Archive for February, 2010

Can’t Wait!

{ February 6, 2010 @ 4:16 am } · { Me }
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The first time I got a computer was when I was 13 and it was a hand-me-down with Windows 98 and a 25GB hard drive. I hooked it up, turned it on, and very excitedly started surfing the AOL. Back then I was a huge fan of the NuRock band Linkin Park, so I was obviously in their fanclub. They had a private, “members only” chatroom where I met some really cool people. I met this one person that wanted to have his own fansite for Linkin Park and he asked if I’d help him build it. So I studied day and night until I got it down. I hand coded an entire site, figuring out PHP, HTML, and a little bit of JavaScript.

The website went absolutely nowhere but we had fun making it.

So somehow I started visiting an AIM chatroom called “b0red”. In it were a fee hackers and just some regular people. So I made friends with most of the hackers and they actually stopped someone from attacking my computer. My firewall caught them, I gave my hacker friends their IP, and they took care of them, no questions asked!

So they introduced me to something called “C,” “C#” and “C++”.

And I blew it off because I didn’t know what it was. So I totally blocked it out of my memory. I thought it was something hackers used to do bad things and I wanted no part of it.

But I could feel that I wanted to be a programmer. I wanted to build programs and be one of those people making a bunch of money doing something they love.

So I went to community college with the Major of “Computer Programming”. Then I changed to “Network Specialist.” Then I changed to “Network Security Specialist.” Then they dissolved that degree so I just dropped out.

So here I am today, working on learning that C programming language stuff and starting my journey to be a programmer once again. I’m right back to my very first career aspiration: programmer. So I’m only programming small apps on the iPhone (or should I say, WILL be) soon, but I’m about to start doing something I love to do; and I’ll be making money for doing it!

I’ll be setting up another blog soon in the name of my “company” and blogging about my journey, and Sometimes I might even give away an app or something.

Right now there are two things I can assure you of. The first, and most important, being the fact that I will not let anything stand in my way. This is where I’m supposed to be or God wouldn’t have put me here – back at the beginning.

And the second thing I can assure you of is this:

I can’t wait.

Where are my W2s?

{ February 2, 2010 @ 8:59 pm } · { Dealing with life }
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Some of you who know me or follow me on Twitter know that last year, Keitra and I worked for a place called “Merkle Response”. I’m not going to go into what they do or anything. You can google them for that.

Well, I have been waiting to get my w2 from them for a while and it still hasn’t arrived. Keitra’s has, so where is mine?

Well, I figured since they have to be postmarked by Jan 31 I would wait until today to contact them. So I did.

When I called, I got the woman at the front desk. Which is weird because usually they have an automated “for this department press 1″ thing. Anyway, here’s how it went down.

Desk Lady: “Merkle front desk.”

Me: “Hi, may I speak with someone in HR please?”

Desk Lady: “May I ask what for?”

Me: “Well, I need to talk to them about my W2.”

Desk Lady: “Is there a problem with it?”

Now at this point I’m starting to get mad. She is the receptionist not the HR person. She transfers me to the person that can fix my problem. She doesn’t fix my problem. But anyway.

Me: “yeah, I didn’t get them?”

Desk Lady: “ok well, did you recently move?”

Me: “yes but that shouldn’t matter as my girlfriend got hers at the same address and we have the same address on file.”

Desk Lady: “Well the corporate office sends those out we have no control over who they send them to. Give me your new address and IF they come back to us we will re-send them.”

I give her my address.

Desk Lady: “Ok. I’ll give this to Tracey in HR. If we happen to get them we’ll send them your way. That’s all we can say.”

*click*

So I call the corporate office. That isn’t right. It’s not IF. The answer is: “we’ll do everything we can to sort this out. I’m sorry.”

Corporate sends me to a voicemail and said she will return my call asap.

No return call yet.

So since they act like this is just a small little matter, I wonder what they’ll do when they get a call from the IRS. I’m giving them until Saturday to respond. If I was a client, they would be bending over backwards to help me and straighten things out. I would have settled for a copy of the W2.

But this is how Merkle treats their employees. It’s why I quit my good paying job there to make $7.50 at Target. They act like their employees are dirt beneath their shoes.

Merkle, you have until Saturday to respond. I understand if they were returned due to me moving and not having the correct address. I even understand you couldn’t contact me because my phone number has changed. What I don’t appreciate is the fact that you treated me like crap when I called to ask a question. This isn’t me calling to complain about not getting breaks or lunches (which happened all the time) but it’s me calling to ask where the paper you are LEGALLY REQUIRED to give me. As I said, a copy would have been fine. I’ve worked other place that were happy to fax W2s and copies of other important papers to me for free within minutes.

You have until Saturday to let me know something. Or expect to hear from the IRS on Monday.

Obsessed rule-breakers

{ February 1, 2010 @ 5:22 am } · { Dealing with life }
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I gave them rules. I told them how Keitra and I want OUR dog to be treated. This made the third time. And what happened to the list of rules I gave them? They didn’t even read them. Just left them sit on the table and probably threw them away.

I would love to be able to take Foxxy places and have fun with the dog we paid well over $500 for. I’d love to take her to an obidence class and get her to a good level of calmness and activity. Unfortunately, it’ll never happen while I’m living with my parents.

See, instead of following the rules we left for them (the main rules being no baby voices, don’t let her get so excited because she pees when she’s excited [which they see as perfectly fine], and make her walk beside/behind instead of in front when on the leash), they don’t bother following any of them. And it’s almost like they purposly don’t follow them because they don’t think dogs like foxxy (small and cute) should have rules. They think it’s ok if she’s jumping on people, jumping on the furniture, nipping (at human or animal), peeing when excited, and pulling on the leash. All of this is cute to them when it’s foxxy. But when it’s sam, their dog, these behaviours are not acceptable and they punish Sam.

So tonight I take foxxy out to pee, and dad is waiting at the door when I come back. First thing he does is calls her over, gives her the baby voice, “come here little foxxy girl! How’s my foxxy girl? How’s my little baby? I don’t get to see you much anymore and that makes me sad!” like he’s trying to guilt trip me or something. I was happy to see she wanted nothing to do with him, of course until he gave her treats. But even then she didn’t really care. She just did it to get away from him.

I can’t take this much longer. When we didn’t live here, they would call and ask if we could bring Foxxy up so they could see her. It wasn’t “hey come up for a visit” it was “hey bring foxxy for a visit. I guess you can come too.”

I’m waiting for them to ask me why I don’t let her go out there with them.

I hate feeling this way. But when dad sits in the livingroom or bedroom and cries because he didn’t get to visit with foxxy today, it’s just too much. He’s obsessed. I don’t know what to do.

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