It has gotten to be somewhat late in the day. I am on the verge of not caring about the website, in part, because I feel not as good as I want/need to be feeling. Work was work, and today, of all days, we had a rash of people who called and complained about their site security and the nature of the help they receive when calling technical support whose stated purpose is and has been to ensure that they can a) connect to their e-mail and b) troubleshoot problems to the point of it being a server issue or a code issue and then in the former solving the problem and in the latter sending them on their merry way. I like sending them on their merry way; but sometimes, you just have to be yelled at for ten minutes before you get to say, “Goodbye,” and, “Good day.”
That is, pretty much, my job – except for when people come to me and tell me they want me to write something to which I have taken to ask, “Do I get to be off the phones?” If the answer is, “Yes,” then I do the writing. If the answer is, “No,” then I look at them and say something to the effect of, “I might get to it, but don’t hold your breath.”
I bring that up because, in the course of my day-to-day life at the DAY JOB I have been told, repeatedly, that people will introduce me to the real movers and shakers in the company, the owners and people who really make decisions; but, also in the course of my day, I discover that those are blank promises not (actually) meant to be followed through on and (actually) meant to placate me as other people (in my estimation) make power-plays. It is, at the same time, fun and exhausting to watch. However, in line with that, I introduced myself to the one person in the company I’ve been told I need to meet, pretty consistently, over and over again and he told me, once he understood who I was (because, apparently, my name does come up on occasion) that he had some work he wanted me to do.
As usual, everything is taken with a grain of salt; but in this case, I think that grain of salt might prove to be a bit more effective given who I was speaking with.
Truth told, I am only interested in doing my job. If that entails answering phones, that is all that I want to be doing. If it means writing things, then I don’t want to be answering phones. It’s not a give-and-take thing, give a little to take a little; rather, I want very specific things and expect that, in the long run, I will get them or they will accept that I will do the job (very well, if you need to know) and eventually move on.
Moving on is inevitable. The question, here, though is when I move on.
At the moment, the plan is to go on for an MFA in Writing, though we’ve also discussed other options. Since I have at least another year and a half of school, and possible dragged out in to two full years (depending on load and foreign language requirement (I have to take one, its just a matter of taking one and passing)). After that, though, we head in to the realm of graduate school and the working world.
I did some updates to a few of the sites. In Order to Write is about to change CMS systems. CMS stands for Content Management System. I’ve currently got Joomla 1.5 running there, and I like the look of it; but the feel of it, after trying to make it work for what I want it to work for, just doesn’t fit the bill.
What I am looking for is a system that will scale what we are trying to accomplish with the site. At the same time, I had Joomla 1.0.12 running on Wollstonecraft Publishing, The Adventures of Alicia Grey, Mary and Kierk, and The Clockwork Princess and have changed all of those to a different CMS – the one I intend to use on In Order to Write. You can look at that one here.
Wollstonecraft Publishing has a single static page there. I’ve written some description and will expand on it, and maybe add elements, in the future. Since I work with people who code HTML all day I’ve been getting a hankering to try my hand (one more time) at the code thing and see what I can do with a single splash page. Nothing fancy, just stuff.
Beyond that, not a lot to report on. We are sub-40 days to the wedding. Erin and I and two of her friends (a married couple) went to see the Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant this past weekend. I am going to sit under the adage, “If you can’t say nothin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all,” which is not entirely true as some people have heard me talk about the pageant and my thoughts/feelings about it. I may have something to announce in that vein later, but, as for now, until we go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant, I think Erin and I are pageanted out.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond