Job Selection Algorithm

Recently, as my three RSS subscribers know, I got a new job. However, before I settled on one I was approached with a lot of very interesting offers. All of them had similar salary (vastly greater than what I was making already) and benefits offers so I had to develop an algorithm to help tip the see-saw.

The following is the general pseudo-algorithm that I settled on. Please note that all distances are in city blocks where the short side is 1 and the long side is counted as 2. Blocks are rounded up instead of fractionated. A negative value for Joblitude doesn't necessarily mean anything bad but a higher overall score is preferred.

Joblitude = ((Number of Clean Single Occupancy Lockable Bathrooms * 5) + Number of Clean Public Urinals + (Number of Clean Public Stalls * 2)) + (Free Coffee? 10 : 0) + (Desk, Cube or Private Office? 0 : 5 : 10) + (Company Pertains to My Interests? 10 : 0) + (Direct Phone Line or Extension? 1 : -1) - ((Distance to Nearest Food Source + Distance to Nearest Bank Branch + Distance to Nearest Coffee House + Distance to Public Transportation) * 2) - (More than one subway? 10 : 0) - (More than one bus? 10 : 0) - (Commute Longer than an hour? 5 : 0)

In the case of the job I ended up choosing:

There is one single occupancy lockable bathroom (5), there is one urinal (1) and one stall (2). Total Bathroom points = +8

Free K-Cup coffee (+10)!

It's a desk (0).

It pertains directly to my interests (+10).

Direct phone line (+1).

Wendy's is 1 block away.
Chase is 3 blocks away.
Starbucks is 0 blocks away.
The subway is 3 blocks away.
Total block walkage round trip: -14

It's one subway (0) and one bus trip (0) and takes about 40 minutes.

8 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 1 - 14 - 0 - 0 = Joblitude +15

The job I left performed as follows:

There is a single occupancy lockable bathroom (5), two urinals (2), two stalls (4). Total Bathroom Points = 11.
No free coffee (0).
Cube (5).
Did not pertain to my interests (0).
Direct phone line (1).

Food was 0 blocks away.
Chase was 4 blocks away.
Starbucks is 2 blocks away.
The bus was 5 blocks away.

It was a one bus trip (0) that took longer than an hour (5).

Final Score: 11 + 0 + 5 + 0 + 1 - 22 - 5 = Joblitude -10.

I am an unfortunately bathroom, caffeine, and commute-centric individual.

The Queen of the Bus

Let me preface this story with admitting that I am a total zero-tolerance asshole in this case. I know and understand it but this story needs to be told. I'm at an age where I'm fed up with people trying to take advantage of me and I'm extremely sensitive of my own rights and getting screwed over. I've been meaning to post this for a very long time.

One day, on the way home, I'm getting on the bus and as I'm about to sit down a woman approaches me and says (verbatim), "if you're going to sit there, I want you to turn off your radio." Now, I'm a friendly and reasonable person. I don't have a problem doing a favor for a stranger if they ask me and in a respectful manner. On the other hand, if a stranger gives me an order in a condescending tone, I am inclined to not only decline their "request," but perhaps my mood will be violently shifted to what some may call "aggressively hostile."

Here were my observations of this woman up until this point. She was a regular commuter who took the same bus every day. She had short, grey, curly hair, about 4'11" tall, and rather overweight. She had these very wide eyes that oozed judgment and you could feel them lock onto you even with your back turned. She always sat in the very back seat and would flick the pages on her book really loudly (one of my pet peeves). She also didn't cover her mouth whilst coughing but people rarely do on public transportation. One day I accidentally pulled a velcro pocket open on my messenger bag and she instantly shot me the death stare. How DARE I MAKE NOISE!? The way she flopped sideways into the backseat of the bus and kicked up one swollen water retaining foot reminded me of some pampered medeival queen sitting on her throne looking down her nose at her court while being graped, fanned, and fed a massive turkey leg by buff slavemen. Therefore, I dubbed her "Queen of the Bus."

She reminded me of Julie Bovasso's character in My Blue Heaven only morbidly obese. The image I included is (I believe to be) Bovasso in The Verdict. Either way, the Bus Queen's face is strikingly similar to that woman and the eyes are nearly spot on.

Barely reigning in my anger, I snipped "no," and sat down in my usual seat. Granted, this shouldn't have set me off so bad, but as I've come to realize, I'm prone to fits of unreasonable rage. I need to get that checked.

