I'd have rathered stayed in bed. Did actually sleep an extra hour and thus miss my normal morning hour of exercise, but Bills Must Be Paid and thus work. I'm looking forward to spring. So much.

I mean, not the bit that means that I have to dig up all the highly overgrown iris under my spouse's office window. And the flower bed that never got weeded out properly last year because I kept putting it off for when I finally found a (red or white, preferably) camellia bush.

Camellia Japonica, in particular. Nothing else. It would've been easy to find the other variety, Sinensis, but they grow way too big, way too fast and get way too leggy for the spot I've got allocated.

This year I'll just buy the pink variety that's always easily available.

But yeah, spring and weeding and digging up that darn wild blackberry bush (they're a HIGHLY invasive species in the Pacific Northwest, even if they do have tasty berries) that refuses to let go of my front corner flowerbed. Dig out a shrub I loathe that blocks line of sight for people turning into the alley. Kill the dang invasive buttercups taking over my flowerbed next to the garage.

So much work to do, if only it was warm enough.

Of course, as soon as it's warm enough, it'll be raining so that's not gonna happen very soon, no matter what I want. *laughs ruefully and goes back to work*

This week has been Very Long and very busy. Unfortunately, next week will be even worse.

My day job (a manufacturing plant) is ISO9001 certified. This holds certain expectations, including efforts towards continuous improvement ongoing (I wish), a focus on quality and meeting customer expectations (Production needs to get with the agenda, dammit), and regular internal and external audits.

I'm the lead auditor. This means I set up the audit schedule. I train the auditors. I maintain the files. I do All The Things.

Including being the main contact person when someone comes in to audit us.

There's a rough 3 year cycle where our customers (mostly companies that make medical equipment who are FDA certified) come in and audit us. 2025 is The Year of the Audits, already. It's only gonna get worse.

I had a two-day customer audit this week. One prep day. Two days of Nothing But Audit. Literally. I sit there and answer questions and run around to get files, nine hours each day.

FYI, I'm an introvert. My face literally still hurts from all the Customer Service Smile.

We passed. A couple of minor findings and a few Opportunities for Improvement that we can choose to act upon. Or not. Probably not.

Thurs & Friday have been spent in recovery mode so far.

Next week!

Next week we have our once-in-three-years Certification audit that ensures that we stay ISO certified. That's 4 solid days of auditing, including coming in at 6:00 am one day so that the auditor can talk to graveyard shift.

Today and Mon will be spent in frantic preparation.

And, the reason that I'm Ugh today is that Production, who it will be noted REALLY NEED TO GET WITH THE PROGRAM after twenty-freaking-five years, is casually not paying attention to the quality requirements.

I'm steaming over it. I have no power to DO anything about it, but I'm steaming. It is what it is.

*sigh* I'm so glad its Friday. I'm gonna watch movies and sew seersucker blouses and write smut this weekend.

Anyway, off to work for me.
#Work #ugh #audit #tgif

Generally, I don't allow Anon access to my stuff. Generally. I mean, it's a route to getting harassed and I've no interest in feeding trolls of any variety, so I default to No Anon Access... pretty much everywhere.

But I'm brand new here and thus allowing Anon people to see what (little) I've posted makes sense. No one's gonna follow a blank screen, you know?

So Anon now has access. We'll see how that goes. I may change that over time or I may explore the permissions thing. Well. I WILL explore the permissions thing but that can wait for, you know, day 3 or 4 or whatever.

Relatedly, I 99% of the time do not post my face online. I'm not fond of photos of me in the first place. My maternal grandmother was outright obsessed with taking pictures so much of my childhood memories feature me posing for roll after roll after roll of film to be taken. So very over that.

I don't want to be remembered for my face.

I want to be remembered for my stories.

My art. The way I interacted with people and the things I did. I'm solidly queer (aro/ace and agender) so my actual physical body is... never what I wish it were, in part because what I wish my body was shifts moment to moment, day to day.

Which explains a lot of what I write, actually. So many queer characters. So much figuring out of love and life and gender when the world is shifting around one.

And, apropos of world shifts of the Most Unwelcome kind, I think I'll do a bit of promo for one of my (far too many) series: Debts to Recover.

This is the series 2nd highest on the spice setting out of all the stories I've written. It's got BDSM (consensual and ...very not), both debt and outright slavery, billionaires as true lords over everyone else and violent resistance to them. All told through the little guy's eyes.

It's dark. I took the current day at the time and projected it in the Worst Timeline direction. Honestly, I can see this happening especially with those in charge in the USA now. It horrifies me. One of the stories is bloody, gruesome, full of torture and both of the characters involved see it as a love story, which is... my brain surprised me that day.

Either way, it's full of people getting knocked down and getting back up despite the pain, despite the trauma, despite the abject hopelessness of their situation. There are rich people (well, one rich man) who tries his damnedest to actually be a good person.

Seems appropriate to everything going on right now.

(And yes, you have to click through to your preferred site. Gotta get my Shopify store set up. It's on the list for 2025. I'm still gonna try and point people at my stories even though it's Not Done Yet.)

Right. I have Done a Promotion, in a place where no one is likely to see it. *laughs* But that's okay. Back to work for me.