The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)

[Doktor Howl]

Today at lunch:

Waitress:  "You guys come in here every day, and you speak English, but I don't understand any of it.  Like those blowlide things."

Fatima:  "Bolides."

Waitress:  "What are they?"

Fatima:  "If you do them right, they end world hunger."

And THAT, Ladies & Gentlemen, is why we call Fatima "The Chairman of the Board."

[Doktor Howl]

So, there's the soul-less pizza party in the breakroom, and then there's the mandatory soul-less pizza party in the windowless breakroom.  With mandatory party hats.

I am not morally responsible for this. Fatima issued threats.

[Doktor Howl]

Today at work:

Me:  "We hired a new engineer, Fatima.  He starts today, I need you to show him the ropes."

Fatima:  "Which ropes?  The ones in the..."

Me:  "No, the figurative ropes.  It's worth mentioning that he is a fetus.  I kept wanting to ask him if his parents signed the permission slip for the interview."

Fatima:  "Perhaps it is not that he is so young, but that you are old and feeble."

Me:  "I'll have you know I beat Samuel Beckett in a fight."

Fatima: *squints*  "Was it a fair fight?"

Me:  "Yes, I had a baseball bat and he had emphysema.  Anyway, here he comes."

Fatima:  "Good lord, he is an INFANT."

Me:  "He's a year younger than you."

Fatima:  "I was never young."

Scott:  "Hey, what's up?"

Me:  "Hey, Scott, this is Fatima.  She's going to be your mentor."

Scott:  "Hello, Fatima."

Fatima:  *scowls*

Me:  "Well, you seem to be getting along fine, I'm just gonna go to that meeting I just realized I needed to hold."

Scott:  "Um...What?"

Fatima:  "We're going to do great things."

[Doktor Howl]

Today at work:

Scott:  "So it turns out the slide needs another 100 or so foot-pounds to operate properly, but..."

Fatima:  *slaps Scott up the back of his head*  "Use proper units, nerd.  Are you a savage?"

Me:  "Whoa, Fatima.  We have to talk about this.  You can't be hitting other employees."

Fatima:  *glares*

Scott:  "Um, I'm not complaining."

*Scott's eyes flick over to Fatima with The Look*

Oh, my.  Scott seems to have the world's worst case of Autassassinophilia.  This should be interesting going forward.

[Doktor Howl]

Today at work

Me:  "Don't get pissed off at me, and I know you can take care of yourself, but I am required to ask you whether or not Scott following you around like a puppy dog is making you uncomfortable."

Fatima:  "It is not."

Me:  "You're sure."

Fatima:  "I have tentatively decided to not kill him."

Me:  "Wow.  You two are crushing hard."

Fatima:  "Crush?  Crush?  If you want me to show you a crush, come to the machine shop's press and I WILL SHOW YOU CRUSH!"

Me: "No, that will not be necessary.  On another subject, how is the project going?"

Fatima:  "Slow.  I need to do a live test."

Me:  "And just where would we do that without starting a war?  I mean, this thing is hard to miss."

Fatima:  *scowls* "details.  I need some explodey data."

Me:  "That's not even a word."

Fatima:  "It is the best word."

[Doktor Howl]

Hamish:  *does desk haka*

Scott:  "WTF?"

Fatima:  "He just got made a director and it seems to have driven him mad."

Hamish:  "MAD WITH POWER!"

Hamish:  *sticks tongue out, grimaces, roars*

Fatima:  "It's so sad when their aging minds give out."

Hamish:  "Be nice.  I know what you two have been up to in the altitude chamber."

Fatima:  "I will end you and they will never find the body."

Hamish:  "I gotta say, that is the laziest mile high club I've ever heard of."

Fatima:  *starts rage face*

Scott:  "You should run, boss."

Hamish:  *grimaces some more, makes chopping motions with his hands.*

[Doktor Howl]

Board member:  "Can you explain the video clip we just watched?"

Hamish:  "Yes.  That's two of my engineers fucking in the altitude chamber.  I would think that was obvious."

Board member:  "I can see that.  What are you going to do about it?"

Hamish:  "Get the janitor have him clean up, and give him a nice bonus."

Board member:  "No, what are you going to do with those engineers?"

Hamish:  "Nothing.  I'm a married man."

Board member:  "Don't play stupid with me."

Hamish:  "I never play."

Other board member: "WHY. ARE. THEY. STILL. WORKING. HERE?"

Hamish:  "Because normal people won't work here.  We make war crimes.  These kids are instrumental in said war crimes, and all they ask is for the use of the chamber once in a while."

Both board members:  "..."

Hamish:  "I also believe that we're looking at unrealized assets, here.  People would line up to pay to fuck in an altitude chamber."

Board member:  *turns red.  Hamish's job security is looking dicey*

Hamish:  "I mean, we only use that thing for like 3 hours a month, and that depreciation isn't getting any cheaper."

Other board member:  "Just get out.  Go back to work.  Or whatever you do when we're not here."

Board member:  "What DO you do here?"

Hamish:  "I find weasels who rat their buddies out to the front office, and then I come up with the hundred and *fifth* use for ballistic gel.  Look, this is really simple.  You allow minor perversions, and these kids will make really, really big perversions for you.  I mean, next to what we produce, what is a little hanky panky at 2500 meters?"

