Below are the most recent 5 friends' journal entries.

Friday, December 18th, 2009
danjohnson	11:12p	Time to settle. I've been at my job a month now, and I've been seated at four different desks. I've also had to print a document four times and, by coincidence, each time was at a different computer, requiring four separate installations of a network printer, which, for reasons clear only to people that chose their college majors much more wisely than me, is a ridiculous ordeal at my new workplace. I seem to be settled, finally, at my current desk. Settled, at least, if my inscrutable inability to convince people to purchase credit and deposit products evaporates, soon. Otherwise, I'll return to being "settled" at the desk in my parents' basement where I'm sitting at the moment. It's comforting to note that the other new banker from my training class is trailing my record of two sales in about two weeks by a margin of two sales. Our supervisor told us that we should make an effort to reach out to the bankers around us for help, though she did this the same day that she moved both of our desks to a corner of the cubicle row largely sequestered from the other bankers. The other guy from my training class is, as mentioned earlier, a mumbly young man, so he's not the best of company between calls. I've noticed that, presumably to compensate for his low volume, he makes a wide variety of bizarre hand motions while he's talking, many of which don't mean what he seems to think they do. One wonders if perhaps he's from St. Cloud. He paused between calls today to remark that the woman to whom he had just spoken seemed to have a remarkable amount of money for someone who listed their occupation as "none." I suggested that perhaps she was married to a rich guy and didn't have to work. He responded by flailing the ruler he keeps at his desk above his head in a threatening manner and said, "No, not 'none'..." I realized quickly from the gesture what he meant, despite his failure to simply spell the word, "...occupation: nun!" St. Cloud, maybe. Catholic for sure. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
danjohnson	1:00a	If you want to impress your boss, you go in there, and you do mediocre work. Half-heartedly. I did the math today and realized that I've been averaging an intake of about 1200 calories on days that I work. Now, it's also assuredly worth noting that, aside from trudging up and down an icy hill between work and my car, the greatest physical exertion of my workday comes from the sticky space bar on my keyboard. It's further worth noting that no part of my job seems to require the space bar. Starting my workday at 12:30pm, even with a commute that, to be safe, begins at 11:30, makes for a weird day. There doesn't seem to be any real usable time between when I wake up and when I have to leave for work, but there doesn't seem to be any after work either. The reality, of course, is that there are few, if any productive things I would be doing after work that didn't involve me sitting at my computer like I am now, but the illusion of a difference is impressive. I've spent a few hours the past week or so working on my cookbook with various sitcoms NetFlixing in the background. I guess that's as productive as anything else I could be doing. I should probably go to sleep now, since I have only one day left to shift my sleep schedule from waking up between 10 and 11 every day and having to be up around 7:30am on Saturday. I'm not that impressed with this entry. Instead of commenting on it, tell me what I should make and bring to Kristina's Food Party on Tuesday. Keep in mind that I have a fair to adequate budget, but mad skills, and the whole day off of work. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
danjohnson	11:27a	Stopping for Donuts. Ian invited us to Haiku Jim's birthday party on Friday. I say "us" because it seems like Ian lobbed the invitation in the general direction of everyone I know, so I operated under the assumption that it extended to everyone with whom I would normally have been with at Mortimer's that night. The party turned out to be high on the list of the most fun things I've ever done in Robinsdale. I was chosen to be the driver for the night's excursion, owing no doubt to both the fact that my car both runs and holds four people, and the fact that I had some vague idea of where Robinsdale is. I picked up Noah, then Kristina, then Stevie. Those of you with some basic knowledge of geography might question that order, particularly given that my starting point Friday night was my job in South St. Paul. As it happens, Stevie was at work until 9, but Kristina prefers to be out of the house for the evening by 8pm, if at all. Both Kristina and Noah enjoy a car ride as much as a pair of Springer Spaniels, so, with the promise to Kristina that we could stop at the gas station for a doughnut, they accompanied me for the drive to Apple Valley. It turned out that Kristina wanted the option of a doughnut more than an actual doughnut, so my stop at the gas station was just to take out money and shake my fist at the "Out of Order" sign on the men's room door. We made it to Stevie's without incident and thankfully found the rest room there to be in working order. Haiku Jim has a lovely home. There's something about first ring suburbs that, as a child of the third ring and a young adult of the city proper, has always made me uneasy, but both home and hood seem very pleasant. The snowbanks along the sidewalk were lined with grainbelt bottles when we walked up, greatly allaying my fears about Noah getting the address correct. Having never attended one of H-Jim's b-days before, I hadn't realized that the celebration serves the same function in relation to Christmas that Jill's birthday always served to Thanksgiving. The house was filled with yuletide cheer in the form of decorations and all manner of subpar animation. That girl whose name I can never remember brought a cake garnished with airplane booze. It was delicious. The cake moreso than the ounce of Windsor, but I've never been one to look a gift bottle in the label. Around 1, Ian felt that the party was beginning to stale slightly following recent departures and announced that he was leading