Quiet-work~ma for Andi, and house~ma for Plei.

Steph, in America you'd be able to sue the airline for at least the extra costs of the trip. In other countries (I believe Australia is similar to the UK in this), there are massive loopholes in the laws on disability access that allow these companies to get away with a lot of crap. As much as I say we'll be sueing them (I think I can't spell that), we might well find that no lawyer is willing to take the case. If the EHRC is interested, we'll go for it. Otherwise, we could lose everything trying. It means the Disability Discrimination Act has no teeth, and companies know that. Hmph.

Accessibility~ma for Seska, and congrats on your certification.

Thanks, but not certified yet! Just accepted onto the trainers' course. It'll be the last in the various things I've needed to do to become qualified, so I'll finally be there. Which is exciting.

Just accepted onto the trainers' course.

Doh! So much for reading comprehension.

Speaking of reading, erika, I read your column. Good one! I liked it.

In less drastic but still slightly annoying airline!fail, Delta seems to have *not* sent me an email with my ticket for my January trip. But I got my trip insurance email, and the charge went through. The real fail is that I emailed them and got an auto-response saying they'd get back to me. In three to four days. WTF? Note to self: always save or print the confirmation page.

Hey P-C - just in case you haven't purchased the gift for the person who likes knitting:

Thanks, tommyrot! I already got the books, though. I have other friends who knit, however, so it's good to keep in mind.

I think I figured out why my parents seem to have done a 180 on my skipping the family cruise to go on a personal road trip: the family cruise got canceled. Good thing I didn't buy a ticket home or anything! Of course, I only found this out from my siblings.

Just skipping to the end to say that Jilli needs this:

Ooh, that is cute! But I now have no spending money, as I purchased a new purse (and other stuff) yesterday at the gothy craft fair: [link]

(I added the pink bow and the cameo ring.)

Argh. I ordered some cute slippers from myself and my mom from Land's End [link] and they are too small. I ordered the M, which should be 7.5 - 8.5. I'm normally an 8. I can't tell if it's pregnancy related or not and now I'm not sure if they'll fit my mom or not (she's also an 8). Anyone have any experience with their slipper/shoe fit?

GC, I've ordered shoes from Lands' End and they run true to size for me. In fact, I'm wearing a pair right now. I wear an 8W and these fit great.

Thanks, smonster!

We do get bonuses, too. Nothing much - about $100 cash the Friday before the holiday break, and people bitch about that. People, in general, will just bitch about anything. I hate people.

Dude. I've always worked for for-profit, and never gotten a holiday bonus! They need to STFU! (I mean, we usually have planned in that we're supposed to get a "bonus" at a different time of year, along with raises, but that doesn't necessarily happen, etc etc)

I am trying to fill out my self evaluation, and am not sure I'm doing it right. Also, I think it's still filled with my plans from LAST year, when I was working on a whole different project. Oops. Also, it's very easy for me to come up with soem areas where I need improvement, but hard for me to come up with "strengths".

Thanks, Chi. Maybe I'll go ahead with hers and order a new bigger pair for me. If hers are too small, she can try mine and I'll replace hers.

Real-estate~ma for Plei, and large cluesticks for Seska and Aims to whack people with.

Today's the first day of my "vacation", which is supposed to last through the rest of the year and I'm only taking it to use up vacation days which I would otherwise lose, which I haven't taken before now because apparently no one else can do my job for even a couple days, much less three weeks (and god I need a vacation, I work 12 hour days regularly and still can't catch up because my boss keeps giving me more work that's outside my own responsibilities, and if I don't do it I'm not a "team player", and the next person who insinuates that I'm not really working because I'm at home gets a curse of boils on their ass). At 6am today I was still working to finalize some stuff. I sent my boss an email, X is done except for Y which Coworker will do, and don't worry about Z, it can wait. At 11:30am Wacky Boss calls me, leaves a long rambling phone message and I pick up in the middle of it so she repeats it all. She and another manager (WTF? since when does he even care about my stuff? she's lying) are "concerned" about X, Y, and Z and she wants me to take care of it all, myself, preferably today. So here I am working on the first day of my "vacation", and I know I'll be working at least part of the day for the next week. This? Sucks.

This is the same kind of passive-aggressive crap she pulled to "punish" me when I stopped working in the office and went full-time telecommuting. She wanted me there to hover over and snipe at in person. But it's worth it to never have to go into that toxic office environment again. I like my job, but the department is run by crazy people.

Okay, venting done. Back to frickin' work.