Progress

Hi! I've been really busy at work, which maybe you could tell because I haven't posted anything for about two months. And it's been longer than that since I had a good rant. But I'm sort of back, now. And I'm going straight into the toilet.

Literally.

At work, I'm on the second floor of five (and a ground floor, so technically, it's the third floor of six) with all the other software developer-types, our managers, QA, their managers, project developers and managers (and their management), and who knows what else. There are a lot of us packed like sardines into 5' x 8' cubes.

And in the bathroom, when we wave our hands in front of the towel dispenser to get a towel, it gives four inches of towel and then makes you wait a full ten seconds or so before you can get another four inches of towel. This is a recent change that has not gone unnoticed.

It's very annoying, because now, guys stand there and drip (their hands, people; get your minds out of the gutter) while waiting for the tiny paper towel, which does nothing but smear the water around because it's too small to dry anything larger than a field mouse (again, hands, people).

I was recently on the fifth floor. Up in the "penthouse" where the guys with seven-digit salaries dwell. There are probably 1/6 as many of them as there are of us on the second floor. And their towel dispenser has no delay. And it gives a glorious eight full inches. Of towel. (Mind, gutter, out of.)

I was in the bathroom on the second floor washing my hands and there were three of us in there waiting to get towels, dripping water onto the floor and bitching about the inadequate towel dispensage.

One of the guys suggested with a wry laugh that it must have been one of the more successful outcomes of our highly vaunted Six Sigma project. Surely, we were using too many paper towels, so the obvious solution to cut costs would be to limit our per-tear towel use and our per-minute consumption rate of said towels by making it so inconvenient that we would merely resort to wiping our hands on our pants and leaving in disgust.

Instead, what it has done is caused the floor to be dangerously slick because, when we can't get towels, some people sling the water off onto the floor, walls, or counters around the sink. And some guys just don't wash their hands at all, which increases the likelihood of horrible things being on every surface.

And instead of getting a single eight-inch towel, we're now having to get three four-inch towels (do the math). And it takes longer to get them.

We spend longer away from our desks. There is probably an increased rate of no hand-washing. As a result of that, there is an increase in towel usage because now people have to get a towel to open the door of the bathroom before they leave. Water is everywhere, which increases how often the janitorial service has to clean up. And employees are grousing about it instead of just washing our hands and quickly vacating the bathroom.

Great jobs, management. Truly.

And yeah, the manager-type who suggested the Six Sigma tie-in was joking . . . but the more I think about it, the less funny it is, because I'll bet you someone somewhere did have a meeting about it.

My solution? I'll just take the elevator up to the fifth floor and use their bathroom. Then I can waste energy as well as towels.

Progress!

Writer's Block: Multiple Personalities

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I have several personalities, each of which I've let come out to play on my journal, from time to time.

There's Skippy the Skeptic, the personification of my inner skeptic. When he comes out, it's usually in the form of—

Really? We're going to do this again?

<sigh> Yes, Skippy.

I still loathe you for calling me Skippy, you know.

How well I do. Because you keep telling me. Over and over. And over.

So, after Skippy came Bradford, the personification of my inner child. I made a joke that my inner child is a 4-year-old brat. Later, he got a name.

WANNA 'NOTHER COOKIE!

Bradford, you can't—

BUT I WANNA!
He's just going to keep shouting until you give in, you know.

I'm nominally in charge, here, you know.

You would be if you'd ever bother to grow a pair.

Aaaand that would be Preston, the Procrastinator. Who is pretty much responsible for my epic ability to procrastinate. And who, for reasons unknown to me, insults me a lot.

I believe that a better word for what you do is 'perendinate,' which certainly describes your actions far better than 'procrastinate.'

Yes, Jürgen. As you probably already figured out, Jürgen is my inner grammar nazi.

You should capitalize 'Nazi.'
What if he doesn't feel like it, you Hitler-loving—
I'M BORED!

Shut up, Bradford!
Be quiet, child!
Waste of your time, Gentlemen.
Why did you capitalize 'gentlemen'? It should not be cap--
I did it just to annoy you.

What-evs. I'm outta here. There's, like, stuff to do. Tomorrow. Or maybe Sunday...
'Outta' is not a word!

<watches them all go> This is what it's like inside my head, some days.

You know, the days where I don't have a stuck song.

I believe you meant 'on which' instead of—

I will hurt you.

Help Me Invent a Word

I have a novel in progress called Perdition's Flames. It's an urban fantasy, and it takes place in modern Atlanta, but magic works. This is the first book of a potential series. Right now, it's at about 55,000 words (and on hold for a bit). I also have written most of the bare bones of the second book and have some ideas for the third, fourth, and fifth books.

In Perdition's Flames, necromancers will be involved. Traditionally, 'necromancy' meant 'divination by communication with the dead,' but I'm using it much more broadly to mean 'deriving magical power from the dead or dying.'

For the second book (Death Scene), I'll be using psychometry, or divining using an object (a.k.a. 'object reading'), although I'll be changing that a bit, as well. And I'll also be using stasis and a few other neat powers.

For the third book (working title Fatal Beauty, which blows), I'll be using something I can't find a word for. Someone is going to have power that primarily operates on/through works of art. I haven't worked out all the details, yet, but . . . "artomancer" just sounds stupid. :)

The '-mancy' part comes from the Greek word for 'divination' or 'oracle.' So, ideally, the first part would also come from Greek. However, the Greek word for 'art' is τέχνη (pronounced, roughly, tekhnee). There is already a word somewhat commonly used in the genre: 'technomancy,' which is used for the meshing of science and magic, or magic through technology, or that kind of thing. 'Techno-' may have originally meant 'art,' but these days, it just doesn't unless you twist it a bit.

And the fine distinction between 'technomancy' and 'technimancy' is too small for me to expect readers to follow.

So, my question to the hivemind is this: Can you suggest some words that I could use to mean roughly 'artomancy' but without sounding overly stupid? :)

Alternatively, is there a tradition in some mythology I'm overlooking that has something like this? If so, I could take the name from that mythos.