The thick and thin of it

So last night I got a big (8 1/2 x 11") envelope from University Up North. In it was the usual affirmative action form (yawn), as well as information about the city, the school's benefits, and the department newsletter!!! I was pretty excited because I figure it either means:

a) This is a good sign
b) They're really concerned that nobody wants to move there, so they're pretty desperate (in which case I might have more of a chance!).

I'm going with (a) for now, since I figure a thick envelope is always better than a thin one. But I'd love to know if this is something some schools do for all their applicants, and they're just trying to brag about how great the school is, or if it's reserved for a select few & usually associated with a subsequent phone call??? Seems to me it's unusually cruel to brag about how great the school is if you have no intention of inviting someone for an interview.

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In other news, this morning I got this lovely message from the wireless server when I tried to connect to the internet:

The device that this client is associated with has exceeded the allowed user limit.

WTF??? Nobody knew what that meant, and nobody else was having a problem connecting. After futzing with it for almost an hour with one of our local computer gurus, the connection came back just as magically as it had disappeared. Lovely! And always amusing to find out that no one around here has any more of a clue than I do.

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Also had the luck to be invited to lunch with a friend who was having a bad day. I hadn't seen her in a while, and I was more than happy to escape for an hour. I rarely go out to lunch, so her bad day worked in my favor.

Anyway it made me feel like Ms. Problem Solver, since she's always having all kinds of horrible personal problems, including family members who are ill or insane, and the boyfriend who claims he's serious but then isn't terribly considerate of her feelings. Sometimes it's amazing how listening to someone else's complaints can make you feel so much better about your own life! And I think she'll be fine, part of it is that she's feeling really isolated as the one woman at a small company. I figure eventually they will a) hire another woman, or b) she will find another job. In the meantime she has to figure out whether she wants to try to c) hang with the guys, d) ignore them, or e) say something to her boss about how uncomfortable she is. I can't come up with any other options.