Other board member:  "Which part is giving you trouble?  The get part or the out part?"

Well, back to work.

[Doktor Howl]

Things I said at work today:

"Well, I don't know why you would need the keys to the wind tunnel, Fatima, but I'm sure you have a good reason.  Here you go."

"No, I don't know why the camera for the wind tunnel went down.  Might be related to the altitude chamber camera problem."

"I'll wait til I get home to take a shit."  *Gets on I10*  *parks*  *nothing moves*  UNNNNNNNNNG

[Doktor Howl]

So Fatima and Scott will be out for a little while, because somehow they thought the vibe table would be a fun place to knock boots.

They are expected to make complete recoveries.

[Doktor Howl]

So.  The board of the company I work for has entered terminal decision paralysis, the company officers are morons who think that eroding our capabilities is a good way to deal with lowered profits (ie, lay off your skilled labor so they run to the competition) instead of leaning into it and accepting some short term losses today to own the market tomorrow.  Our CPO actually said, with a straight face, "we must leverage our synergies" to improve purchasing BY MAKING THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ENTITY RUN *ALL* RAW MATERIAL PURCHASES THROUGH THE HOME OFFICE.  I found myself desperately trying to choke my computer out, because you apparently can't strangle anyone through the internet (note:  save this idea for the next round of proposals).

I work for bad people.  Not bad because we build the eschaton for a living, but because they are stupid, and decide - among other things - that randomly firing a skilled technician for a minor "infraction" that saved the company $15K is a good way to make everyone work harder.  And it has.  We're all working very hard on updating our resumes.

And then things got weird.  5 weird things, all today:

Scott and Fatima are back, only now they have wedding rings.  They got married the same day they were moved out of the ICU, apparently.  That is so Tucson, I don't even know where to start.

Billy tried to hire ME.  This is clearly out of the natural order.  And he's a monster.  I know this because I *built* that monster.  And I don't work for monsters, though I will often work for terminally stupid people.

One of the board members, all of whom are ancient & evil British people, pulled an Elvis and died on the toilet.  He had told his secretary that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed while he was in his office, so nobody was there to help him.  UNLIKE Elvis, through, he was wearing some kind of outfit that caused our stupid leadership to put out a global email saying that nobody should talk about it, because it didn't happen that way, you can't prove it did, so stop saying that.

There is now a 107th use for ballistic gel.

and

On the road home, I passed 3 multiple car pileups (and when I say I passed, I mean I slowly crawled forward in Baltimore traffic that somehow wound up here), 6 people on the side of the road with flat tires, and one cop jabbering into his cell phone wedge his car under the ass-end off a semi.

Everything is falling apart.  The center cannot hold. 

THE FUCKING WORLD IS COMING TO AN END, AND I AM STUCK IN TUCSON.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Scott and Fatima are back, only now they have wedding rings.  They got married the same day they were moved out of the ICU, apparently.  That is so Tucson, I don't even know where to start.

They were in the ICU?  I am morbidly curious as to how they had the shaker table programmed, and the type of injuries incurred, but... some things are better left unknown.

Our CPO actually said, with a straight face, "we must leverage our synergies" to improve purchasing BY MAKING THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ENTITY RUN *ALL* RAW MATERIAL PURCHASES THROUGH THE HOME OFFICE.  I found myself desperately trying to choke my computer out, because you apparently can't strangle anyone through the internet (note:  save this idea for the next round of proposals).

Our management has a fetish for something called a "single source of truth."

"Single source of truth" and "single point of failure" are strictly synonyms.

[Doktor Howl]

Scott and Fatima are back, only now they have wedding rings.  They got married the same day they were moved out of the ICU, apparently.  That is so Tucson, I don't even know where to start.

They were in the ICU?  I am morbidly curious as to how they had the shaker table programmed, and the type of injuries incurred, but... some things are better left unknown.

Our CPO actually said, with a straight face, "we must leverage our synergies" to improve purchasing BY MAKING THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ENTITY RUN *ALL* RAW MATERIAL PURCHASES THROUGH THE HOME OFFICE.  I found myself desperately trying to choke my computer out, because you apparently can't strangle anyone through the internet (note:  save this idea for the next round of proposals).

Our management has a fetish for something called a "single source of truth."

"Single source of truth" and "single point of failure" are strictly synonyms.

How about "root cause of failure."

This usually boils down to "People demanding that there is a single source of Truth."

[Doktor Howl]

(Conversation with Pango this evening)

You sound like the wimps on our board of directors.
"NO, YOU CAN'T DROP TUNGSTEN RODS ON NEVADA AS A TEST."
"YOU LET THOSE TWO PERVERTS FUCK IN THE MASS CENTERFUGE? THEY JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL!"
"WHY IS THAT ON FIRE?"
They called me *mad*, Pango. I'll show them. I'll show them *all*.

[Doktor Howl]

Imagine my company as the Titanic.  You keep hearing groaning noises as the hull torques from the water in the front end.  Senior leadership is blowing holes in the side of the ship below the waterline to let the water out.
 
But I'm still getting a paycheck and the band is pretty good.

[Doktor Howl]

So, moving into the new job, I needed a piss test AND a hair test.  The hair on my head is 1/2" long, and they need an inch and a half.  Those who have known me from PD know where I have hair that long.

I'd like to apologize to the entire field of nursing.