I don't know what they think they'll do with one if they CATCH it

This morning, in the park next door:

Soda decided that Canada Goose would make a fine breakfast.  He enrolled his buddy Tinks to help him out:

And they were off to the races:

Oooops.  Got a little too close .... RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY!  (it's hard to tell, but Soda is hauling a** back toward me at this point):

Time for a meeting on the mound:

Tinks says, I'm goin' in:



But it ends, as cat v. goose always does, in a draw:

I swear, these guys are more fun than an amusement park.






Disclaimer:  No geese were harmed in the filming of this blog post.  Trust me, the cats never, ever get the goose.

Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherf*cking ants in this motherf*cking house!

A couple of weeks ago, I had my annual spring ant infestation at the house.  Not the cute, little brown ants - the ones we used to call "sweet ants" when I was a kid - but the big, black variety - the ones who crunch when you step on them.

I went and bought ant traps, like I do every year, and spent a couple of days squishing ants, finally bringing a roll of toilet paper out to the kitchen (Klassy!) because it's cheaper than Kleenex when it comes to wiping up ant remains.  Then, when a few days passed and I STILL had ants, I went and bought MORE ant traps, scattered them around, and finally seemed to get rid of the Great Ant Infestation of 2013.

Last night, I had to get up to use the bathroom (thanks, stomach bug!  YOU HAVE WORN OUT YOUR WELCOME), and when I laid back down,

OUCH!

Something had BITTEN me on the NECK!

I grabbed my neck and JUMPED out of bed, turning on the bedside light, and what was there in my bed?

A GIANT ANT.

MOTHERF*CKER!, I yelled, grabbing a shoe to flip it off the bed and crush it.  and crush it.  and crush it.

I mean, the upside is, it could have been worse.  It could have been a spider.  Ants are skeevy, but spiders are creepy, and in the moment before I hit the light, I was actually all, "don't let it be a spider.  don't let it be a spider."

But what the F*CK was a giant ANT doing in my BED?  I have had enough with the motherf*cking CRITTERS in my motherf*cking BEDROOM!   First it was the raccoon, and then it was the nine thousand MICE that the cats bring in and deposit under the bed "for later", and now it's ANTS.

Welcome to warm weather, I guess.  GOD.

How it all went down

Yesterday, I asked my boss for a raise. 

Timing is critical in this kind of thing, and I figured that if I was willing to go in to the office on a Sunday morning to get a project out the door, that would reflect well on my chance of succeeding.

Also critical to success in this sort of thing?  A couple of factors:  You have to be willing to fail, and you have to do your research.

As far as the failure thing goes, you need to go into salary negotiations cognizant of the fact that you may well walk back out with no job at all, much less a raise.  I have actually SEEN my boss fire someone who asked for a raise.  It wasn't pretty.

And that's where the research comes in.  I didn't just wander in, all, "Gee, the cost of gas keeps going up, and it's been a while since my last raise, and, well, I really deserve more money ..."

First, I compiled my salary history.  As someone who is not really money-motivated, other than the fact that having enough to pay my bills is nice, I actually could not remember the last time I had a salary increase, other than that it had been a while.  So I put together a quick spreadsheet.

Then, I looked into cost-of-living increases for the past few years.  There are all sorts of numbers you can go with; I try to pick something middle-of-the-road.   I was actually surprised to find that the cost of living had not increased as much as I thought it had, gas prices notwithstanding, so I adjusted my expectations.  This kind of research is really important to keep you from looking like an uninformed jerk when it's time to start talking.

Next, I researched comparable salaries for my position in my area.  There are all kinds of bogus numbers out there, so you really do need to dig a little to get some actual, real-world figures, and not some vague bullsh*t like the nationwide average salary for a position that may or may not resemble the one that you actually occupy.  I generally go straight for the online hiring sites, to pull real-time positions currently available in my area that compare to the position I perform.  And you need a bunch, not just one or two.  The boss may or may not ask to see the information, but you need to have it.  This information also requires a little digging, as most companies are hesitant to put exact numbers on line for the world to see. 

So!  I had my numbers, and it was time to talk.  I actually almost backed out yesterday, because I've picked up some nasty little stomach bug and am feeling somewhat green-ish around the gills, but again, I had to use my in-the-office-on-a-Sunday advantage, so I plowed ahead.

