Phonology is my friend

This week, my work reduced significantly.

Which meant I was finally able to put up a lot more Christmas decorations. It's almost Christmas, but I didn't just want to give up.

They sent me home early (early meaning earlier than I was scheduled to leave) three days this week. On Tuesday I left at my scheduled time, and on Friday I stayed late because they were behind because there were problems with the conveyor.

But we didn't have to work Saturday! We got a lot of work done last Saturday which has left us with a lot less work, which is nice.

At work we use a headset that we talk to. We strap on a belt, put a device on it, and plug in our headset. Sometimes the headset gets really annoying because it doesn't hear us right. I also think they should have hired a phonologist to suggest things we say, so that it doesn't confuse what we say with other words.

Fortunately, we can retrain our words, so that we can say whatever we want but the headset will think we are saying a particular word.

When we stock boxes on the shelves, we have to read in four characters using a phonetic alphabet. Here's where I really think they should have hired a phonologist:

S is Sierra. Sierra sounds too much like zero. I mean, /s/ and /z/ are the same except that /s/ is voiceless. So I retrained it to say Seattle. I have had far fewer problems with Seattle. Sometimes it thinks I'm saying seven, but it never thinks I'm saying zero, which it used to all the time.

U is uniform. That worked OK, but often it thought I was saying four or uniform four, which really doesn't make sense. So I retrained it to unicorn--and I have had no problems whatsoever!

Friday was really, really bad. The headset did not understand me at all. I ended up retraining three words. The boxes we stock come down in order, so the first of the four digits we read are the same, or else right next to each other, on any given day. On Friday, the boxes started with V.

V is victor. This has always been problematic. It thinks I'm saying six or, even weirder, X-ray. On my very first box it thought I was saying Eight two instead of victor like six times in a row! I could tell that if that was the first box, and I was going to be on Vs all day, that was not going to work. So I retrained it to say Vermont, and had no problems.

One expression we use frequently whether we're picking orders or stocking boxes is no more. We do this when we are done signing in to boxes. On Friday it would not hear me at all. Sometimes I would say it at least ten times and it would never hear me. Sometimes it would even think I was saying a combination of fours and some other numbers. So I retrained it to say nevermore, and have had no problems, except when I forget and accidentally say no more. (But even then it often works!)

T is tango. It often thinks I'm saying eight, but Friday was really bad. So I retrained it--I didn't change the word, I just gave it a Spanish pronunciation. Which actually is more consistent with my foreign pronunciations of Lima and Quebec. (There should be an accent aigu on that last word, but my laptop doesn't have the number pad, so putting in the accent is more complicated than I feel like dealing with right now.)

Since I didn't have to work yesterday, I tried to go running. But in the last month I've gotten both lazy and out of shape. Yesterday I only ran twelve minutes before I turned around and walked. I walked for eight minutes, than ran for another five, and then walked some more. But I'm kind of glad I did--later in the day I was coughing more than usual, and it's probably because of the air quality.

We went to see Hugo at the theater. I didn't like the 3D (I really don't understand why my dad likes it), but the movie was good. I think there are only two other movies I've seen in theaters this year, the last Harry Potter installment and Puss in Boots. The others are ones I don't plan to watch again because of language, but Hugo was very clean. The only offensive parts were some overheard conversations about a man not knowing if his wife's baby was his. Just when I lose faith in the world's morals, a clean movie like this will come out.