Three B's: Back, Beacon of Darkness, and the Borg

Back. Mine to be exact. It must be this getting old thing that I hear everyone complaining about. And I don't mind it as long as it happens to other people, but when it happens to moi? Then not so good. And I wish I knew what happened, but starting on Monday night, my back started to hurt me. My lower back. Near my kidneys. Which sort of freaked me out. Oh, and nothing like being in medium grade pain all of the time to turn me into Mr. Sunshine. Of course, I can't take any time off since I have major vacation plans later this summer, so I went into work anyways. Just not good. But it seems to have worked itself out, and I feel good again. I think it was a sprain or a pulled muscle. It kind of reminded me of this.

Beacon of Darkness. While I am a debbie downer sometime, I'm just an amateur compared to the Beacon of Darkness. One of my guys comes into my office every day and then just proceeds to just DUMP EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM IN THE WORLD ON MY DESK. With positive thoughts like: "Our software sucks." Or "You do that and you will just fail." Or my favorite: "It's just doomed." It's a great way to start your day, let me tell you. So, here's my deal. I really appreciate that we've discovered problems, challenges, etc. How about going that next step and actually help me come up with a solution to the problem? Or, does it just feel better to walk away after you've dumped on me?

The Borg. I met with the PM from this other company which is large, ever-present, and they all look alike so I call them the Borg. Dressed in their suits (usually blue with white shirts), their short cut hair with standard issue hair gell, they file out of the hive and swarm all over the DoD. I was meeting with him because he's basically pimping over one of my guys over. So we met to discuss and he would listen to my comments, think for a second, and say something like: "I hear what you're saying, but if you look at the bigger picture . . ." Hello. WHAT F&*KING BIGGER PICTURE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? You are screwing over one of my guys. What part of "Hell to the No" don't you understand. The funny thing is that we always joke that the Borg drones like to hear themselves talk and they basically just keep saying the same thing over and over again but just mixing the words around. It's like they get paid per word. So I just played the same game. Our meeting was 90 minutes long and he was trying to defend his really indefensible position, and I was just battering at him. I'm not sure I won the war, but I definitely won this battle. We'll see what he comes up with next.