Somebody Get Me This Already
Oh dear Lords of Kobol.
As y’all know, Dr. Ding loves her some steampunk. And computery shit. And now, I can have both, in the form of this here Victorian All-In-One PC, courtesy of of steampunkworkshop.com.
Ok, you DIY muthafuckas, now get to work with your own personal army of evil, mechanically-inclined henchpersons and do my bidding.
Image credit with step-by-step instructions and everything
I’m On Vacation, Bitches
Dr. Ding is enjoying the Arctic temperatures of the veryfine Lincoln, NE. Yesterday it was fawty degrees outside. I loved it. It stirs my Midwestern blood, made phlegmatic from the sultry southern stylings of Houston weather.
Last night my posse and I paid homage to The Bel-Airs at the infamous Zoo Bar. Shari got the Bel-Airs to give Dr. Ding a shout-out in the form of the song “Sugar Mama” (which in my head is of course spelled Sugar Momma). It was HOT. Gail and I two-stepped like a house afire, and I shook my sweet fancy ass all night long. Well, I shook it until about 11:50, when we left b/c Shari had to get up early to do a fundraiser. We are, after all, mature and classy broads with social obligations beyond mere rumpshaking and the frequent shouting of the phrase “Sang it, baby! Who’s ya mama!” at well-timed intervals. But Oh what a time we had.
I’ll post pics later, if I can be bothered.
I’m on vacation, bitches.
Now if you’ll buhscuse me, Dr. Ding got some sashay latte to drink, some more Doritoes to consume di-reckly out of the bag, and a pilgrimage to ShopKo to undertake whereupon I will commence to purchasing some very reasonably priced casual clothing. Very busy here.
Becoming A Career Saboteur
So Dr. Ding has decided to commit blog recursion, which will doubtless become increasingly random, pixellated, and downright glittery as the next few weeks progress. Yeaah. A diet consisting solely of gin, KFC “fixins” and thumbtacks will do that to a person.
Here are the 5 best ways to deep-six your career. Deep-six…sounds like I’m writing a Tom Clancy novel. Christ. Okay, scuttle then. That just sounds like a PBS voiceover: “The British navy of 1817 was then forced to scuttle their fleet just off the Barbary Coast, due to a serious shortage of frock coats and frilly blouses, to say nothing of those giant brass squares historical folk like to wear ‘pon their shoes.” Alright alright, so maybe I watch PBS with the sound turned off and make up my own stories. Get off me.
Where was I again? Ah yes. Busy stringing an elaborate system of fuses and electrical charges underneath the collective patience of my readership, thereby sabotaging it. Get it? Sabotaging.
1. Show up late/leave early. This is not always obvious, but those 8:05 a.m. starts and 1:08 p.m. returns from lunch, coupled with 4:51 p.m. departures start to add up over the course of a week. If you work for a loosey-goosey company culture and/or you have an agreement with your boss to make up the time so that it all averages out, great. But if you’re consistently shorting your coworkers, your employer, and your clientele, you’re probably not exactly going to be first in line for a promotion, raise, bonus, or cheap-ass faux-wood Employee of the Month plaque that in the dark recesses of your little heart you secretly covet.
2. Forget your place. I know this sounds a little colonial of me, but here I’m referring to when you’re the boss/manager/administrator but choose to make close friendships with people whose performance you must evaluate. Improperly handled, blending the professional with the personal can be bad mojo; being overly chummy with your employees can make your judgement appear biased as well as create a very high-schooly, cliquey climate in the office if limits aren’t in place. Again, in a very small company, this isn’t nearly as big of a deal because there probably isn’t a formal system of performance assessment anyway. But if you’re getting bucktoothed and cross-eyed from drinking tequila shooters with people who report to you….not the best plan for earning the respect of your subordinates or impressing your superiors.
Does this mean you can’t socialize with your co-workers? Of course not. But set some limits; maybe happy hours or dinners as a group are fine, but hanging out 1:1 isn’t. Or maybe 1:1 is ok, but only if it’s during lunch. Whatever. But figure this out up-front so you don’t suddenly find yourself being brought up on sexual harrassment charges because you jokingly told your “friend” you would drink a tub of their bathwater during off-hours in a festive moment of classy wine bar-fueled revelry. Not so festive come Monday morning.
