We were having our weekly marketing meeting over Teams last week and my boss said I was being sassy.
(He wasn’t mad or anything. He laughed when he said it.)
This followed my comment in which I told D, my supervisor, “Sure, I’ll have that assignment done before noon. As long as you don’t drone on and on during this meeting.”
You know you’ve reached a certain comfort level at your job when you can let your true personality show. For me, that involves sarcasm. Whenever you start a new job, you’re on your best behavior for a while. You toe the line, play nice. You don’t suggest, during a brainstorming meeting to come up with a campaign announcing faster broadband gigabyte speeds, that the company adopt the slogan, “Just a GIG-olo.” Or that, in order to achieve employee buy-in for a new customer experience (CX) initiative, we all wear t-shirts that say, I Want Your CX.
But 15 months in, when you’ve gotten to know your coworkers and feel comfortable in your role, you aren’t afraid to go for broke and let a little sarcasm fly, if that’s your jam.
As long as they keep laughing and giving me decent performance reviews, I’m going to keep at it.
Guess we’d better figure out how much we’re going to have to pay David Lee Roth and George Michael’s estate in royalties.
Before I forget, I owe my parents an apology. Remember how I said they paid me a genuine writing compliment for the first time ever recently? And mentioned that they would read that and object?
They read that and objected.
I never meant to imply that my folks aren’t anything but supportive. They are. And yes, they have complimented me before. They were just extra enthusiastic this time around, so: my bad.
We’re currently sitting in the basement on a quiet Sunday morning. There’s a fire in the hearth and we’re sipping coffee while listening to Eric Clapton’s Unplugged on our turntable. Tara just told me he’s an anti-vaxxer. Sigh. Damn shame, but I won’t stop listening to his music just because he’s an idiot.
Ted Nugent can still kiss my ass though.
This weekend has been fairly uneventful. We aren’t planning much next weekend either, aside from the Super Bowl (go, Bengals!). We’ll probably head to Fort Collins for a mini-getaway the weekend after that, since Covid ruined our Beetle Burn plans. Weather-permitting, of course, but I doubt that will be an issue. It’s been warmer and drier than average for going on two years now and we’ve had very little snow to speak of, even though the eastern third of the country has been getting walloped.
Of course, now that we have plans that weekend, we’ll probably end up with a blizzard.
In other exciting news, I bought a smoker!
Well, ordered a smoker from Amazon. It’ll be here on Thursday. No rush; we may be having a mild winter, but a windy 42º still isn’t conducive to smoking meat. It’ll be a couple of months before we can really use it.
I’ve wanted a smoker for years. Christmas Light Kelly’s hubby, Joe, has one, and the scent of smoked meat occasionally wafts across the street while he’s cooking. It’s enough to drive a man insane.
Unlike Bitcoin investing, Tara was all in. So, I started researching smokers. I’m a guy who researches the hell out of pretty much everything before I buy. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. I spent an hour last month reading reviews on men’s slippers before committing to a pair. I’m sure it’s an ingrained habit since so much of my day-to-day work involves research.
When I first started looking at smokers, I was sure I wanted an electric one. They’re easy to use and dependable. But, after consulting multiple sources and reading dozens of reviews and comments, I actually decided charcoal was the way to go. This surprised me, but I like to keep an open mind. Charcoal smokers, I learned, are the trickiest to master—there’s a learning curve to maintaining the proper temperature—but once you know how to work ’em, they deliver the best results.
So, I bought this guy.
It’s almost enough to make me wish winter away so we can hang out on the patio and smoke some brisket and ribs!
Mark My Words 
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