I could sense the ripples of anger quivering through her. Like an inquisitive rhino at a drive-through safari attraction she approached the side of my seat and reasserted, "well then you have to turn it down because I can hear it and it's distracting me."

I replied, "ma'am, if you're not driving the bus, I don't care if you are distracted."

"Look! There's a sign that says no radios, and since I can hear it that means you have to turn it down," she redundantly snapped.

I said, "well if I can still hear you struggling to breathe and manhandling the pages of your grocery store romance novel over my music, then it's not loud enough. You have a pet peeve, so do I." Unfortunately for her, her pet peeve was caused by me handling my own.

After some more petty back and forth, she backed off and went back to sit down all the while staring me down like she could do something. Just to be an even bigger asshole I blasted the music for the rest of the ride.

I was seething. Had she approached me and said, "Excuse me sir, your radio is a little too loud. Could you please turn it down?" (or something equally respectful but at least ending in a question mark) I would have been more than happy to accommodate her wishes. Don't come to me like I'm your child and order me around and expect a rational response.

After that, she started to take an earlier bus. But then a few weeks later, I was getting onto my normal Queen-free bus and like a troll from under a bridge she pounced and once again confronted me.

This time she opened with, "Listen, last time I asked you to turn down your radio..."

I had enough so I interrupted, "YOU DIDN'T ASK ME ANYTHING. YOU COMMANDED ME. I WON'T FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS. Do something."

Apparently she realized she was getting nowhere with her holier than thou bullshit and tried to lay on some motherly guilt, "Well that's not very gentlemanly. Why don't you be a gentleman and turn it down. Can't you sit over there!? Why do you have to sit right there!"

Rather than go into a lengthy explanation about how she really doesn't own the back few rows of the bus, that you can't force people to be quiet on public transportation, that she doesn't have a say in how loud I listen to my personal music player (or anything else that I do for that matter), and how I am not her son and if I was I would've defenestrated myself when I was 9, I asked, "Maddam, are we done here?" The words barely made it past the huge ball of anger, frustration, and rage I swallowed. I turned it up to 11.

I never saw her on that bus again; I suppose she stuck with her earlier bus. I'm now in my new job so I will thankfully never run into her again. These two events were the closest I've ever come to biting a stranger's face. Now that I've written about it, hopefully I'll move on.

A New Addition

My wife and I have welcomed a new addition into our family. This is Satan's little brother. Things have been extremely hectic this past week so I haven't posted much. Even though he is the polar opposite of Satan, he is still a handful. Neither my wife nor I have gotten a measurable amount of sleep since last Friday.

The new little guy is an eight week old Siberian Husky male. He weights 8 lbs. and came to us with a couple of fleas and Coccidia. He has been treated with Frontline and is on antibiotics for his intestinal buddies.

I really haven't blogged much about Satan but I will soon since she has been such a huge part of my life. After these two dogs, the largest pet I would ever consider is a fat hamster. More pictures, hit them for higher res:

Neti Pot

Last night, my wife, who has eternal sinus problems, decided to try her new neti pot out. I wasn't comfortable with her trying it out first so I did it before she did. It really does clear out your sinuses well. My wife's sinuses were cleared out fantastically! She could finally breathe...

Here is some chick on youtube demoing how it works.

It's basically pouring a saline solution in one nostril and letting it pour out the other one by using what looks like a small flower watering pot. It leaves your nose smelling like ocean water but allowing you to breathe very easily. Supposedly, it has no side effects (lies). As we all know, whatever drug/remedy/product it is, my wife will get the one and only extremely rare side effect.

After using it in one nostril, her ear was popping all night and she was in tremendous pain. It even woke her up at 3am and we were about to go to the emergency room to have her ear drained or something. The one POSSIBLE side effect is if the canals to your ears are too large saline solution MAY go into them and cause discomfort. In which case you should stop using it. She was in excruciating pain all night, I felt so bad for her.

Therefore, she will no longer be using the neti pot. I, however, most likely will.

Today is my last day at my old job and tomorrow we're getting another doggie (no-doubt hellspawn) so my posts this and next week may suck butts.

Weird Things I Remember

The following weird vignettes stick out in my mind and I'd like to share them:

I went to my in-laws house for dinner on a holiday once. My wife's grandfather and his caretaker were there. The caretaker is a very nice woman from Guatemala who knows I am a web developer. She saw me and said in a friendly tone, "You look like a doctor with those glasses on." I figured she meant I looked smart so I said, "Thanks!" and she replied with, "I have something on my leg."

