"Corsairs of the Space Lanes"

"Chief, we have a bit of a problem with the upcoming issue of Thrilling Space Yarns."
"Yes?"
"We were all excited about getting the latest serial from Ed Bangington, Corsairs of the Space Lanes."
"Indeed we all were. It's a rip-roaring tale. One of his best."
"We even got Margaret Bondage to do the cover art. Unfortunately..."
"Yesss?"
"Bondage and the typesetter both got a copy of the manuscript with a slight typo in it."
"How slight?"
"Well. They all thought the title was Corsets of the Space Laces."

(Yes, I'm doing some recycling again. I had originally posted this in Making Light, on May 23, 2007, in a thread that needed a lot of levity, and sort-of had the needed effect, however briefly it did. I thought I'd post it here to remind myself.)

"Everybody knows THAT..."

Most of my work is done on unix servers that use the Solaris O/S, but some of the applications are Windows-based. I've always found it a bit of a pain when, for example, I need to take a query out of a unix program so that I can run it standalone on Excel to generate a spreadsheet. The process was kind of convoluted, with me using FTP to download the program into a TXT document on my laptop before I cut/paste it into Excel. This morning, I accidentally discovered that I can use Solaris's CUT option after selecting the query out of the unix program, then I use Window's own PASTE option in a Windows document. That's it. I know, some of you are going to say that everybody knows that trick.

Another wonderful aspect of telecommuting has revealed itself to me.

If ever you find yourself considering a working arrangement where you'd physically be quite far from your co-workers, don't. If the thought persists, take a very cold shower. If that doesn't do the trick, work a few months in a closet at your current office, but you're never allowed to come into physical contact with the others. Your only way to communicate is by email, or by phone. And make sure that teleconferences and team-training sessions involve a room with bad accoustics and a so-so speakerphone. Oh, and the person doing the training must send you a document to follow during the training but doesn't tell you which page you're supposed to look at. Not that that matters because most of his/her important stuff will be written on a white board that you can't see.

That'll cure you.