Monday, October 3, 2022

New Boss

 

Here is a story from Friday: I was busy working when the chair sent a very odd email that said: "Are you free right now? What's your cell phone number?" I was very annoyed and responded, "Couldn't we meet on Teams?" To my surprise, she never responded or called on Teams, and I kept feeling annoyed, thinking how she wanted my personal cell phone number so she could reach me day or night. Then sometime later in the afternoon, the chair emailed the whole department to say someone had been impersonating her and making strange requests, but it wasn't her, and I looked at that first email again and realized it came from "interimchair@icloud.com" or something like that. It was probably that scam where they pretend to be someone higher up and then ask you to buy some gift cards right away and give them the numbers on them, but I thwarted them because the last thing scammers would want to do is meet over video chat. 

Today our new boss started, and he seems pretty cool. Good thing too, because the job my colleague told me to apply for rejected me. She and I were both surprised, since they had said I was an ideal candidate on paper, but I must have bombed my phone interview since I didn't even get a second interview with the team. Honestly, I didn't really want that job, and maybe they could tell over the phone. It might have paid more than my current job, and it was allegedly 100% remote, but I don't ever need to work for the medical school again. Longtime readers of this blog will remember how much I enjoyed my previous job there!

Anyway, how could I leave my current job? They make smiley faces on the bulletin boards!


This is the theorbo from the concert Saturday night. You can see how long it is. It's a bass lute and sounds as cool as it looks.


A weird thing did happen at work today. A grad student asked me what was going on with the coffeemaker, and I said nothing that I knew of. She showed me a note on it that said: "There is no more coffee. Go to a cafe." Since there clearly was more coffee, I had no idea what this passive-aggressive note was about, so I asked some coworkers and the chair if the coffeemaker was broken. The chair decided to make a pot of coffee, and it clearly worked, so who knows what the note was about? Weird. Then I went to the annual Benefits Fair, where the vendors always bring schwag, but the dental insurance people weren't there with their cute and very useful travel toothbrushes, and the vision insurance people weren't there with their sunglasses, so mostly I got pens and candy. I did see some people I know.

This evening I was supposed to lead Night Prayer, but Zoom wouldn't create the meeting for me - it just spun around and around. I texted Rich, and he sent me this helpful and slightly mystical text.


I mean, sometimes if Jupiter and beautiful well things happen to programs like Zoom, and the moon is in the Seventh House, and Mercury aligns with Mars, then no wonder it wasn't working. And Richard Bonomo says he doesn't believe in astrology! Seems like his iPhone does. Which reminds me, yesterday the priest started his homily talking about people who think there may be something to reincarnation, and that crystals just might have healing powers, and I feel so seen, but not in a good way. They had a Theology on Tap meeting some time ago for people in their twenties and thirties with the topic "Bad Popes," and just once I'd like to hear a priest come down as hard on people who don't think Francis is the legitimate pope as they do on people who believe in astrology. I mean, they always had zodiac wheels in Medieval churches, but if you don't think the Pope is the "real" pope, then you are not a "real" Catholic, by definition.


Famous Hat


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