high in the crackmonkey's tree

I just spent an hour saving my sequencing files to my hard drive, because my stupid Dell computer has a stupid wonky NIC card and our stupid IT department insists on having My Documents linked to a network drive. So my hour has looked like this:

::open email from sequencing service::
::check out the 120 data files attached to mail::
::faint::
::right-click on an attachement, select Save As::
::wait 2 minutes::
::select save-to destination::
::wait 2 more minutes::
::repeat process with another file::

Can I go home now? Really, I don't need this today.

Dude, sometimes I think having an IT helpdesk is fairly pointless at a large company like mine. They've installed various types of antivirus software, patches, security updates, ad nauseum. And I'm a fairly savvy user in terms of not doing stupid shit when I'm browsing website or reading mail. But not everyone else at the company is, and I have to truck files back and forth from the machines that run our equipment to my desktop.

Lately I've noticed that my desktop is getting a little buggy for no good reason -- yes it's old and has limited RAM but I baby it when I use memory-hog applications for work. I should not be having the problems I'm experiencing. After going through IT and getting nowhere, I decided to download my preferred free anti-virus and anti-adware applications and just do a little check of my system.

Ecccchhhh. The shit I found on my desktop, you wouldn't believe. I mean, you'd think I'd have been able to at least look at a little pr0n in order to get this much crap on my PC. Jayzus H Christmas.

*sigh* Work, the perma-wedgie in my undies.

The beta testing project, which is the sole focus of my work existence, is held up due to factors beyond my control. External tester #1 hasn't written me back giving me an update on his progress, even after several polite emails from me asking for them. Due to a number of foul-ups (some of which were within my control)external tester #2 just received their beta test materials. Internal tester #1 had another project crop up in the middle of the evaluation and had to put my stuff on hold. And today, Internal tester #2 told me she won't be able to start work on the evaluation for another week or two. *headdesk*

Also, while my research and feasibility presentation was well-attended, everyone looked like zombies (yay, i love working for this group). It's hard to work up any enthusiam for a neat idea when everyone looks like they could care less about anything except going home for the day. And my boss Pasty the Wonder Mormon was more concerned about taking the opportunity to denigrate our primer designer software than putting any thought into whether we could develop products for this field.

Some days this place really makes me cranky.

People are stupid. No really, I say this and you all roll your eyes and go "Gosh Sarah, tell us something we don't know." But every time I become accustomed to a certain level of idiocy, the people around me find new and creative ways of being dumbasses.

Next week we have to do training for our Technical Sales specialists. Normally Frenchie is in charge of organizing these fiascos events, but she will be in France next week and has to pass it off to someone else. Usually this would be Furry German (Christ!) but this time she's passed the baton to Pessimistic Scientist. This is the source of much new annoyance in my worklife. For a while I thought he was an all right guy but it seems he's taken up FG's mantle of pessimistic passive-aggressiveness. Yippee fucking skippy.

All the stupid people need to leave my company. That would make work a lot nicer. See how simple it is?

Three weeks ago, Upper Management suddenly decided to pay attention to our program. Upon paying attention, they decided that an Annoying Validation Study must be completed before they could give the green light to us for launch. All that is well and good, except the Annoying Validation Study needed to be started at the beginning of January for us to complete it in time for the March 1 projected launch date. We have all been scrambling like mad trying to get this stupid study finished in time, meaning my weekend and the President's day holiday will be spent at work.

I don't mind doing the work, but a little forethought would be helpful. Fuckers.

1. I have an assload of work to do, including making reagents for our affiliate out in Frederick, MD because our manufacturing facility can't seem to make a consistent product. I also have to do QC on manufacturing's raw materials to see if I can find the bad seed in the mix. While this isn't terribly time-consuming, it would be better handled by an internal QA/QC group. Which our management doesn't think we need.

2. Bioinformatics Guy said he asked for more data last week, which Frenchie was going to supply. I don't know what the status of this is, but something needs to move forward. BG was expressing doubt as to whether our product is going to meet launch data of 1 March 2005. Unacceptable!!

3. One full week into being my manager, and Furry German has yet to speak to me. Yesterday in lab, I broke the ice by telling him where to look for his lab coat. Ooooh, what a big step that was! He even look startled that I addressed him. Moron. My friend A told me to forward my resume to her, she has friends who are hiring. I'll be sending that out asap.

4. My neck hurts, so I made an appointment with Wonder Chiropractor at 5pm. This means I need to accomplish the bulk of my tasks before 4 pm, when I must leave. This means I need to get my arse off LJ.

5. Oy vey.

Note to the Weenies in Marketing: when you brew coffee, could you please make one carafe that isn't some weird foofoo flavor? 'Cause, although you seem to enjoy the syrupy nauseatingly sweet French vanilla and the mysterious vaguely nut flavor of the chemicals they douse the "Hazelnut" coffee in, some of us just want coffee. Just good old hot black coffee.

People, I had to set up a big experiment this morning before my back-to-back Friday meetings. I haven't had sufficient time to properly titrate the level of caffeine in my bloodstream. And to discover this horrible surprise when I stopped at the kitchen is too much for me to bear.

All I wanted was a coffee, just one coffee, and they wouldn't give it to me! This is too much to take! Back off, don't push me man! I said don't push me! DON'T PUSH ME!

Whever I have to speak with Program Managers, marketing people, or anyone else who converses in Businesspeak I understand why non-scientists get glassy-eyed when I talk about research. WTF are they talking about? Or, when they're speaking in terms I understand it seems as if everything is pretty common sense. "All team members need to communicate needs and expectations clearly and effectively to be most productive." Really? Maybe Corporate HQ should just send us all to therapy; we'd learn the same thing and get more use out of the lesson.

Thankfully, I get a reprieve this afternoon. Unfortunately, I have this much work to accomplish. (*Note excellent time management exhibited by posting on lj*) Ack.

********

Apparently, my brother-in-law called Sunday evening while I was at rehearsal. He said he called "just to say hi." Not bloody likely. Mom calls every 6-8 weeks to say hi; my cousin Melissa calls every other Friday to chat; but no one else in my family EVER calls just to say hi. I feel like I should return his call but I just don't want to know what's on his mind.

No more procrastinating. Too much work.

It's insanely busy. I've started the process of evaluating a bunch of test primer sequences; Frenchie wants to see how they behave when they're labeled with different fluorescent dyes. So I have 48 primers, each of which is labeled with 4 dyes. That's 192 primers that need standard curves with each standard curve performed on 7 log dilutions of template plus No Template Controls in triplicate. Given that I can run 16 standard curves per 384 well plate, this means I will need to run 12 full 384 well plates to complete the experiment.

The first is running. The second will run this afternoon. Maybe I can squeeze in a third, but I think I'm supposed to be in a meeting from 3:30-4:30. (Whoopie.)

This will take a long time.

One of the tiny perks of working at this behemoth used to be monthly team lunches. We'd all go out, have a nice lunch on the company and get a chance to relax and be social. We didn't have to go to a really nice place, though sometimes we did. It was the act of going to a meal with the whole team that was what I looked forward to.

No more. Now our team gets pizza for lunch on the last Friday of the month. Cheap bastards.