Ninety-Fourth Entry

Today I had a thought of how funny it would be if someone referred to Amy Grant's music as foreign or alien. I thought of this while passing the intersection of Mooney and Prosperity (SB, of course) and instantly laughed out loud for at least a minute. Then I remembered that my window was open and thought it best to stop.

That was not the first time I had a hilariously funny thought whilst driving to and fro places and laughed out loud. In fact, it has been happening a lot recently. I had several yesterday. I wonder if it is a sign that I am exiting my "Winter funk". It must be.

Work is really looking up. I am super busy and on Thursday I was told that I get to play contract manager for a Caltrans project. I was really surprised because usually they want someone with a little more expertise in the "contract arts". Supposedly this is a good project to get acquainted with the ways of contract management. I am truly excited. Also, things are moving along very well with my preliminary engineering efforts for the overlays for next year. Things are looking up and a promotion in August to Engineer II is looking a lot more possible than it did a month ago.

I must say that I never thought that being so busy at work and having stuff pile everywhere would be so fulfilling. But after 2+ months of just fuckin around at work with nothing to do, you learn to enjoy hard work.

Something extremely odd happened at work on Thursday. I had to call Mindy(names changed to protect the idiot) at Caltrans. Mindy sounded like the type of woman you would just enjoy having a drink with after work. Very down to earth. Well, the conversation went a little like this...

Me: Hi, I was told by a co-worker that you are the contact at Caltrans for requests for as-builts.
Mindy: Yes, thats me!
Me: Excellent. I just have a few questions for you before I fax the request.
Mindy: Sure.
Me: How much does it cost to request the as-builts?
Mindy: We charge 25 cents a copy, but if there are less than 10, I will just do it for free.
Me: Well, I'm afraid I have quite a few more than 10.
Mindy: Well, if you want, you could send me the paper you want me to print it on.
Me: Excuse me?
Mindy: Yeah, just send me a ream of 11x17 paper and we'll call it even. If its OK with your boss...
Me: (Confused)Ummm...
Mindy: Well, we used to do it for free but I have a Paper Nazi here in the office.
Me: What??
Mindy: Yeah! There's a Paper Nazi that comes around and steals all the extra paper he can find! He is such a fuckin jackass!
Me:
Mindy: He comes around with his little metal push cart and takes all the extra paper! My boss even says that I should use the back side of old paper. I don't want to send that out to the public! They wouldn't know which side is theirs!!
Me: No, no of cour...
Mindy: These fuckin jackasses are so stingy with the paper.
Me: There are two of them?
Mindy: Yeah! They run around the office getting the paper!
Me: Bu...
Mindy: They don't care what we send out to the public!
Me: Hmm...I will have to talk to my boss and see if its alright to send you a whole ream of paper.
Mindy: Alright, let me know.
Me: Ok.
Mindy: Bye.

She had me rollin from the minute she said Paper Nazi and even more rollin when she started cussing. It was hilarious!!

So, I sent her the paper and the request. But I sent it with Khamsing. He is the other Engineer I, and lives in Fresno. He just took off a bit early on Friday to drop it off.

I swear, that call was the funniest thing that has ever happened to me at work.

(Dripping with no sarcasm!)And the fun starts again on Monday!