My internet connection went down over the weekend and I ended up taking a half-day of vacation so I could be around for my appointment with the repair guy from 1-5. *grumpf* Why can’t they make appointments like normal people (e.g. 3-4)? Anyways, as you can see my internet connection has finally been fixed and I’ve been catching up on my email and reading the blogs that I do. The following quiz was found via AWelkin:
Tag: email
As mentioned previously, I signed up with Adagio Teas for their Link Reward offer. Over the weekend I received an email from one of their reps, thanking me for the link and saying that my reward was on the way. Privately, I was having doubts as my track record with freebies, trial offers and rebates is extremely poor.
Then today after a pretty average day at the office, I got home to find that my doormat was hiding something. The first thought in my head was “I wonder what eBay auction Ariesna won this time?” Much to my delight, my first thought was wrong and instead I was holding a package from Adagio! I hurried inside, tossed the groceries into the fridge and cracked open the box. I was most pleased to find that an 8oz tin of yunnan jig tea and one of Adagio’s IngenuiTEA teapots. After taking the IngenuiTEA out of the box and plastic wrapping, I could feel that the plastic it’s made of has a solid feel to it; so I don’t think I’ll be accidentally breaking it any time soon. Still, if I were going to purchase one of these things, I think I would prefer the main body be made of a heavy-duty glass. *shrug* I don’t know that glass would really work any better but it would give the IngenuiTEA a better heft and feeling of quality. Still, it looks to be a quality product and it’s definitely a very clever idea. You toss your loose tea leaves into the IngenuiTEA, fill it with hot water, wait for it to brew and then set it on top your cup. The IngenuiTEA will then drain your fresh cup of tea into the cup for you; while automatically straining out the leaves. If you’re still confused; go watch the flash video on their website and it’ll all make sense.
Adagio has this to say about their yunnan jig tea:
Black tea from the Yunnan region of China. Yunnan tea is easily identified by its luscious soft leaves, and a unique peppery taste. It is a very forgiving tea; will not taste bitter when over-steeped. Yunnan tea is arguably the most underrated of Chinese varieties. If you have yet to try it, we would recommend it highly. Our ‘Yunnan Jig’ would make a great introduction.
I found it slid smoothly across the palate. When it initially hits the tongue there’s an earthy flavor to it, but swirling it around in my mouth for a bit that flavor settles down to be more smoky than earthy. After swallowing the tea, there’s a slight but distinct hint of black pepper. The first cup I made was too hot, so I threw a bit of ice in it but the tea tasted… off once it was cold. It wasn’t just being watered down; it just didn’t taste right. On the 2nd cup, I was more careful on how hot I let the water get and this time drank the tea without ice. That worked considerably better and I’d definitely recommend this to anybody who enjoys drinking black tea.
So the final verdict? Adagio seems to be a very cool company with tasty tea and a nifty gadget for brewing the tea up. Does this mean CoffeeBear.net will become TeaBear.net? No, but I’ve no doubt I’ll be buying more tea from them once this sample runs out (some of those green teas and the flavored teas sounds really good.). 🙂
Bah, I’m still a bit torked off about yesterday. At work1, there’s been a person who keeps sending up emails with the wrong code in the subject line. We use these codes to route the issues to the correct person and putting the wrong code on the email can mean a delay of at least a week before the issue gets looked at. Well, this same idjit2 sent an email asking for an update on one of those issues. Since I was running a process at the time; I looked over the issue, found it was mislableled, forwarded it over to the correct person and then spent probably 2 hours writing up a diplomatic response explaining the difference between two of the codes we use.
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*UGH* That was a looooooooooooong day. The night before, I’d headed to bed around 11 (slighly early for me) thinking I was bit a head of the game. Boy was that ever the wrong thing to be thinking. I layed down in bed and then tossed & turned for the next 5 hours without ever falling asleep. Finally around 4am, I got out of bed and dinked around on the computer until it was time to get ready for work.
I got to the office and after an extra strong cup of coffee1; I started hitting the program hard-core. I setup a spreadsheet to list off all the possible things I wanted to look at while testing this particular part of the program and went to town getting it setup. It was slower progress in the morning and I was still fairly out of it when my phone rang. No, no, no. You don’t understand. MY PHONE RANG!
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Today was a brillant example of why management sucks. I was working merrily along1 testing a particular area of the software. Then I had to teleconference –he said with extreme venom and hatred– into a meeting for a testing project that I’m not currently working on but that I would much, much rather be on. For extra fun, that teleconference –again said with extreme venom and hatred– call was taken at my desk. A desk which I might add is in a cubicle, a private office. A cubicle which happens to be located next to the loudest @#%&@(^&!#($)^*^()#$^#%&^@$(^#$(^#)(%*@&($#^ f’ing support group in our building. They’ve got email; they’ve got phones; they’ve even got IM but when this group wants to communication; they just scream crap out.
Anyways, I took the conference call and listened in watching my clock count away the wasted minutes of my life. When the meeting was finally over; I got back to working on the @#(%@ project that I am currently assigned to. I’d only gotten a few minutes into working when I get a meeting announcement for another meeting today. In fact, just 20 minutes away but the only information that the announcement gives me about the meeting is a subject line of “Test”. WTF?
It’s coming from one of my managers2 and he’s sent out dozens of meeting announcements before without any problems; so why would he be trying to test the system out that way? 20 minutes later, I got the answer.
Apparently, UPPER management decided that everybody in the company is going to have to take this general aptitude test but had told middle/lower management that they weren’t supposed to say anything yet. Then Human Resources started sending out meeting invitations to schedule people for the test. So our managers were pulling an emergency meeting to do spin-control and fight the rumor mill. There was one problem with that plan.
Some of the team I’m on –including me– work out of a different building, in a different state and we’re not scheduled to take this stupid test until next week. As such and as our HR person isn’t a complete f’ing idiot; she didn’t send out the invites yet because she wasn’t supposed to. So the only thing that the emergency meeting occomplished for me was to start freaking me out instead of helping me stay calm. I hadn’t heard a word about this test until I went to this meeting and then I got treated to roughly an hour of how they couldn’t tell us yet because management said they couldn’t and you have to do what management says and they won’t use this as the sole factor of whether or not you keep your job as that would be nuts and I’ll fight against that thing I said they’d never do tooth and nail. Riiiiiiiiiight. Like I’m going to believe you’re going to fight that hard for me when you just got done saying you didn’t already tell us because management said not to and you have to do what they say.
I feel sooooooooooooooo reassured. *sigh*
1 As merrily as I ever get at work, first thing in the morning.
2 Work isn’t quite as bad for me as it was for Peter Gibbons; I’ve only got 2 direct supervisors instead of 4 (or was it 6?).