Tag: office

Tuesday Morning

Wednesdays are my commute to the office days, but this week I have an in-person meeting on Tuesday as well. Here I sit, in the office.

The commute was okay, but a little exciting. My car told me my gas tank had about 97 miles worth of gas left in it. My GPS told me the office was 73 miles away (today’s meeting is not in my regular building, it’s much farther away). I did the complex math in my head and decided not to stop for gas.

All through the drive I kept updating that very complicated mathematical equation to make sure I was still going to get to the building without running out of gas, and hopefully also have enough gas left over to get me to a gas station when I leave. Everything worked out. My car was yelling at me to fill-‘er-up by the time I parked, but outside of that… success.

The only downside of the trip is that I gave myself a couple of errands to run before I left the house, and I got them all done… but I forgot it’s Tuesday and not Wednesday and I forgot to put the trash barrel out on the street. Ugh. It’s okay, there wasn’t much in it this week, but who knows how it will look next week. Wish me luck, folks.

Office Day

My work schedule these days includes one day working in the office and four working from home. This week is an exception to the rule. This week has two days in the office and three at home. Today is the bonus day. I am in Foxborough, which is about 70 miles from home. It’s not my favorite place to be, to say the least. It’s okay though.

When I went outside this morning I saw something unusual. The sky had blue in it. It wasn’t an awful grey color the way it has been almost every day this summer. It actually looked kinda nice. I took a picture for today’s photo a day challenge entry:

356/365
356/365

The little Casio point and shoot from 2008 is nice and all, but it’s nowhere near as good as the now-broken Nikon point and shoot from 2015. I need to replace the Nikon, I think. Unfortunately, Nikon doesn’t sell any pocket sized point and shoots anymore. I may have to consider going with another brand. That feels like being unfaithful. Bummer.

I am in a meeting at work right now. It’s a training, actually. We’re on a 10 minute break which is going to end in a couple of minute. I can tell by the look on your face how fascinated you are.

Lunch Break Project

I set up my desk in the cellar before my surgery last year, at some point in April 2022. I had been thinking about changing things up for a month or so and today, without really planning to, I did something about it.

I now have a work computer desk and a personal computer desk. Sure this is a cable spaghetti mess, but I threw it all together during my lunch break today so it’s as good as you can expect on short notice. The monitors are my wife’s. Actually, the keyboard and the mouse are hers too. The webcam is too. Also the stand the laptop is sitting on. So… I guess it’s sort of my wife’s desk and I’m just using it. Oh yeah, the desk was hers too. So… yeah.

Another Long Day

Another long day filled with a gaggle of long, frustrating meetings and problems. 18 minutes until the weekend. I think we’re in a position right now where we will be able to call it a day at quittin’ time, but I’m not going to count my chickens until they hatch.

What’s in the queue for the weekend? Not sunrise at the ocean pictures because the weather forecast is crappy. Tonight we’ll have our third Hello Fresh meal. The first two were excellent and I expect good things from the turkey meal we have lined up for tonight.

I have to mix a song. It’s the last day of the month so I need to finish off the second of two songs I worked on this month before midnight so that I can complete my personal write and record a single challenge. The first song was done a couple of nights ago. The second song isn’t as good, and the performance is worse, but it’s still worth finishing. Tomorrow is April 1st so the Record Every Month challenge resets and I can start working on something new. I’m thinking about using the tremolo built into my amplifier this time. I never use it… so maybe I should.

Jen has a project in her office that we’re going to work on. She wants to change a bunch of things on her desk. We haven’t done that in a while so it will be fun to mix it up. I am thinking of changing things up on my desk too, but I think I want to wait a month until the window replacement project is complete. I don’t know why but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My exercise and calorie (move) goals are done for today. My liquid intake goal is also done. I have a few more hours before my stand goal is done, and almost half of my protein goal is still outstanding. I’m behind on that one, by quite a bit. I’ll hit it though.

Okay, time to sign off. I still have nine minutes left in the work week. The weekend is so close… so very, very close. I’m ready for it.

I’m Freezing

I am working in the office today. That’s going to be a regular Wednesday thing going forward. For now at least. It’s 47 degrees out, which on February 8th is an absolutely glorious heatwave. I wish I was outside in the back yard filling up the bird feeders and taking pictures in the woods.

Nope, I’m at the office instead. Not that I would have been away from my desk at home, but you know what I mean. It’s a symbolic thing, dig?

