conversations

August 15, 2000

It's a well known fact, (at least well known to me), that piranhas can actually eat themselves to death. Back when I was in grade school, there was an Indian girl -- whose name is a complete mystery to me, in my old age -- who claimed that her cousin's best friend's brother once had one, a bright blue fish that kept eating all the other fish in the tank until finally it was the only one left. At some point in the history of the fish, some well-meaning soul dropped an entire hamburger patty into the tank, which the fish promptly consumed whole. Either hamburger patties are lethal to piranhas, or the piranha ate itself to death, or some other mysterious medium intervened to cut the fish's life short. One way or another, the maybe-piranha blue fish died, leaving me in sole possession of this interesting tidbit of information:

Piranha can eat themselves to death.

So, it seems, can I.

Having done so at this strange little restaurant that Tara and her fiance, Remington (sorry man, but you know who you are and why), took me to, I am now riding my non-corporeal little self back to San Francisco on Cal Train, entertaining myself by typing this journal entry through some convenient psychic's body.

Work continues to be fun, in a uniquely work sort of way that I really wasn't expecting. I was warned at the outset that there would be a certain challenge involved; all in all, I'm finding that that's sometimes the case, and sometimes not. The chief issue here, without going into too much detail, seems to be that there's a lack of communication going on between people and departments. Tara tells me that that's only natural, as any corporate structure inherently lends itself to stagnation, a condition which they apparently fight by reorganizing divisions and people as often as they can collect more than one chief into a room.

Unlike my last place, where the balance of chiefs to indians was roughly 19 to 1, this company seems to have a relatively good balance of actual Work people (who do stuff), and Management people, who just go to meetings. If my present schedule with them is any indication, I'm destined to become a Management person simply by default. 80% of work happens in meetings. The other 20% is spent wandering around looking for people to hook into meetings.

More and more I have to pick and choose the things that I decide to talk about in the journal. This is due only partly to the fact that I take so long between entries, something that never used to be an issue when I wrote more frequently. It also used to be that I had a more boring life than I do. Somewhere between all the traveling that I do between Redwood City and San Francisco, I turned into quite an interesting little character.

I beam in reflected glory, of course; there's always something interesting in someone who spends half of her life traveling, even if it's only between train stations. Today I spent part of the day on the phone to Australia, where mellow-tongued Australians wandered around their office, looking for coffee. At the same time (in between being on the phone to Australia and then getting back on the phone with the people in Australia), I attended an All-Hands meeting to learn that our division had been re-orged.

I tell you, it's an actual verb.

What's relevent here is that my manager, my previous manager before my first re-org, was going to be leaving the company to take a great job at a start-up, and as a result, my job responsibilities will now include the planning and prioritization for the Operations group that I started out in. This doesn't mean management, mind you; I lack the technical know-how and the experience to serve as a manager for a group of engineers. That's assuming that we don't follow the Dilbert Business Plan, of course.

As a result of my job, I've learned another phrase: "Brain Dump." Something which happens when somebody leaves and isn't coming back and happens to hold in his or her brain a wealth of knowledge without which the company will be reeling for days, weeks, even months.

I'll just shut up now about work. Moving on again....

Conversation with Tara.

"--who said that, hahaha. Do you think I'm an introvert or an extrovert?"

Dead silence. Peculiar look on Tara's face. She stares at me, blankly. She is thinking.

"What, see? It kind of depends on the situation, I think."

"I'd say ... an extrovert."

"Really? Weird."

"Because you're really interested in people."

"Am I? I think I'm actually an introvert. I mean, I talk a lot but I don't actually say anything."

Case in point.

"No, but .... I don't know. You just seem interested in people. You're always telling stories about 'this guy in my office did this' or 'this person did the other.'"

"Yeah, but they're stupid stories."

In personality tests, I actually score relatively high on the introvert side. Isn't that interesting? It is to me. Everything about me is interesting to me. I told Remington about the Slug Tongue man. He reciprocated by telling me about his friend, who happened to have a really pronounced connective tissue underneath his tongue that didn't allow him to push it out of his mouth.

"That's where it belongs, in the mouth," I announced, to the quiet amusement of the people in the booth behind us at the restaurant. "It shouldn't go out exploring. It shouldn't be wandering into other mouths. The tongue was designed to work with one mouth, and one mouth only. It's attached. It's committed. It's too late for it to go exploring for other options."

I'm still bitter about Slug Tongue man.

"I shouldn't read your journal," Tara apologized, after I accused her of ignoring my haircutf. "I read it and I find out what's happening in your life and then I assume that you've already told me in person, and we have nothing left to talk about."

I refrained from pointing out that it never stopped me from talking, anyway. "When I tell you these stories verbally, you get the personality that comes with it. It's a whole different thing. Exciting. Fresh."

"That's true," she said, kindly. "You certain talk louder than you write."

Oh. Remington thought I was an introvert, too.

OutTake from the restaurant:

Tara: "You look cute today."

Remington: (Head nods.)

Me: "Huh?"

Tara: "I think it's because you're wearing white. You should wear more white."

Remington: "Uh huh."

Me: "I'm qualified."

Tara: "What?"

Me: "Right."

Tara: "I don't get it."

Me: "Bleh."

Tara: "...Oh."

Me: "I just felt like sharing that little tidbit of information. Didn't that make your day just a little bit brighter?"

Remington: "Mm hm."

The point of that is that I looked cute today.

Incidentally, and this is another subject altogether, I had to farm out Spid to a coworker today because I'm suffering under a mortal dread that he's not getting enough light. He has strange dry patches on his leaves. My coworker, having assimilated a now-gone engineer's window cubicle, has plenty of light, and has thus far tended to Spid's needs with a paternal anxiety that I thought would have been more than depleted by the proud spawning of three children.

Apparently not. Perhaps he's overflowing, as Tara suggested. It's a possibility. Thus far, he's shown no tendencies towards it with me.