You know, I pretty regularly get questions about my Diablo Sound t-shirts and jacket.

With Mt. Diablo right over yonder there are a ton of Diablo named businesses around the East Bay. I tend to forget that it means anything else.

Talk me down from the ledge here. I just discovered I fucked something up big time at work, and given what's gone down here lately, I'm terrified I'll be fired.

Basically, both my boss and I have been dealing with the company that does furniture/office reconfigurations for our hospital. Boss THOUGHT her furniture had been ordered and was griping because it wasn't here. So I was going to call them today to check, so I went to an email that I thought was about MY office reconfiguration, because it came a few days after the email with the proposed new floor plan. All it said, really, was "Here's the quote you requested for ROOM #." If I'd been paying ATTENTION, I would've noticed that the room # was my boss's office, not mine. But it came in while I was sick at the beginning of the month, and all I did was glance at it, and think, "Not urgent, I'll deal with it later."

I can't believe I fucked up so badly. I feel like she's going to fire me tomorrow (not today because she's in a meeting till 5:00).

Did you call anyway, Susan? If you have both been dealing with this company it seems like it would be worthwhile to check and make sure she didn't order it independently.If she did, you can find out how soon it'll be resolved, and if she didn't you can get the order in motion. Mitigate a little while she's in the meeting.

OK, I'm not being fired.

I did call right away and leave a voicemail explaining what had happened and asking how we could expedite this.

And then I decided that since the meeting in question was actually the weekly large group session for our educational program, I'd walk up to the room and see if it was an appropriate moment to break in. I did, it was, and she told me, basically, "I can tell you're upset about this, and I think you've been upset long enough. Just forward me the quote, go home, and don't worry about it anymore."

I think I've been making her too much of a bad guy over the firing incident last week--which actually WAS justified, just badly handled. So the first time something went wrong on my end, I flashed back to the lawyerbeast from my first job and the lab directorbeast from the job before this one. Granted, neither ever fired me, but if I'd made that mistake working for THEM, I would've been treated to a half-hour shouting session, which in the case of the lawyerbeast would've included calling me a fucking incompetent.

Susan, it sounds like it's being handled pretty well.

Today was my last day of teaching for the semester. I want to go out and celebrate. But I can't, because it's Passover, so I really can't eat anything at restaurants, and can't drink anything but cider. Feh. Maybe Sunday or Monday celebrating will work.

No idea on the plate, ND, but I had a conversation today with a guy who's going to get "SUBTEXT" as his plate, because it's an anagram of "BUTT SEX."

I had a conversation today with a guy who's going to get "SUBTEXT" as his plate, because it's an anagram of "BUTT SEX."

Um... there are better things about subtext than that....

Oh, and a friend grew up in a mostly Jewish suburb of Chicago - she once saw a plate that read S DRECK, which is Yiddish for "eat shit." (Or, rather, "es dreck" is.)

Oh crap, MM. So sorry.

Kristin - feel better soon! PS - to Kristin's lungs - pssst pneumonia critters... You took a wrong turn and are in the wrong state! Beaches, check. Palm trees, ditto. Pneumonia? Nope, don't see it on the state flag. GET OUT. Go back to Siberia.

WTF MM?!? That's crap.

The Swarthmore thing was brilliant. Glad I went. Enid Mark ( [link] ) is the bombdigity of small-run hand-crafted books. The writers were great too.