When I was like 9, I was at this kid's house playing Fireball Mountain and talking about Voltron. He suddenly freaked out and pulled off his shoes while screaming and locked himself in his bedroom. His mother had to call mine to pick me up. It was weird.

At the age of about 12, my family and I were in Virginia for a wedding. We were at some crazy museum where there was this really heavy cart on rails. Somehow the cart was moving and my brother's foot got caught underneath it. The bone on the top of his foot got chipped.

I was about 18 and my friends and I were all hanging out at my buddy Jon's house. One of our friends got an old Chevy Nova. For some reason, while we were driving around, one of our dumb friends decided it'd be cool to ride on the roof. Jon lives in a very upscale neighborhood so it didn't take long for the cops to pull us over. Even though I was sitting shotgun with my seatbelt on, I got a seat belt ticket. WTF!

While working as technical support, I had to "train" my new manager. He was an awesome man-child with a mid-life crisis C6 corvette. He bought me lunch at McDonalds on my timed thirty minute lunch break. I think his name was John and he is my hero.

Another time while working that same job, an old lady lambasted me for her internet connection problems. After I asked her to reboot her modem, she went off on a long tirade ending with, "you sit there at your desk making a lot of money. I know you make a lot of money, don't you. I bet you're rich and you're just making fun of me." I said, "Ma'am, I make 16 dollars an hour and it's company policy to treat us technicians like revolving-door trash. My job consists of getting yelled at and calming people down enough to help them with their internet connections. Can you please just unplug your modem so I can go home and cry myself to sleep?"

And a third final story from that god-awful job. I was assisting a woman who's technician didn't show up. He was scheduled to be there from noon to 3pm. It was 10:30am. She said in a raspy cigars-and-brandy man-voice, "I was a cop, you know. I have a gun. If he doesn't get here soon, I'll come over there and shoot you MF'ers. *click*" I canceled the appointment due to safety concerns.

Whilst sleeping at my in-laws house during our house renovation, I was trying to convey something to my wife. She thought I was saying "..hudson.. Hudson... HUDSON!" What she finally realized I was mumbling was "MY NUTS HURT!" Unfortunately, I had awoken everyone in the house with my testicular pain. Since then, "hudson" has become somewhat of an inside joke in our families.

That's all for now, but I will have more weirdness compilations in the future.

The Lawn Slayer

I'm going to preface this by saying my neighbor turned out to be a stand-up guy about the whole thing despite letting me simmer for so long. However, as this blog is the boring story of my equally boring life, I must document it, sorry.

Three months ago, my wife and I hired a landscaper to come and lay decorative stones around the garden in front of our house and lay some fresh sod. The previous owners of the house planted some crazy wheat grass type of deal and looked horrendous. So, in order to be more domesticated and suburbanish, we had lovely sod planted. I watered it religiously every day, it was growing great!

Fast forward to two weeks ago, I came home one day and my neighbor had pulled his new car into his driveway. I have no problem with him walking across the lawn to get out of the car but he started working on the car in the driveway and totally trampling the fledgling lawn. Then he used oven cleaner on the car so that the entire adjacent strip of lawn turned brown. All the way down.

I was very pissed and talked to him about it. He never apologized but he did assume responsibility for it. He avoided the topic in further conversations. The hypocrisy is that he is extremely particular about his lawn. I've even seen him outside cutting certain blades of grass with a pair of scissors. Had I done that to his lawn, he would've been knocking at my door with his .38.

Fast forward one more week. My dog leaps to the window and starts doing her intruder bark. I look out the window just in time to see a guy with his dog talking to the Lawn Slayer and his dog. The guy's (not the Lawn Slayer's) dog was peeing on the corner of my lawn. I go outside and say "your dog just peed on my lawn." He said "no she didn't." Now he lied to me and I felt my inner rage passed down from generation to generation on my father's side fire up. I said "yes she did, right there," and I pointed at the puddle.

In lieu of an apology he said, "Oh, it's just 2 or 3 drops." Admittedly, I lost my shit and my reasons were somewhat ridiculous. I didn't handle it well. My wife and I spent a lot of money to have the front of our house re-done so we weren't the eye-sore of the neighborhood and now I have brown spots because of dogs peeing and spilled oven cleaner. I would NEVER let my dog pee or defecate on someone's lawn. I think because my wife and I are young, people seem to think they can take advantage of us to their benefit.

Anyway, I was screaming and cursing and I brought up the other side of my lawn to the Lawn Slayer since he was right there. I really didn't want to yell at him because I like him. The guy who lied to my face really bugged me though. Neither of them apologized, unfortunately. I would've completely settled for an apology in either case.

