ltmurnau | Fried Day

Now it's the end of a week that's been less socially busy than last, but more irksome (but not in social ways).

I had a goodbye beer with my friend Stephanie, who is going to France next week to study in Lille. Several courses in European Union policy issues, writing a major paper on the Euro, learning French, and tooling around northern France on her bike. She is nothing short of amazing, one of the most intelligent and energetic people I've ever met, multi-talented, plays bass - agh, I know you can all fill in the rest because almost every LiveJournal journal has at least one entry like this about some improbably fantastic person you know and admire and makes you feel like an untalented grub.

Work is busy but irksome: it's all tiny nasty tedious things; nothing remotely interesting or challenging to work on. Two extremely competent people in my unit are leaving today - one is retiring and one's contract is up - and thanks to my incompetent boss who knew full well who was leaving when but did not do anything about it, we now have an enormous hole in our ranks and whatever progress we've made on what they were working on will be lost. She came to me yesterday to plead with me, in her sidling way, to take over two of the short-term projects one of them was doing. I was difficult about it, not only because I've been doing 1 3/4 people's work since last year when someone was shanghaied out of our unit but her work wasn't, but also because I wanted to make her feel bad about her incompetence in letting this happen in the first place.

I doubt it made any impression on her overtaxed brain but at least I feel better, in the sense that wetting oneself while wearing dark clothes makes one feel better. It will take several months for Boss to work up to finding someone to replace them, someone who certainly will know less than before; or she and the other Bosses will find some way to ignore the issues completely, thus saving themselves the problem of having to find a replacement; or they will just do nothing, bumbling along, shoving work on to underlings and making excuses until people get tired of asking questions. Hm, I wonder which course is most likely? Oh well, mustn't grumble...

Now that "sumer is acumen in", we go to relaxed dress in the office. Casual is OK but not too much. The co-op student who works in my unit asked me about the standard - I just told her to take her cue from everyone else in the office; she wouldn't want to see me in a crop-top, so that's obviously out! (though it's on hot days like this I wish I could go to a light kilt)