Such lovely weather for early March
Apr. 25th, 2014 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqToday is a lovely January morning - if it was January, and I was waking up to this in Victoria. Yesterday's rain turned to snow late in the day and we awoke to fresh accumulations this morning. Snow is not unheard of this late in the season - heck, it snowed on us up at Riding Mountain park on Canada Day a few years ago. It's just ... fuck.
I am getting rotated onto Primary support this week, starting tonight. I chatted briefly with the guy who is coming off his stint on primary (though we are going to meet for longer this morning so that he can fill me in on more detail) but so far he says it is much better than it was. For the most part it just involves getting up at 4:45 to babysit a couple of systems, and then handle emails and phone calls from clueless idiots.
The last time I was on primary support we had all kinds of system meltdowns, and people screaming at me for things I was not qualified to handle. It was fun in a way that is absolutely not fun at all. It was the kind of experience that I will look back on later, laugh nervously and change the subject.
Speaking of work, somebody left a bunch of these in the cafeteria on Tuesday.
I am not normally a fan of flavoured coffees, but I am a sucker for free stuff. I grabbed one of them and made it later in the afternoon. It was ok - as flavoured coffees go. I appreciate them a lot more when the coffee is meant to be flavoured, and I am not just inheriting some left over flavour oils from whoever made a coffee before me.
Many years back, when I was still working in our yard office, I used to take my coffee maker and grinder in to work on the night shift so that we could have good coffee. This worked well for weeks, until I wandered into the break room just in time to catch some yutz running a batch of Almond Shitbark - or whatever his flavoured coffee was called - through the grinder. I was so pissed at him I came darned near close to breaking all of his fingers. I didn't break any of them, but breaking fingers is like eating potato chips; hard to stop once you get started.
I took apart the grinder and cleaned all of the parts that I could, but the oils from his coffee coated everything, and it was weeks before we finally couldn't taste hints of shitbark in our coffee. He couldn't understand why everyone on night shift was pissed at him, even when I explained it. "Have you never wondered why coffee shops always have a separate grinder for their flavoured coffees?"
It was an honest mistake, and it showed just how little of those raunchy flavoured oils it takes to ruin a pot of otherwise good brew.
This was the same guy who would use a single scoop of coffee to make a pot that usually needed three scoops. He would make it stronger if it was flavoured, but if it was regular coffee then he would complain if it was any darker than burnt umber when you held it up to the light. His typical modus operandi was to pour half a cup, complain about how strong it was, and then top up the rest of the way with hot water. It occurred me much later that he probably didn't like coffee, and he preferred the flavours because they masked the taste. I wish I could project my brain back to my past self, so that I could stand there sipping my coffee while he complained about how strong it was, and added enough water to make it, well, water. "Tell us the truth, D. You don't really like coffee, do you?"
I am getting rotated onto Primary support this week, starting tonight. I chatted briefly with the guy who is coming off his stint on primary (though we are going to meet for longer this morning so that he can fill me in on more detail) but so far he says it is much better than it was. For the most part it just involves getting up at 4:45 to babysit a couple of systems, and then handle emails and phone calls from clueless idiots.
The last time I was on primary support we had all kinds of system meltdowns, and people screaming at me for things I was not qualified to handle. It was fun in a way that is absolutely not fun at all. It was the kind of experience that I will look back on later, laugh nervously and change the subject.
Speaking of work, somebody left a bunch of these in the cafeteria on Tuesday.
I am not normally a fan of flavoured coffees, but I am a sucker for free stuff. I grabbed one of them and made it later in the afternoon. It was ok - as flavoured coffees go. I appreciate them a lot more when the coffee is meant to be flavoured, and I am not just inheriting some left over flavour oils from whoever made a coffee before me.
Many years back, when I was still working in our yard office, I used to take my coffee maker and grinder in to work on the night shift so that we could have good coffee. This worked well for weeks, until I wandered into the break room just in time to catch some yutz running a batch of Almond Shitbark - or whatever his flavoured coffee was called - through the grinder. I was so pissed at him I came darned near close to breaking all of his fingers. I didn't break any of them, but breaking fingers is like eating potato chips; hard to stop once you get started.
I took apart the grinder and cleaned all of the parts that I could, but the oils from his coffee coated everything, and it was weeks before we finally couldn't taste hints of shitbark in our coffee. He couldn't understand why everyone on night shift was pissed at him, even when I explained it. "Have you never wondered why coffee shops always have a separate grinder for their flavoured coffees?"
It was an honest mistake, and it showed just how little of those raunchy flavoured oils it takes to ruin a pot of otherwise good brew.
This was the same guy who would use a single scoop of coffee to make a pot that usually needed three scoops. He would make it stronger if it was flavoured, but if it was regular coffee then he would complain if it was any darker than burnt umber when you held it up to the light. His typical modus operandi was to pour half a cup, complain about how strong it was, and then top up the rest of the way with hot water. It occurred me much later that he probably didn't like coffee, and he preferred the flavours because they masked the taste. I wish I could project my brain back to my past self, so that I could stand there sipping my coffee while he complained about how strong it was, and added enough water to make it, well, water. "Tell us the truth, D. You don't really like coffee, do you?"