And here is where it gets tricky. On Friday last week, I came home and he had replaced the section of dead grass with new fresh sod. I immediately stopped by his house and apologized for freaking out and thanking him for replacing it. I told him he didn't have to because my wife and I were going to replace that section with rocks. His wife said "yes he did, if that happened to his lawn you better believe he'd be just as pissed as you were."

Therefore, Lawn Slayer shall simultaneously be known and will no longer be known as Lawn Slayer. Thank you sir.

My Biggest Gripe With Brooklyn

Trying to sleep in my house sucks ass. Last night, my wife and I had gone to bed early at about 11pm. I rubbed her back until she passed out; it took the usual 90 seconds. It was about 86 degrees Fahrenheit in our bedroom and the A/C was doing it's best to ease it downwards. It was hot, so naturally I was tossing and turning.

I had just about fallen asleep when the phone rang. My wife picked up the phone and told her Mom that she was in bed. We both tried going back to bed.

Earlier that night we had brought my dog to her puppy playground and she had a ton of fun playing with the other dogs. Usually afterwards, when she sleeps, you can tell she's dreaming about running around because her feet twitch in a running pattern. Sometimes she grunts like she is barking. It's really cute. Aaaaaaaanyway, I forgot to let the dog out to pee before we went to bed. She must've been dreaming she was at the park and could squat and pee wherever she wanted and she WET HER BED. My dog wet her bed.

I only knew this because she had gotten up and was twisted in the corner trying to lick pee off her back leg. She was making a lot of noise while she was doing it. I even think I heard her grunt when she woke up. I was confused and it was dark so I checked her bed and stuck my hand in her pee accidentally to confirm. Poor thing, even though I know she didn't give a shit, she legitimately seemed embarassed. At 1 year 4 months, she never has accidents in the house; this one was definitely my fault.

I took the cover off her bed and threw it in the washing machine and went downstairs to get her living room bed. How could the night get any worse?

My neighbor was in his backyard blasting 90's music and working on his car. I think he's mad at me for yelling at him for killing half of my brand new lawn. I hate living so damn close to spiteful neighbors. The A/C was on high and it drowned out his karaoke rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer".

Incidentally, last night is not atypical. I have neighbors across the street who party and BBQ on their porch until about 3am EVERY NIGHT. They're between middle aged and retired/old. They've calmed down a lot recently so the A/C easily drowns them out now.

As I've previously mentioned we used to have a lot of people who came to have sex in front of our house in their car. The slamming doors and loud music all stopped after the Lawn Slayer's wife called the police.

Our neighborhood is all separate houses but the properties are about 20 feet wide so we are literally right on top of our neighbors. This means that there is NO SLEEPING PAST 9AM ON WEEKENDS. Lawn Slayer used to have very loud conversations under my window every Saturday morning right after he took tender care of his lawn. Monday's post will be all about the hypocrisy that is Lawn Slayer, the fatal blow he dealt to my lawn, and my explosive response.

Oh yeah, forget sleeping past 9am on any other day of the week because there is never-ending construction on a new house across the street from my house. There's also a church around the corner so we always get a TON of parents and kids walking down the block really early in the morning. We all know how respectful and polite children are; especially in play mode.

Not to mention the slightest noise (including leaves blowing down the street and someone talking on their cellphone three blocks over) will rouse the dog and she will bark incessantly. She always seems happiest just after the alarm clock goes off. As a person who could easily put in 14 hours a night if it wasn't for work, doesn't it figure that I should get a morning dog?

Sorry for the "grinds my gears" type post.

I Stole My Own Identity

I'm leaving my job and as such, I now need to buy MetroCards and pay for my own cell phone. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't appreciate the benefits of Chase's vigilant surveillance of my credit card purchases. It's just that it's a bit strange to have your own "private" activities described as suspicious activity. I wonder if new shoes, a MetroCard, and a cell phone are the typical first purchases made on a freshly stolen credit card. I suppose with yesterday's defecation on the constitution we should expect a lot more big brother bullshit like this. Anyway, that's what I bought and Chase shut down my card.

After I bought them I went down to the subway station to buy a MetroCard for next week and I got some cryptic "This is unavailable right now" error message. I moved on mentally but the next task was to deposit a check I got back from my insurance company. So I brought the 100$ check to Chase and while waiting on a huge line, one of the employees said "why don't you try the new ATM scanner?" He was very helpful and actually brought me to the machine and tried to help me use it. That damn message came up again. We went to his desk and he called the fraud line and we straightened it out. They said they tried to call my house line but I didn't get a voicemail there. They also didn't call my old cell phone which still works and they definitely have the number to since I'm signed up for fraud alerts with it. Weird.

