Monday, October 22, 2012

Metaphor Monday

So upon occasion I have been a bit of a dog with a bone. I have found myself in another one of those situations. In fact, when I was telling my tale of woe and angst to my friend PR, she told me "We can't all be Germanic." I told her I'm not German. Apparently that wasn't the point.

Soooo, the new journalism staffs are always chosen in the spring. They are always posted the Friday before spring break (Many would say because of tradition. I tell you it is because we are chicken and want the kids to have a solid week away before we have to face any sad or mad faces because they didn't get the position they want. More specifically, we want a good reason why we refused to answer the phone and/or call their mothers back.)

Back to the story, last spring the newspaper adviser (Red) told me that the Bagpipe kids felt they could handle the website and didn't really need "double" leadership. They had it, no need for yearbook kids to do it. Ok, I said, no problem. One less thing for me to worry about. HA.

I went about my merry business (Yes, you smart asses often my business is merry, I just keep it inside so others aren't jealous.)  Long about the end of September I finally got around to looking at the website. Holy crap I said to myself. It looks terrible. It hadn't been updated since LAST SPRING. There had basically been no tweets. (The 2 football games had been tweeted, but the young man in charge both times failed to tweet the end score. Seriously??) The Facebook page? Only update was to read the Bagpipe. The only thing being updated was the calendar, which thank you very much, was being done by one of my kids.)

I said something to Red. She gave me some answer about oh dear, and her editor had trouble working the website, gee could someone help. Within a couple of days I had Mr. Magic out (guy who works for procomputing. He helped us fix the website from what the idiot we hired originally did, and he is a great teacher. Super nice. Always happy to answer questions, etc.) He sat at my desk, as I took more notes, we printed examples of how to do things yada yada.) Because the editor wasn't sure of how to work the top slider bar (Feel free to go to HPHSmedia.com to see (requires password, so you have to direct msg me to get the password, sorry.), he needed a photo to show her. Since we would be updating everything immediately, he grabbed a picture from my computer.. a photo of my dog Gracie to be exact. He then just typed in fake text to show her the bits and pieces.

Great, she says. I can do it, she says. ...fast forward two weeks later. I get on HPHSmedia to see... NO UPDATES. That news slider? STILL AN EFFIN PICTURE OF MY DOG.  I almost lost my ever loving mind. So I sent an email to Red. We have to talk I say. Have you seen the website? Her answer "I'm aware." huh. really? You are aware???? She agrees to meet with me Monday.

At this point steam is coming out of my ears. I am pissed. Beyond pissed. Going off the rails unhappy. I gather my editors and say I know it's not fair and you weren't expecting this, but I need y'alls help. The website, it can't look this crappy. So my kids start working on stories.

By the end of the day Friday, there are at least 3 new stories on the website. The dog? She's still there all weekend, which is probably good because when I sat down with Red, it was nice to go to that first and ask Are you kidding me?????

I had already talked to one of my managing editors about being in charge of the website, and to a couple of others about doing things too. It was some time over the weekend as I was going off about my kids would never pull this crap of just not doing anything and thinking it was ok that my friend told me we can't all be Germanic. Germanic my ass. It's about having standards. It's about knowing how much money was spent on this website and the iphone app. It's about knowing my name is all over the stupid website and I'm not interested in being embarrassed. It's about knowing that any kids that want to go into journalism have to understand convergent media and how it all works.

Oh, and in one week, my kids have done more for the website etc than her kids have in 8 weeks. Not kidding.

ANNNNDDDD Friday the newspaper came out, so I spent the whole day listening to those kids laugh and have a great ole time cause their work was done, while I worked all day with my kids on stories etc that we need for the website. What's wrong with this picture????

Saturday, October 13, 2012

It's a shame that no man is an island

I spent most of yesterday incredibly frustrated. People are a beating.

1. I had a woman remind me that she would really like her senior ad to be correct, after all her kids names were spelled wrong on the name stamp of their books last year. I told her that when the book wasn't being done by teenagers and the administration let me do everything, then it would be perfect. Until then we would just have to try to do our best.

2. 5 weeks ago I got on the hphsmedia website and was horrified. (This is after last spring when the newspaper adviser told me that her kids wanted to be totally in charge of the website and we didn't need double leadership. Ok. They haven't done crap. And they are probably getting 100's. Cause that's the bullshit that goes on. I had a guy come in two weeks ago to help "review' how to do everything because that was the problem. Got on yesterday. Still horrible. So horrible that there is a photo on the front page with my dog. Cause we used it to review how to add a photo two weeks ago. Sure. Why not.

3. Set up a time WEEKS ago to go shopping with a friend because I need help figuring out a couple of outfits. She told me last night she forgot her sister was coming in, so she couldn't do it.

I wish I was an island. It would be easier.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fun news

So, this week good news.

I got the tax bill from the City of Dallas. Yes, I officially did manage to get my taxable value of my property dropped by $50,000.

In other news, the house directly behind mine is for sale. The house is the exactly the same size as my house. It has two crappy bathrooms (yes, like my house.) Admittedly, it does have flooring whilst I have plywood floors in the living room and halls. However, it is on the market for $225,000. That's right, on sale for $50,000 more than I purchased my house.

No, my house is not ready for sale. Yes, there is still more work to do. And yes, I am very, very happy. Just thinking about it makes me gleeful : )

Stupid stories from the life and times

From today....

I am one of two sponsors of Hi-lites; a girl's service organization. We have 2 dances a year, girls ask the boys. A mom calls and asks if girls from other schools are allowed to ask boys to the dance. No they aren't. She says that her daughter asked a boy, but the boys mom said that he was asked by a girl at another school. And every person involved in this stupid story has a different story about what happened. Bleh.

Student A gets yelled at by her editor student B. A says something to her boyfriend as she leaves the class. Her boyfriend sees boy 2 and tells him A called B a bitch.; boy 2 tells girl B (his girlfriend) about it. She laughs but tells me.

Gets back to A who tells me that boy 2 told her that student A hates her. OH EM G. Are you kidding me???? Stupid drama with a boy in the middle????? What has my life come to?

Today I get a call from my dr who wants to see me again. The doctor who suggested I get blood work done but didnt' mention it was $1500 worth of blood work. And please remember this is the dr who I understand about every third word because she's from someplace south of here and she has a lovely but thick accent.

Stupid drummer who I am desperately trying to get rid of forever by not having him do the programming for the directories any more. He sends an email asking if we can meet for dinner so he can talk to me about the class at the high school that is going to take over to be sure that it will work. I told him I would try to get the number of the teacher because I'm not the right person to answer if they can do it or not. How does he not yet understand that I want NOTHING to do with him? Dummmbassss

Coworker gets pissed at me over honest to God a fairly stupid issue. Of the many things in this world to get upset about, trust me when I tell you this was minor. And easy to fix. Didn't matter. Completely unable to see outside of her own point of view. It's just exhausting. God knows life can be shitty enough, but life is short, and getting upset over something that is relatively easy to fix and or change seems like a waste.

Oh, and I am in the middle of a trillion ad appointments with parents. They make me tired. Very tired.

Yeah, that sums up my world. Tiresome. Irksome. The Usual.




Monday, October 1, 2012

Do you know how I know no one reads this

I've had a typo in my last post's headline for over a week. This is a blog getting zero traffic. Good thing I amuse myself to no end.