Y11 D275

It RAINED last night. That's right rain! Meaning it didn't get cold enough to snow. The first signs of this winter hell being over. Unfortunately 4-8 inches of snow are predicted for tonight starting around 5pm and going until 10am tomorrow. Sigh. We shall see. Let's hope it stays warm enough that the snow can't stick.

Spent my morning yesterday cleaning the kitchen and getting rid of the extinguisher crud from the stove. I had let the oven cleaner sit overnight to do it's magic. That's the first time the stove has been cleaned since we bought the place and was overdue anyway. Our stove is now sparkling. When that was done I put a pot roast in the slow cooker. Knock multiple things out of the way before 9am. Boom.

The majority of the day yesterday was spent dealing with a font issue. Yes, you heard me. A font issue. Apparently there are two different flavors of the Trebuchet font and one gets passed correctly into LITMOS, the other doesn't. I had to spend a good chunk of my day editing documents for B to rebuild because the font was coming through right. On top of that, dealing with some stupid ass marketing request. An annoying work day. Although I did think about one thing. My coworker asked me if I would be willing to submit to a background check and drug test for the client next week. I emphatically said no. They were offering it to allow me to have non-escort access. I am fine with an escort thank you very much. But it got me thinking. I wrote this to my boss:

Gentlemen,

Earlier today XXXX asked me if I would be willing to submit to a background check and drug test in order to avoid having to have an escort during my time at ERCOT. I refused. I have no problem having an escort and have a BIG problem with a random corporation wanting access to my personal information and bodily fluids. Now this particular situation is not an issue as it was a simple question with a simple refusal and onward we go, but it left me thinking about this issue overall.

Specifically, how many companies out there have my personal information when they really shouldn’t? Think of how many places I have visited in the past decade - Lasko, Disney, Lutron, Kaiser, Premera, James Avery, AEP, Daimler, Landstar, TVA – just to name a few, and how many of them STILL have me in their database? My picture, my driver’s license number, my passport number, fingerprints (more of these than you’d imagine), and even my social security number in a few rare cases! Heck for COH I had to submit to MEDICAL questions and doctor’s visits. XXXX wanted me to blindly give information to the state of Utah even when we didn’t know if I would be working on anything for them! How do we allow them to get away with this? It seems we as a company are okay with signing NDAs and bending over backwards to protect their security, but what are they doing to protect ours?

Going forward, at the end of every engagement I do, I plan to ask the client to delete any personal information they have captured on me. I want my data expunged from their system. I understand that they need it (need being a strong word) during the active engagement while I am on their premises, but once I leave, it should be deleted. And I will ask strongly for this. If I have to go back to a client then we will redo the process. I would rather do that than have all my information in a potentially compromising situation. I hope you have my back on this and can understand where I am coming from on the rights of my privacy.

To that end, would we consider adding a simple line to our contracts? One that simply states that we expect any personal employee information to be removed from a client’s database at the completion of a training/mentoring engagement?

Nothing has come of it of course. Not even a response, but it made me feel better. I do seriously plan to ask companies to purge my information when I leave. Let's see how that goes over.

After dinner played some Wolcen. Enjoying it even with the glitches. I am going through the story and am curious to see the replay aspect. That's what separates Diablo from other games. I can play it again and feel like it's a 'new' game because of the dynamic challenges in seasons and the changing maps. Let's see how Wolcen does. There is a mode that gets unlocked when I finish the story. I am in Chapter 2 of 3.

Went to bed around 10:30 and slept ok. Not great but okay. More of the same document stuff today but otherwise no big issues, yet. B is going to bingo so I am on my own for dinner.