Phone rings...

letting the phone ring twice.
"transportation"
said speedily "Hi, I'm so and so from blah, blah, blah, how are you?"
pause to skip over insincere inquiry to how I'm doing
my pause was meet with his pause so I played the game "Fine, and how are you?"
pause... I'm thinking, it's your game dude, keep up.

...

Earlier, a frequent requester for favors comes by and starts with the pleasantries, I start to think can we cut to the chase instead of driving through the bullshit?

Which reminds me of the time I was approached for something while I was busy. Mike comes by and starts with questions on what I'm doing and how I am to which I reply, what's your final question?
"What?"
"What's the question you really want to ask. You came to ask me a specific thing, what is it? I'm busy"
He askes his question with a hurtful face, and I give him what he wants.
Future bullshit questions are cut to a minimum.

...

The large scale plotter is outside my cube, I'm the most frequent user and the only one who looks after it. So the plotter starts a job, a foreign job and runs out of paper just as it ends. I replace the paper. The owner of the print job that is not mine comes by and I let him know the paper ran out and to check that it printed everything he needed. He says that it printed everything on that job but another job is coming and asks if I replaced the paper. Which solicited a laugh and a yeah.

The large roll of paper setting in the plotter wasn't enough of a visual clue for him I guess. Not for nothing dude, but open your eyes.

I expected more from him.

...

I read in the paper today that people who are prone to get angry are more likely to get a boost from nicotine than more laid back folks. Which makes me want to seriously try smoking. Maybe in the past I hadn't given them enough of a chance

...

I'm obsessive, that's a fact. I walked by the water cooler four times today and every time I wanted to turn the label on the bottle to the front... but today I didn't.

It's a big deal when I leave my errors alone.

...

So, I'm at the place where Liz works, I sit at the bar and grab Keno tickets and ask for a usual from Dara, who is working the bar. Working the floor is Liz, who comes over and whispers in my ear "you have an addiction", to which I ask "just one?"

Keno is a sucker bet, today I bet $10 bucks and won one. I played some games for free in my head and if I had bet money I would have lost it all, which is against even the poor odds in Keno.

...

I think I need a full time advisor to sweat the small stuff.

...

The current emergency project deals with the electric company wanting to run 345 kilovolt lines through the heart of two neighborhoods for the purpose of linking substations.

My responsiblity, maps and every single pavement marking from here to timbucktoo. Crosswalks, Stop Lines, Double Yellow Lines, Solid White Edge Lines, Broken White Line Lines, Solid White Lane Lines, Gore Markings, Arrows and Only's, the word SCHOOL,... probably 24 miles worth, due by Thursday. Stellar.

...

There's this white dust over my drawer unit which I would guess was dropped by one of the owner's daughters while trying to steal my colored pencils. I think it's the 'pixie' found inside a pixie stix.

...

even the losers get lucky sometimes