In the Reeds

I've been feeling bored lately, mostly because I'm starting to get pains in my wrist - I think caused by too much Diablo 3. I've decided to take it easy on my wrists for a bit in order to be ready for the Company of Heroes game with A1 and A2 over the weekend. I signed up for Amazon's MTurk today - which is where people can submit HITs (Human  Intelligence Task) and people are paid to do them. Most of it is pretty boring stuff, clicking on stuff, and you only get paid around $0.10 per task. Plus, since I don't live in the US, I can only get paid in Amazon gift certificates.

I mostly figured, I spend so much time clicking stuff in games for free (or in some cases, I pay to click in those games), why not make it something profitable. The tasks themselves aren't that taxing, the only boring part is filtering through all the crap tasks, and tasks that don't seem all that ethical (one task was to block a certain result in the Google search results, which I'm guessing is a competitor of that company). I think I made about $1.30 today (assuming the tasks I did get approved). Though I know I'd make more money if I was doing work at work and claiming overtime for it, so it doesn't feel that amazing.

One of them was kinda fun. Someone had a list of company executives, and you had to find out whether they still worked for the company, and held the title they had listed. Albert and Grad Daniel keep calling me a stalker because I can find information about people. I don't really consider myself stalker-like anymore, as I don't spend time looking up information about someone or something unless someone else is after the information (the exception being Grad Daniel, before he started, because I wanted to make him feel welcome, so I read his blog). I don't think my Internet searching skills are all that amazing, though I'd like to get to Tom Gale's level some day. I just think that in comparison to the less technical minded people I know at work, I am more adept at navigating the intranet and looking for things with Google. Plus, my first rotation was in a support team, and I had to learn how to find/contact other people in order to resolve issues. 

Add to that what Albert calls my "freakish memory", which is not really amazing memory, but the fact that I don't see a lot of people outside my team very often, so I tend to remember the few things I learn about the people I meet. I'm starting to get the feeling that he is a bit scared of me. I also say things to him that I now realise are quite mean, even though my intention was just playful teasing.

So inspired by Darren's One Year to A Better Me challenge, I've decided to set a little challenge of my own. I'm trying to go 30 days without saying anything mean to anyone. I've already failed twice (yersterday and today - once with Intern Daniel, once with Grad Daniel, I'm so weak during lunch. T_T). So I'll start the countdown again tomorrow. Wish me luck!

FX Appeal

Someone on Reddit asked if anyone who had made a post (with naked/revealing pics) on r/gonewild had lived to regret their decision, and this particular comment, and I_KeepsItReal's reply caught my interest.

(In case comments are deleted or the thread dies.)

I think it was a couple of weeks ago when I had a dream that I had had sex with my manager. I felt guilty at the time, but then I realised it was probably like in Scrubs when Turk dreamt about Elliot (NSFW). Only it won't go away. It's like a switch has been flipped, I barely noticed him before and things were really cool between us, like friends. But now when I see him, I can't help but think, "I dreamt about having sex with you." It's not that bad, since we are on different projects at the moment, so I barely talk to him at work except about graduate program related things.

Except when there was a team movie night last Thursday, and we went for a drink after the movie (I only tagged along because I felt bad for the guy who organised the movie night, as only the 3 of us went). The other guy chugged down two beers, then his wife called him and he had to leave. So it left the two of us. Even though I was slowly drinking my one drink, I could feel my mind getting slower and slower and I was saying things I probably wouldn't have said normally. I was almost about to tell him about the dream when I finished my drink and I think the rational part of my mind finally won control and told me it was time to go home.

Now that I'm thinking clearly, I can see no benefit in telling him - unless my ultimate goal is to make things so awkward that I get kicked out of my team and have to try and find another role for when the graduate program ends. Which I can assure you it is not. But that does not change the fact that some days, I can't even look at him in the eye without being worried that he can read my mind and know why I feel so embarrassed.

I_KeepsItReal says that masturbating is a healthy way to cope with an infatuation. But it just doesn't seem right to do it thinking of my boss. Partly because I would feel bad as I love MrMan5.5. I don't believe that we can only think of each other while masturbating, but the fact that it's someone I actually know and not a video of a stranger on the Internet just makes it seem more real, and ups the guilt-factor.

The other part is the concern that it might get worse. Dreams happen by accident (well, sub-conscious mind, etc., etc.) - it's not like I actively made myself dream about him. If I tried to do it on purpose, then I might go from thinking I dreamt about him when I see him to the constant reminder that I fantasised about him while pleasuring myself.

I'm slowly adding to my list of reasons I regret choosing this team. Since Person is so great at sucking the sexual energy out of everything, I'm almost certain this would never have happened when I was in his team. But I console myself with the thought that I have learnt far more in 4 months in FX than I learnt in 6 months in Person's team.

Hey, Listen!

I haven't mentioned Grad Daniel yet, but he's one of the new grads who is currently in my team. I kinda think of him as my protégé, because even though he's a grad, it feels like he's a grad like me, who doesn't care about brown-nosing. I think a lot of the time, we get each other through the work day, because we'll chat to each other over IM and keep each other awake. One of the things that he does a lot is eavesdrop on other people's conversations. We have an open plan office which means you can always hear other people talking.

When I was growing up, I was always taught that eavesdropping is rude. I did it anyway, but I tried to avoid doing it on purpose. After starting work, and with all the background chatter, I started to filter things out - firstly because I figured I should keep out of other people's business, but also because there are certain compliance things regarding knowing information, and I don't want to get someone into trouble by saying something I shouldn't - so the less I know, the better!

But it seems like eavesdropping is the norm in my current team. Mostly it's the good kind of eavesdropping, when Grad Daniel and I are trying to solve a particular problem, and one of the more experienced developers will overhear and say, "Why don't you try X?" But sometimes it's about personal things. I partly feel that if they are talking that loudly, then whatever they say is free game, but I still feel that if I were to chip in suddenly, it would be rude.

Grad Daniel keeps telling me to get better at eavesdropping so that I can keep up with what's going on in the rest of the team. Maybe I should just listen and not say anything unless I really think they will benefit from my addition?