a trip to the VFW a few blocks away. Or, at least, he was leading a trip to my car which would then be directed to the VFW. It's good to have a car that seats six again, even if it takes a severe cold snap to make it a good idea. We arrived at the VFW to find the door locked. The woman inside told Ian that they closed at 1 and his haggling did nothing to change her mind. The VFW is, however, right next door to a place called The St. Petersburg Vodka Bar, no doubt the source of the persistent rumors of the Robinsdale VFW being a hangout for Russian organized crime. I saw no concrete evidence that any of the native Russian speakers present were criminals, organized or otherwise, but the language has a certain phonoaesthetic tone that makes its speakers seem like secretive ne'er-do-wells. It seems unfair, but the Germans and the Klingons undoubtedly have it worse. Ian laid down a generous tab for the brave few who ventured upstairs with him (despite yet another door sign listing closing time at 1am), and proceeded to fund a round of White Russians (being the only winter-appropriate drink we could think of that's vodka-based.) We left at last call, though few of the patrons that were present when we arrived appeared to do so. It seems as though, since the place was ostensibly closed when we arrived, "last call" was more or less their way of asking us to leave. We returned to Jim's, but it wasn't too much later that Kristina's interest in remaining awake began to wane, and both Stevie and Noah's ability to do so was draining away pretty rapidly as well. Stevie and I were up a bit before noon, and still managed to eat two meals before our 4pm dinner resveration at the Elk's Lodge in Brooklyn Park. We met my sister and grandma for a lutefisk and meatball buffet. We were seated at a table with an elderly couple and an aging queen from Minneapolis. They were, one and all, delightful company. Lutefisk, with apologies to my heritage, not far from what you've heard. The taste is actually pretty pleasant, but the texture is more than a little confusing, if not entirely offputting. It, like most foods, is improved with cream sauce and melted butter, though it seems to absorb the flavor of both salt and pepper at a rate that makes me seriously question the chemistry at work. The meatballs were delicious, and the meal came with a daunting tray of cookies at the end. Worth every penny, even if I'm not actually sure what The Elks are going to spend my money doing. I hope it's cookie-related. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, December 11th, 2009
danjohnson	2:38p	Sonic Economics Apparently they're letting meout of work early today. I say "letting," but the reality of the situation is that they're kicking me out at 7. Evidently "we have to maintain consistency and bankers only work 38 hours a week." I pointed out that I worked 40 last week, and was told that's "the norm for training." I felt it undiplomatic to point out that I was still training on Monday, that training was three weeks long, and that I only received one 40-hour check. I don't mind leaving early (though having to take my half-hour unpaid lunchbreak an hour from the end of my six hour day seems inconvenient.) My only actual objection is that it seems arbitrary. I have a lifelong crusade against underexplained rules. Now, however, is not the time. My luck hasn't been good enough to make any actual complaints about the source of a steady paycheck. I realized this week, one of the things that makes this job seem strange, is that, unlike any other call center where I've worked, there's no music. No radios at desks, no piped in KS95, no corporate satellite holiday elevator music (literally, not even on the elevator.) It's a little disconcerting by itself, but it's made moreso by my brain filling the silence with a loop of Pink Floyd's "Money" for eight hours a day. I wish I had a giant, unwieldy adding machine at my desk. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
danjohnson	11:30p	Let it tow, let it tow, let it tow. We lost at trivia again. The team of Redhead and Boring Guy seems to be an unstoppable trivia machine. Though, to be fair, we circled the wrong category as our bonus and lost by one point as a result, so it's possible that we're just off our game. Or else, since trivia is on payday, I've made peace with the idea that sometimes beer costs money. There were only three teams, owing no doubt to the awful weather. I parked directly in front of Luce, which, it turns out, is a snow emergency route. When that fact was pointed out to me, I suppose I could have moved my car, but since both Ian and the Nadeaus had parked on the street as well, we discussed the matter and decided that we'd sit by the window. Joe Mahon spent his night unbespectabled and periodically peaking over the artificial plant in the window sill to shout indignant admonitions to whatever passing vehicle looked vaguely like a tow-truck at any given moment. Ian briefly adjourned his trivia duties at one point in the second round to lead a charge out the door to find two tow trucks outside. It turned out that one was laden with unfortunate vehicles ruined by the icy grip of inertia and the other was driven by a guy who wanted pizza and didn't care about the snow emergency, so we went back inside. All in all, the nightlong game of Red Hands against municipal parking enforcement proved to be more exciting than trivia has been for some months. Also, the Tuna Caliente noodle salad is delicious. I was reminded today that, while I've worked in various phone sales jobs for a combined six or seven years, I am a bizarrely ineffective salesman. I already sold a credit card my first day, and I have a callback tomorrow that's almost certainly going to be another. That's better than a lot of people in my training class are doing, but it's worth noting that my learning curve is steeper than the average temp agency ne'er-do-well, so I might have reached my sub-par peak already. I have high hopes, but I'm not canceling my weekly CareerBuilder e-mail either. Tonight's NBC lineup went four for four toward yuletide cheer instead of snide cynicism. On behalf of everyone who's had a rough couple of weeks, I applaud them for it. (Comment on this)