Maybe I Don’t Have to Be an Office Drone Anymore

It looks as though the new job may go through. I’m still thinking about it, and will probably want to sleep on it once or twice, but unless I find some big problem with it between now and Wednesday, I might just be getting myself a job which isn’t drone-work. To which I say: YAY!

To celebrate, perhaps I shall write a chapter of Natural Life…

I’m Baaack

So yeah, it’s been a while since I updated this… sorry. Has to do with work getting a bit crazy and life doing the same. Details below, but if you want the short version, here it is: Life’s been crazy, but there is hope for better, and writing resumes tonight.

If you’re still reading, I make no excuses for the boringness or length of this post. You have been warned.

Bad stuff first: I had a flood in my apartment, due to very heavy rain and an air conditioner which has its intake on the ground. My living room carpet was completely soaked, and it was only through the offices of a kind neighbor that my car wasn’t also flooded (I park it in the lowest basement garage).

Also, one of my coworkers was fired for no apparent reason, and my boss played bait-and-switch with me by telling me at my performance review that it was fine to read after my work was done, then searching frantically for more work for me to do. I understand that she doesn’t want the department to look like it doesn’t need all the people, that’s how layoffs happen, but no one’s going to see me way back where I sit.

Ah well. Good thing: It may not matter soon, because a couple weeks ago I got a call from one of the departments here at Glass Bathroom Bank where I did my temp work way back in the spring of ’07. Apparently they remembered me as a good worker and a quick learner, and they’ve just had a massive reorg and need workers fast. For a salary significantly better than my current one. Would I be interested, they ask? Oh HECK yeah!

‘Nother good thing: I got to see Celtic Woman in concert again a few weeks ago (first time was March) and they were just as awesome as they were before. Plus, we had better seats so we could actually see their faces this time. I anxiously await the release of the “Isle of Hope” CD and DVD!

Yet ‘nother good thing: The flood gave me the needed impetus to clean up my apartment, which, as one of the friends with whom I went to the CW concert said, used to look as if a clutter bomb had hit. No more! It is now neat and clean, and awaiting the arrival of said friend next week, from whence we shall attend a local Medieval Faire!

Still ‘nother good thing: I shall be attending the Faire twice this summer. Once with that friend, and once with the other two I went to the CW concert in March with (one of them was also along for the June trip), and our little trio will also be attending Confluence here in Pittsburgh! Let’s see if I can’t go three for three in annoying Tamora Pierce at the Con!

‘Nother ‘nother good thing: Celtic Thunder concert this fall with aforementioned friends. Can’t wait!

One last good thing: Writing resumes tonight. Nuff said.

So, all in all, there’s more good in my life than there is bad. Thank you all for putting up with me, and keep your eyes open for whatever gets updated tonight!

Anne’s Works in Progress and Update Schedule

Since I’ve realized people can’t see inside my head (shocking, isn’t it?), I figured I’d post this.

Fan Fiction (Harry Potter):

Facing Danger: Once a month from now on, I swear! More if people sign up for TBC!

Be Careful:  As often as possible since it eats my brain.

All other fanfic stories: Are on back burner at moment but will be finished, truly they will!

Originals (TBC):

Natural Life: I’m thinking Mondays.

For the Record: Either Thursdays or Fridays, more likely the latter.

The Redstone Chronicles: Saturdays, twice a month, maybe.

Originals (other):

Can’t really say any of these are updated as such, but I’m working on a true original called Homecoming and a piece of insanity involving Terry Pratchett’s Discworld colliding with the Dangerverse called The Missing Lynx.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

If You Have To Use Your Big Sister Skills On Your Manager (You Might Be an Office Drone)

My manager is a very sweet lady. She is, however, a tad absent-minded at times.

Every month, our department has a meeting. This consists mostly of the supervisors and the manager reading last month’s stats off the handout in a monotone, the manager congratulating two or three people for various random things, and the manager haranguing us all for the naughty-naughty stuff we do.

Manager likes to have these meetings on a Thursday, near the end of the month. So yesterday morning, I send her an email, asking which of two possible dates she’d prefer. I know she checks her email constantly, and we see each other throughout that day (including her mooching pretzels off me, which I don’t really mind but wish she’d ask), but I get no answer.

So today, while dropping off her mail, I ask about it.

“Huh? Meeting? Oh yeah. What are those dates again?”

I understand she’s busy, I know she has a lot on her mind, but how long does it take to say “the 28th, not the 21st”?

While I’m at it, why is it that I give the supervisors two weeks to fill in their half of the handout for the meeting (I don’t have access to all the reports needed), but they always end up doing it on the afternoon of the day before, meaning I have to stay late to print out all the copies?

This has been the whine of the day. Thank you for listening. Office Drone out.

Thousand Book Challenge Update

Natural Life, The Redstone Chronicles, No Fairytale, and For the Record have all been started, and Be Careful is on its way. Interest seems fairly high for the first week of a new website, considering how big the Internet is and how many demands on people’s time there are.

This coming week: NL and RC will be updated, and the first chapter of For the Record which requires readers to pay will be posted. Also, Facing Danger is due an update, and I have hopes that the readers of that story will like finding out about my new venture.

Keep your fingers crossed, all! Or better yet, uncross them and surf on over to Thousand Book Challenge!

To My Anonymous Flamer(s)

A bit of background, first.

Four and a half years ago, I began to write the Harry Potter fan fiction universe called the Dangerverse. I thought it would be a very short and fluffy story, and was not yet an experienced writer, so I made some choices (a character who is quite Mary-Sue with a deus ex machina ability) that I would not make again.

