Work can be irritating; and the people...

Our copier has been jamming a lot (and not in the fun, reggae way, either) lately.  This causes two major problems for me.  One, I copy thousands of pages of phone bills every month, and the jams make the entire process longer and more ridiculous than it needs to be.  Two, the copier is right behind my desk, so if it jams for anyone else, there end up being people milling around behind me, checking out what's on my desk (which is often confidential) as they whine and try to fix the copier.  Then I get pressed into service as Junior Copier Repair Gal.

The copier service tech comes in twice a week to 'make sure the machine is operating optimally'.  Yeah, that's a massive fail.  So, I spend lots of time describing to this guy what has gone wrong with the machine since I last saw him, and learning how to fix it.

Today, when the repair guy stopped by, he told me he discussed some of our copier woes with another technician.  The response he got was "The copier isn't at it's best when it copies anything other than 8 1/2" by 11".  Tell her to stop copying so many off-sized pages."

Yeah, umm, why don't I just call the phone company and tell them they have to change their paper size because my copier doesn't like their little papers. I'll get right on that.

In non-work news

The date has been set for my winter vacation/cruise/sister-in-law's mom's re-marriage. (She now has one up on my biological mother, this being her family-record fourth husband.  Fifth, if you count that she divorced and then re-married the same guy once.)  We're going the week after my niece's third birthday; coincidentally, this is the same day as her cousin's (mom's sister's son's) fourth birthday. 

Yeah, their whole side of the family is screwed for valentine's day.

So, I'm relieved and excited about this, because for the last few days it has seemed likely that my participation would be nixed.  The previous tentative date was during a much more expensive travel window.  I am sad to admit that, costs for the trip being higher than expected, I will be sharing a cabin with my Mom (as some of you may remember, the last time I went on a cruise with her we didn't speak for a day and a half of it).  This seems like an incredibly bad idea, but then not going at all seems like a far worse one.  I really need a vacation.

Also, I started reading a very light book about the 101 most influential "People Who Never Lived".  Buffy made the list, as did characters from mythology, literature, folk tales, children's stories, and theatre among other catagories.  Go team Buffy!  I haven't gotten to that entry yet, but if it's worth it I will brief you all on the contents.  Evidently the phrase 'People Who Never Lived' is used to indicate that while some are fictional, others are aggrandized legends based on historical figures, and therefore they are not entirely fictional, despite the fact that the widely known stories about them that influence our lives aren't themselves true.  King Arthur, for example. *ducks the virtual rotten tomatoes some people just threw at me*

Even my cat is not on this much crack...