3. Make it a point to learn jack shit. Dr. Ding has had the unfortunate experience of working with other shrinks who haven’t bothered to learn a new therapeutic technique since Freud was in short pants. These people invariably have the most “difficult” patients with the worst problems….which couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail… Not only is this kind of mental ossification tiresome, it’s the surest way of putting yourself on the fast track to being relegated to the tiniest office with the ricketiest chairs, overlooking a fœtid dumpster, somwhere in Siberia.
4. Be a glory hog. If you don’t give credit where it’s due to your work peeps, and instead do a lot of impression-management as you furtively shop for expensive timepieces online while everyone else toils away on their TPA reports, uh, DUH. Karma is a bitch. With sharp nails. And some day, when you’re least expecting it, she’ll cut ya. Believe.
5. Stop dreaming. Some of the unhappiest, dysfunctional, and all-around fucktarded employees I’ve worked with have been those whose stopped dreaming. Stopped thinking about their goals, plans, and wild ideas. Stopped remembering why they got into the field/business/profession in the first place, and started complaining like a fundamentalist at a trashcan punch party. Not fun to be around. And startlingly unproductive.
When people start drifting too much, inertia invariably sets in. If you don’t course correct and set your compass for something better than what you’ve got, your sweet ass gonna stay smack-dab in the psychospiritual lacuna of Geez I Wish I’d Win The Lottery But I Never Buy Tickets Swamp.
To recapitulate the themes: Be on time, be clear on how you set your work/play boundaries, and be generous with your praise. Learn new stuff. Dream. Dream BIG. Plan. Scheme. Succeed. And then you can buy me this.
Holy Fuckin Wow
Dearest Dinginators:
As of this moment (or possibly several days earlier, as I can be a tad bit tardy with my interweb doings, owing to my arduous if not preposterous travel schedule), Dr. Ding is officially….. a professional writer.
Check it, on the record, buck nekkid, Dr. Ding is now an all-around dogsbody for UGO.com, muthafuckas.
Hold up. Evil Manservant Jeebes just informed me that it is considered most unseemly to use the term “muthafuckas” and that the more correct and polite term is, in fact, motherfuckers.
Thank you, Jeebes, for that timely bit of Victoriana.
So, if you know any major male geeks out there, send them my way on UGO. Here’s a link to the post.
Peace out, my darlingest, dearest motherfuckers!
Dr. Ding 1, Dr. Phil 0
Well well well.
Looky looky.
Seems like somebody got a case of the badly frozen bunghole and didn’t show up for the Beatdown In H-Town.
Hah! This means Dr. Ding wins. Bitches up!
Dr. Phil: Dr. Ding Is Coming For Your Sorry, Dockers-Wearing Ass
Dr. Ding just read that Dr. Phil’s henchmen bailed a passel of teenagers out of jail what put the beat-down on another teenager and filmed it. He’s been trying to claim that it’s all a big misunderstanding and that said henchmen weren’t acting on his behalf and that they were just supposed to provide the means for these thugs to be able to appear on his show.
Shrinky say wha?
Nice job, Phil. Way to enable the living shit out of a bunch of junior-grade psychopaths. Here’s the message you’re sending: Want to get on national TV sporting some new threads and a pocketful of cash? Why, just mount up your bepimpled posse to go assault someone you wouldn’t have the courage to face mano-a-mano, and film it so you can relive your incredibly daring and well-choreographed triumph! When Dr. Phil springs your sorry ass from the jailtime you so richly deserve you can feel extra good about yourself and your choice of hobbies. No guilt! No consequences! Easy peasy.
I don’t even know what else to say here except that the world deserves Dr. Ding-style justice* and not Dr. Phil-style sensationalistic and utterly immoral quackery. But quick.
So Phil-baby. Consider this your official challenge: you and me, sans handlers, henchpersons and manservants, noon tomorrow, AskDrDing Comments, any choice of weaponry. Me, I’ll use my wits, my sass, and my keen sense of moral outrage. Also, I should let you know that my tiara doubles as a deadly, highly-glamorous boomerang. I’m assuming here that you will probably just bring your moustache, your grody attempts at folksy charm, and your boundless greed.
It’s on, Philly Mac. Come prepared to marshall some serious arguments in order to defend your actions from my scathing logic and general pissed-offedness. Bring it.
*Superficially, Dr. Ding-style justice looks a LOT like Drunken Monkey-style kung-fu, but let me assure you; it’s far more swift, and twice as deadly what with all the purse-windmilling, arm-flailing, and cheetah-like screaming going on.