Recently, I have been having a hard time updating the current story in the universe, Facing Danger. After a seven-month hiatus, I posted a chapter at the beginning of April with the following author’s note:

“Go on, die of shock. See if I care. Yes, I’m alive, no, I haven’t abandoned this, yes, it’s going to get finished, no, I don’t know when. Encouragement via reviews will probably help. No guarantees.”

This is, as my friends will tell you, an example of my so-called sense of humor.

The following is the full text of four reviews I recently received for this chapter:

——————-

From: ? ()
What’s up with the attitude? If you’re gonna give this up just go ahead and say it. No need to be such a ** about it.

——————-

From: A Disgruntled Reviewer ()

I agree with “?”

Anne B. Walsh, you are a b*tch.

Sounds like an attitude problem to me. coughB*TCHcough

Get off your high horse, will you?

If you’re not going to finish this story, just say so and stop giving us
false hope.

Die.

——————-

From: P.O-ed HP Addict ()

I would have reviewed your other stories before, but they’re already complete and I don’t think you would take any notice of reviews posted to those. Plus this is the first time I’ve been able to read all the way to the end of this…this…atrocity.

Anyway, let me now say what I’ve wanted to say since you began your
ridiculous Dangerverse.

YOU HAVE COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY MESSED UP J.K. ROWLING’S WORLD.

This story sucks, monumentally and colosally.

And your disgustingly Mary-Sue-like character, Danger. What kind of a name is DANGER? That’s just STUPID. Sure, it gives a lot of opportunities for puns, but STILL…

AND the thing with marrying Remus after two weeks. TWO F*CKING WEEKS. THAT IS COMPLTE AND UTTER BULLSH*T.

GO ROT IN HELL YOU STUPID *SS B*TCH!
——————-

From: P.O.-ed HP Addict ()

COWARD! You deleted my review!

Ugh…you’re such an effing sh*tbag, you know that? ‘Ooh, oh NO, this person doesn’t like my story BOOHOOSOB, I must DELETE the review!’

YOUR STORY SUCKS.

Get that through your head, Anne B. Walsh.

YOUR STORY SUCKS.

AND you’re a coward.

AWFUL AUTHOR AND A COWARD, RIGHT HERE!

——————-

To these people (or this person, if, as I suspect, you’re just posting under different handles):

Thank you for your input.

I deleted your reviews not from cowardice, but because you are using abusive language and contributing nothing to a discussion of my writing.

Further, if you have read the entirety of the Dangerverse as you claim, I think you’d have been able to find much better examples of my terrible writing than the sophomoric mistakes I made as a novice writer four and a half years ago.

I regret that it is not within my power to replace the time you must have wasted reading my atrocities of stories, but I wonder why, if they’re so atrocious, you kept going. You could just as easily have skipped to my current chapter and given me your opinion there. Perhaps you did.

In conclusion, O King of Thebes, I invite you to gain carnal knowledge of yourself via your main excretory orifice. Thank you and have a very nice day.

Anne Walsh

P.S. Flaming anonymously with no contact information provided gives you very little scope to call anyone else a coward.

Beef Fried Rice, Choir, and Perchance Some Writing

The topic pretty much says it all–what I have now, what I have later, and what I hope to have later than that.

Life’s been mostly good lately, apart from having to tear apart a four-thousand-line Excel spreadsheet for my boss. Glass Bathroom Bank (my employer) has recently purchased Federal Urban Bank, and my department needed details of the clients of our equivalent FUB department. Once we had those details, though, we had to break them down to see if we had any clients in common.

Guess what? We do. A whole lot of them. And sometimes, we have a client in common but GBB works with one office and FUB works with another. So “somebody” has to go through FUB’s client list, line by line, and check it against GBB’s card file.

I always wanted to be somebody.

The Thousand Book Challenge is Here!

Ladies and gentlemen, after far too many delays, for which I do apologize, the Thousand Book Challenge is finally a working website! Please visit us at www.thousandbookchallenge.com today!

Current offerings are my Natural Life (written with a great deal of help from a lot of wonderful people), my and James Jago’s The Redstone Chronicles, and James’ No Fairytale. Coming soon: For the Record, another of my solo efforts, and Be Careful, a collaboration between myself and Kit Benson.

For more information about the stories, please try the tab at the top of the page, or just go to the website and have a look! Hope to see you there!

My Toilet is Gargling

See, I live on the bottom floor of apartments in my building. Granted, it’s the third floor strictly speaking, and the lobby’s on the fifth floor… well, that’s Pittsburgh for you.

In any case, I’ve got five or six floors’ worth of plumbing above me. Air gets into the pipes. And where it comes out is here. Often with a noise like XXXL gargling, and a smell like an unchanged cat box.

That’s really about all that’s worth writing about at the moment. It’s been an amazingly boring week at work, and I’m going home this weekend so there’s no point in my going to choir practice tonight.

However, later tonight there may be news… stay tuned, that’s all I’ll say.

Big Shiny Thing In the Sky!

Oh, that’s right, it’s called the sun. It comes out sometimes when we’re not expecting it.

Which, around here, is always.

In any case. It’s the weekend, I have nothing urgent to do, the Pittsburgh Penguins are playing the Philadelphia Flyers today (if you don’t know what those are, good for you), and overall life is quite good.

As I believe I Twittered yesterday (makes me sound like a bird), my marvelous webmaster Josh is getting closer and closer to making PayPal behave with TBC, which means it might actually work at some point in the near future. Keep your fingers crossed, everybody!