After the work was done and the project was wrapped, I asked my boss if I could speak with him, took in my numbers and my spreadsheets, and presented my case.  You really, really should NOT get emotional, no matter what happens.  I explained what I had contributed to the company since my last salary increase, including those weeks a year ago when I was running the place while my boss was hospitalized.  I pleaded my case, and then sat back, waiting for the boss to ask me how much I wanted (or to show me the door).  Instead, he had a few questions about my numbers (yes, you HAVE to do the research), then he started running his own numbers, and came up with a number that was ...

... twice what I was going to ask for.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition, Rocky got a raise.

So, here I am, at 10:30 on a Sunday morning ...

... sitting in the office, getting paid time-and-a-half to blog.  Oh, and to research comparable salaries for my position, so that when the boss finally does manage to wander in so we can get our work done, and after the work is finally finished, I can hit him up for a raise.

"Don't do it!," you say.  "The economy sucks right now!," you say.  "There are lots of people looking for work!"

Yep.  It does. There are.  And I haven't had a raise in an embarrassingly long time, and the boss has been such a pain in the a** lately that I'm not happy here ANYway, and my research shows that I could walk out that door and get a higher-paying job in fairly short order should it prove necessary, and

I'm going for it. 

If the boss ever actually shows, that is.

Wish me luck!

Random

By switching stations on my office desk radio, I can listen to NPR's "Morning Edition" three times in a row.  Which is three times more than necessary, most days.

Email I got from Netflix:  "Has The Queen of Versailles arrived?"  Ha.  Yeah, she's in the bedroom, powdering her wig.

I must have stork legs, or T-Rex arms, or both, because Downward Dog just ain't happening for me.  Pike position is ... not achievable.

Do you ever eat something just so it will be gone and you can't eat it anymore?  Like, say, cake?

Okay, so, a while back, we were talking about names.  Does a name ever get spoiled for you by its owner?  When I was a kid, there was a girl in elementary school named Liz who treated me shabbily.  The name "Liz" is now forever associated with "Jerk" in my mind.

I had to give the kittens their first dose of Coccidiosis meds last night.  It tastes (yes, I tasted it) kind of like melted cookie dough ice cream.  Bianca and Hannah were, like, "YUM!  Overnotes of vanilla with an almond base!  More, please!"  And Smoky and Boots were, like, "Auugggggggggh!  This stuff is POISON!" *spit* *spit* *head shake*    Those boys are SUCH drama queens. 

Oh!  And in other kitten room news, Bianca is limping.  I guess kitten room play got a little rough overnight.  Please send kind thoughts to Bianca's leg.

Sometimes I like tater tots.  Does that make me a weirdo?

Is anyone surprised that Candice won American Idol last night?  Wasn't that, like, a foregone conclusion?




Okay, that's my Random for today.  Feel free to add your own in the comments.

"We don't NEED his help! Maybe he KNOWS that!"

Oh man, it's kind of cruel to laugh at crazy, but I was just now made aware of last week's episode of Kitchen Nightmares, and hahahahahaha.

I stopped watching that show a long time ago, mainly because I got tired of watching Gordon Ramsay scream at people, but dlisted clued me in about the Amy's Bakery episode that aired last Friday, and oh man, it's a doozy.

Click here for links to all of the insanity.

Basically, the lady and her husband were running a restaurant and claimed that "bloggers and Reddit and Yelp" were slamming the business unfairly.  She called in Kitchen Nightmares to salvage her reputation, and the rest is history.  And in a classic bored-at-work timesuck, the deeper you go, the crazier it gets - I knocked off about the time the commenters started talking about Afghans and money laundering.

Wanna kill a couple hours?  Click here.  You're welcome.




p.s. This should probably go without saying, but I was in no way compensated by dlisted or anyone else to put up this post.  I just wanted to share the insanity.

All worship at the foot of God

Actually, it was just a new cat toy.

They don't know the difference.

Yep, it was a Monday

Yesterday involved a sick boss coughing all over job files and then handing them to me (not cool, dude, not cool) a lost wallet (found by a cashier at Walmart (dear cashier, I hope you don't mind that I hugged you)), a smelly bedroom (decomposing mouse under the bed - oh HURL), a smelly cat (Soda's been digging in molehills again), and a diagnosis of one of the Spectacular Six with both tapeworms and Coccidiosis, which means they ALL have tapeworms and Coccidiosis (meds are on the way). 

Thank goodness it's Tuesday now.