Cup of Coffee

March 27, 2020: The Reward For Hard Work Is More Work

52 Comments

Here's a minor dilemma:

I have kind of a dickboss. Won't get into specifics, but one of those types that decides to insert themselves in everything and just makes it all more difficult. Anyway, everyone's WFH right now, but I'm also operating a day care and home school. Work is, well... slow. Slow enough to the point where it probably doesn't look like I'm doing much, though that's because there isn't much to do. There isn't like a communal work pile to draw from, and as I'm basically the only member of my division, I'm kind of compartmentalized from everyone else anyway.

So, the question is this: do I ask said dickboss for more work? Anything I ask/request from them always ends up in some weird place I wasn't expecting at the beginning (and almost always in a negative way). Or, should I just kind of coast/day care/home school for now in the hopes more work will fall down to me and keep my head low otherwise? As the title of this CoC implies, while this is a slow period, I'm not in a rush to ask for more work. Especially with how "much" of it other co-workers manage. That path, however, risks receiving ire from said dickboss.

It's a complicated tapestry...

Withdrawing this very minor complaint.

52 thoughts on “March 27, 2020: The Reward For Hard Work Is More Work”

  1. Does anybody have a good place to play card games with people online? I talked to my dad last night and he sounds ridiculously bored. It would be tough to live alone right now.

    1. I have played pinochle online, but not with anyone I know*. There are apps.

      *I could play with people I know if they were set up.

      1. I know there were plenty of cribbage apps going around here for a time. I don't know the game, but I could help set up another tourney I suppose. Seems like a good time for one.

    3. I've found a lot of "free" websites to play games but I don't want to avoid one virus and give another one to everyone.

    4. I play two apps on my phone a bit too much. WGT Golf is how I get my golf fix. I don't play anyone I know, but I do play rounds against people from all over the world. It surprisingly has helped my real golf game, as the game really makes you think ahead on your shots. The other game I play is Cribbage Pro. There is a function that you can play other people (not sure if you can pick out people you know), but I end up playing the computer on the "brutal" setting. Can't access the app right now, but last I looked I had logged about 5,000 games on my current phone and have won 52% of my games. One "28" hand in all that time, and no "29" hands.

      1. I play a game called golf clash a lot. It's not going to help anyone's real golf game, but it reminds me of Tiger Woods Golf and it's a fun time killer.

    5. boardgamearena.com
      I know there's hearts on there. Not sure about other card games. But there are also a ton of good board games out there.

    6. i think it would be cool to do some large version of a simple game everyone knows, like a monopoly or something. if there was sorry clone or something out there, that could make a good quick tournament.

  2. Looks like Runner daughter's car took ~dozen hail damage from last night's wave of storms. We'll maybe try the boiling water technique on the larger ones (which aren't all that large) and see if that might work. We had a steady 3-4 minutes of pea/marble hail a bit before 3AM, and then walnut hail 3:15 -- the cherry blossoms might suffer some this year.

    1. We had a very strange microburst two nights ago. Hail and thunder at like 2AM for about 10 minutes. People next town in any direction didn't get anthing

    2. And someone broke into our car last night. No real damage, nothing stolen, but the inside was trashed. People are the worst.

      2. Kind of a rip on your music if they didn't take your 8-track tapescassettesCDs stuff.

  3. A friend from high school lost their infant daughter last night (non-Covid related). They adopted her maybe a year ago (or a little more?), and she was diagnosed with a fatal disease sometime after that. It progressed a lot faster than I think anyone expected, and it's been a heartbreaking journey to watch unfold. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to deal with this right now too. Just think of all the comfort and care that a family usually receives around such a loss, and now that will be missing. If you're the praying type, please send up a few for their family.

    1. That would be awful. I'll be praying for them.

      If I were your friend's parents, I don't think there is anything that would keep me from breaking the law and being with them. (Assuming I was the one most at risk and they didn't have some other underlying health issues.)

  4. The Twins actually made a roster move, optioning Sean Poppen and LaMonte Wade. I don't know why they felt a need to do that at this particular time, but it seems to me that a reasonable guess is that money was involved.

  5. My cousin has been writing short essays in response to his WFH/quarantining.
    I prompted him to write about "Top Inconsequential Twins Players" of the last 20 years or so (probably as far back as he can remember).
    I disagree a bit with his list (particularly the eligibility of #1), but maybe a fun list.

    I think clear misses SelectShow

    2. His list definitely suggests categories of inessential: washed-up vets TR signed hoping for a dead-cat bounce, marginal prospects that got (sometimes significant) playing time, mediocre rotation ballast, Guys Who Did Better Elsewhere, blink-and-you-missed them Twins cameos, and Guys Who Were the Next Big Thing to Blow Up on the Launchpad.

      Extended over a longer period (say, back to the mid-Seventies?), this could be a pretty fun bracket of its own.

      1. Crede was one that worked. 2.3 rWAR thanks to stellar fielding at third in only 90 games. Checking elsewhere and had a final, career-ending back surgery at the end of the year. Lot of misses though.

        1. Yeah, living in Chicago, I was hoping he'd be gangbusters. One of the Sox had them play "All Out Of Love" for Crede's first AB at the Cell. Crede launched a donger and stifled embarrassed laughter running around the bases. Thankfully JI
          JI THOME really ended up scratching that Sox annoyance itch.

    4. I feel like there need to be more concrete parameters to make this a worthwhile list. I understand the desire to do something other than 10 Moonlight Grahams, but I think to really be inconsequential, you need to:

      1) Not cost much in salary or draft capital
      2) Not provide significantly positive OR negative value (that is, being replacement-level)

      Ideally you are extremely consistent at being replacement level and don't alternate promising and terrible seasons. Also, it's better if you're not really good at defense but poor at the plate or vice versa. Big platoon splits would be bad, too. To be truly inconsequential, you should be seen as having no real strengths or weaknesses.

      I would start looking at a list like this: Twins hitters with 450+ PA near 0.0 WAR on their career. Jerry Zimmerman looks like a good candidate -- played for seven seasons, between 50 and 269 PA per season, worst season was -0.5 WAR and best season was 0.5 WAR.

      Ooo...I just had another thought, though it would be hard to track down -- go through everyone's win probability added and find players who played for the team for a really long time but failed to register any individual high WPA events. Players similar to low-leverage relief pitchers would be great for this. Find a guy who just soaked up innings in blowouts -- there's an inconsequential player.

  6. In response to Hungry Joe's nonquestion/question above. Once upon a time, I worked as a tax accountant. I was in my early twenties, working a job I hated for 60-70 hours per week. They assigned me a bunch of tax returns to work on with time budgets for each one. I asked them what would happen if I really whipped through them and got done with them quicker than they had budgeted. They said that I could then go back to the file room and grab some more files to work on.

    I lasted a couple years.

  7. I never volunteer that I'm out of work. I'll be proactive about upcoming tasks, or get caught up on stuff on the back burner, but never give them a reason to give you work.

        1. Yeah, I’m more like wanting to draft a team to control for a bit. I suppose I could float it in the Antiquity league to see if someone wants to start one. (I don’t want to do it just because I’m not sure how to run a league. Though desperate times...)

            1. My initial thought would be just to draft the teams about as they were going to be constructed at the start of the season.

      2. They're 0-2 in the Strat-O-Matic simulation, too, losing yesterday 1-0. Odoreater pitched well, going seven innings and giving up one run on five hits and a walk and striking out seven. The game's only run came on a homer by Mark Canha.

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