Reduce, reuse, recycle

There's been a great deal of chatter on the knitting group about "reclaiming" sweaters. In other words, go to Goodwill, find sweaters that are damaged and not really wearable as is, easily(ish) deconstructed, and made of decent yarn, then rip them apart to re-use the yarn. All in all, this appeals to me. It's cheap, it's reusing stuff that is a step away from being throw away quality, and it satisfies my destructive impulses.

So, I toddled over to Goodwill on Satyrday to have a look around. Came away with 5 sweaters - one purple wool/angora blend, one white wool, one white thick-and-thin yarn wool, and one that's unknown (plus one sweater that's just for wearing, once I get it cleaned). Total spent? $25. Once I'm done, this will probably be the equivilent of $150 worth of yarn.

I've completely unravelled one of the sweaters and will be attempting to Kool Aid dye it tomorrow. This is so.much.fun. I've been feeling all blah creatively in the Post-Christmas lull. Trying to not spend much $$, the yarn I really want to play with is reserved until I get closer to my weight goals, and little in my stash was really making me happy. Now I have all kinds of fun stuff to play with. *bouncebouncebounce*

I must be a mom

Because I'm stating to think of some of our customers as if they were recalcitrant 2 year olds.

Primarily in the important lesson that if you give into your child's whining because you want them to shut the hell up, all you *really* teach them is that whining works, and they should use it whenever possible. The same with repeated requests after you've already said no.

One of our customers has been whining and repeatedly requesting that we do something completely unreasonable. I've been trying my best to make it impossible for my boss to say yes (since I'll be to one doing the sucky work). We've offered at least three other viable options, which they've refused. Today, I threw up my hands in the exasperated gesture all the moms on my friends list would recognize and said "SCREW IT! Let's just get the fucking shit done, so they will SHUT THE HELL UP!" And now I'm upgrading their server at 1:00 in the fricking morning tomorrow night.

I fear the things they will now ask for in the future. Perhaps a pony?

In other work news...

I've felt a bit like a prima donna the past week, partly because I've been putting my foot down over this whole doing an overnight upgrade thing. It's not like other people in the company have never done this. God knows, my supervisor's done it a bunch of times for this same customer. Hell, I've done on-site overnight upgrades. It's part of working with the newspaper industry and their crazy 24-7/365 schedules.

But I feel like this one just crossed a line, and I'm not sure quite even what is was. It's partly that I don't like this site, partly that they've been yanking our chain for months now, and partly that when you add child care into the mix, working overnight in the middle of the workweek takes on hellish tendencies. (Like, for example, that most days I can't just sleep in and come in late the morning after the overnight work. I have to get up and get Widget going for the day before Imagy gets here.) But I think everybody has those things that they need a lot of incentive to betalked into - for me it's overnights. On the other hand, I was completely willing to work late, work on the weekend, come in early (around childcare issues), which other co-workers might balk at, or be unable to do.

Even so, I've been feeling very diva-ish putting my foot down. We see how far it got me in the end. Although at least my bosses know that it's a very big deal that I am doing this, and I didn't just roll over for the unreasonableness of it.

But I *really* felt like a dive when I came in today, and Jeff came at me with "They want to do the upgrade in the evening, between 7-9 their time." and I had to say I didn't know if I could do it this week. He asked me why and I said "Well, I'm dress shopping on Thursday and I have chick night plans for tomorrow that I really don't want to breeak." "What about tonight?", says Jeff. "Ummm, it's my gym night."

Ooooh, did I get a look for that. But dammit, I'm really trying to get back into the gym routine, and I have so few slots to fit it into (especially on a week when I have other plans). And with advance warning, or for a customer emergency, I would give it up. But not for these guys after all their games. We ended up agreeing that I could scoot out during the afternoon to go to the gym, and then I'd stay late at work tonight to get it done. Then they played stupid games and refused to do it then either, which prompted my surrender.

Part of me feels badly for making Jeff's life this difficult, but part of me is really tired of just giving and giving of my time and energy.