BTW, Chase's ATM check scanner works fantastically. It even gives you a receipt with the check printed on it. Go go gadget SCIENCE!

BBTW, Zappos.com service kicks all sorts of ass for buying shoes online. I highly recommend them.

BBBTW, I got an LG enV². I like to text message and it was cheap with my employee discount.

BBBBTW, adding B's to BTW is the new PPS.

BBBBBTW, I also have no friends.

Sleazy, Internet Badass

My auto post flew around the internet last week. I've compiled some of the best comments about me from reddit for you guys to read below. Check out what they're saying about me:

Thistleknot: "Best and most informative blog i've ever read"
mandysteve: "... a great philosopher..."
funkyheff: "...The guy who wrote this is lucky..."
oakleez: "this was a much better article..."
wrenchhands: "I agree with the sentiment... rebel/crusader ..."
[deleted]: "...he's an internet badass."

And thank you snozzberries for submitting almost everything I write to reddit. I owe you a Schlitz.

An Eventful 4th Weekend

We started out the Fourth of July weekend on a high note. I had a story that hit the front page of reddit, I accepted a job offer with a 20% raise, and we put a deposit on an adorable Siberian Husky puppy who is too young to leave his mother. But then, our good mood went away fast. My sister-in-law's boyfriend of three years went berzerk and dumped her.

Now, I know what you may be thinking, "so what, breakups happen all the time." Normally, I'd agree but July 5th was her birthday. While I also agree that birthdays shouldn't be that important after 11, it's tough to watch someone you care about crying on their "special day." He was the type of guy who avoids all conflict and runs from any type of stress that may make him uncomfortable (including work). So naturally, he just decided that he could stop calling his girlfriend of three years and she would just disappear like everything else in his life. Literally, the day before they were planning on all the fun they were going to have over the weekend and he was thanking her profusely for standing by him during a hard rough period.

I don't want to get (too far) in the middle of it but he didn't even have the balls to say it to her face. Even though he was a wimpy milquetoast, we gave him the benefit of the doubt and figured he was an adult when it came to his relationship. FAIL. After his showing last week, I lost all respect for him.

Like I said, this may be something most people could just brush off but it's just that everything bad seems to happen on her birthday/the 4th; including the death of a beloved pet and a serious tonsil infection requiring surgery. Despite this, she took the news way better than any of us did. We're all shocked. What a coward.

Sorry for rambling, I'm pissed.

Non-advice for Auto Makers in Crisis

Dear Auto Makers in Crisis,

Things are changing.. rapidly. The SUV is dying. Your sales are down. It's time to swallow your pride and get a hold of yourselves. If you didn't see this coming, fire your yes-men. Sit down with a web browser, drink some strong coffee, and get a hard dose of reality.

Gas is over 4$ a gallon and it will never come down. We the consumers have begrudgingly accepted this because, like everything else, we have no choice but to bend over and take it. You are already seeing the backlash and it won't get any better. Stop pretending that 31 miles per gallon is something to be proud of or hard to attain. And stop insulting us with bullshit gas subsidies. Your incentive options stink.

You are now paying for holding yourself back from innovation. We're not going to buy a new car when the cost to fill the tank exceeds the monthly finance payment. Sorry.

Here is my non-advice. Offer cheap electric cars.. now. Not 5 years from now. The market is here now. The technology has been around for a while. Yeah I know, batteries suck right now. Figure it out because we need your cars and you need our money. Oh, a shortage you say? Make more or use something else. It's your cars customers are interested in buying, not your excuses. Other manufacturers are picking up where you are failing. (Yes, GM, you're almost there, but the internet will never forget what you did to the EV1.) Necessity is the mother of innovation, right?

If you are intent on staying in the dark ages, you will fail and the consumers will collectively chortle. Your competitors know this and are already cashing in. Do you really want to be laughed at?

Look, this whole illusion of freedom thing works better when we have lots of choices and plumes of your smoke billowing from our rectums. Sure, it's taken us over a century but your lie has finally been figured out and now it has become unprofitable. Please feed us a new lie with new choices tomorrow, not next decade. We're not going to buy your crappy cars unless we're all good and fooled up.

Signed,
Average Nobody With Money

P.S. Sorry for the overly-abused picture from last decade at the top of this rant. We get it, gas prices are high.