new catering. The food was on par with the stuff you would buy at Costco and pop in the oven. They had huge lines of people waiting at each station as usual. So, you would wait in line forever, get a sampling of whatever was in that section, take a bite of each, decide it wasn't worth the calories and move on to the next line. Even the desserts sucked. They also do not serve liquor, which makes it a total loss. You can only drink so much shitty wine with crappy food before you want to puke. The thing that really gets me is how much people talk up this party. They act like it is the most amazing display ever. Either they have never been anywhere else, or it proves my point further that I do not belong working with these people. One of these things is not like the others... Anyway, so many people were talking about how fantastic the party was. I found it to be a waste of perfectly good makeup and heels. The one good thing was that I didn't run into any of the dipshits on my team, so that was good. Needless to say, I'm not going back to Company X's next extravaganza. I would prefer that they just took the money and gave us the cash equivalent. Even if it ended up being $20 each, that would be better than the party. My mom's work gives them a grocery store gift card. I'd be happy with that. Then I could buy some food and make something that didn't taste like shit. They could also just take the money and donate it to charity. Basically anything would be better than their lame ass parties. Now my old company, they knew how to throw a holiday party. That is probably why they are not in business anymore.

Another career field that requires zero intellect

Selling cars...When you set out to buy a car, you do your homework. You research online. You build what you want, price it out and find out the "invoice" price. Then you find a place that has the car you want and you keep looking until you find one that gives you the price you expect to pay. The sales folks really serve almost no purpose anymore other than handing you the keys for the test drive. They must sense that they are of almost no importance in your transaction/decision because they say the most idiotic things trying to determine what your trigger points are. They don't even bother to learn the features of the car they are trying to sell. They don't know how to use the features and you have to learn them on your own. If you are selling a car with voice activated navigation, then why don't you know what the commands are for it? They are so proud of their stupid key rings though and also be sure to give them 5s on the survey that comes in the mail so they don't get fired. Please do not buy a car from the Honda dealership in Tysons. My sales guy was not so bad, but the level of professionalism of that place is so low. Aside from it being the absolute longest time I have ever had to spend to complete a car purchase, people were not knowledgeable, two managers got into a big argument right in front of customers, the finance manager was a complete idiot - made a point of checking his personal email in front of me after I had been there for 5 hours, on top of everything they had given me the wrong VIN number, so I had to redo all of the paperwork again on another day and also had to get a new insurance policy. I don't know why I am surprised that people are so inadequate at their jobs. This is the norm these days.

This is our kitchen...We call it the Japan room!

So, much to our delight, we have to buy new kitchen cabinets. This is a line of work that I think everyone should get into. Mainly because there is zero rhyme or reason into pricing, no control to speak of, and a completely ignorant customer base! Seriously, why aren't more people doing this? Thanks to this unexpected $20K expense, we will no longer be going to Japan this spring. YAY!

It has been awhile

I have been trapped under something heavy. I have been studying for a certification that I don't think I want and I still have another month or so to go. My review class is now over, which is good and bad. On one hand, I don't have to sit in class on Monday and Wednesday nights. On the other hand, I don't have any structure keeping me on schedule for reading. Studying is ruining my life. I have devoted basically every bit of "free" time to studying since the end of September and I think I have maybe about a 25% chance of passing. Yippee! Another couple of months before I get what was life back.