The main point of this post is not to bemoan working in the office, but rather to bemoan the fact that I AM FREEZING MY ASS OFF while working in the office. No one else has complained about the temperature, so it’s probably just a side effect of losing 200 pounds worth of insulation which has left me feeling as though I am on the verge of frostbite 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and somehow that just seems to be exacerbated by being away from home. If I were at home I’d have a fleece jacket on and maybe, though probably not today, a space heater.

Instead we’re in a conference room 40 miles away from home and I am feeling so cold I am almost shivering.

Also, I want to play my damn guitar. Why haven’t I played my guitar in like 2-3 months? What is wrong with me??

Musical Desks

I don’t have a desk in the office anymore. Now when I need to go in I have to reserve a desk through our scheduling system. It’s not a bad deal, really. I just pick a desk location at random, show up, sit down and go. I can see the desks’ names but not a map of where they are, or who else has signed up around that spot. Today I had a desk in the Foxborough building for the morning, now I have a desk in the Westwood building that is closest to home. There are a few people sitting within ear shot of me right now. No one is close enough for Covid-discomfort, but I can hear them when they are on the phone… and they are all on the phone… and have been for over an hour.

Worse? I forgot to pack some headphones today. I have a headset mic I use for conference calls, but nothing that I can use with my iPhone. My solution? I installed iTunes on my work laptop for the first time in 100 years. I had to take multiple updates and reboot once before I could get it to run, but it’s working now. I’m listening to a photography podcast and I’m thinking about switching over to some Boston based 80’s punk rock. Moving Targets, maybe? Overall my impression of iTunes for Windows in 2022 is, wow does this application SUCK. It really does. Oh well. It’s working and I am okay with that.

On a personal “Duh” note, I have been sitting here for nearly two hours and just happened to notice that my laptop battery was down to 40%. I have a power strip that I brought with me and I plugged it into the wall when I got here, and my laptop is 100% plugged into the power strip. What the hell? Oh… there’s a little on/off switch that I didn’t see at all. The power strip was off. Oops.

Unrelated, I am hoping to take Dad’s film camera out around town tomorrow before work. I’ll freeze my ass off, but I still want to do it. I’m not sure where to go, I just know I need to finish the rolls in both of the film cameras, Dad’s Pentax and my Nikon, before Disney. Both cameras have black and white film in them and Disney needs to be in color, you know? Also, my Nikon is a test case, using Dad’s 50mm lens via an adapter. The lens/adapter combo worked perfectly on my DSLR, but I’d like to have some proof that they work on film too before I take them to Florida. There are only a few weeks left. I need to get on this. the light is supposed to be crappy tomorrow morning, but I’ll do what I can.

Another unrelated topic. On the way home tonight I need to stop somewhere and buy a winter coat and some gloves. We have snow in the forecast this weekend, though it looks now like it might be mostly rain, and I need to be ready. I also wonder if I should get a couple of extra t-shirts for the Disney trip. I only have three that fit me correctly. Maybe if the weather holds this weekend I might go to a thrift store and see if I can get some 2x shirts cheap. Hmmm. Interesting thought. Maybe I could look for some camera gear while I’m there. Heh heh, ain’t I a stinker?

Okay, back to work with you.

Packed

I’m in the office today. Not my office but another of my company’s buildings that is 35 miles further from home. The first 10-15 miles of the commute was brutal. After that it was just a matter of trying to go fast enough to make up for some of the lost time. I got to the parking lot with a couple of minutes to spare.

Speaking of the parking lot, I have never seen it this full. Even pre-pandemic, I never saw this place packed the way it is. There is a conference here today. We are not going to it, but we are involved in a couple of things that are sort of related to it. I’m the guy hiding in a conference room, sitting as far away from everyone else, and only removing my mask to consume sustenance.

I really want to go home now.

At the Office

I’m at the office, sitting at my desk. Tomorrow I’ll be at the office, but not my building. I’ll spend the day in a conference room.

I have seen two other people on my floor (the third floor, if you’re curious). One is sitting at a desk about 100 yards away. The other is a custodian cleaning a conference room. That’s it. I kept hearing noises and eventually determined that it was a tree branch tapping a window. Kinda creepy, actually. I’m listening to a Walking Dead podcast on headphones to drown it out.

Okay, back to work for me.

Packed Up

Remember when driving in to the office wasn’t an ordeal?

I’m going in tomorrow. Tonight before bed I packed up my laptop, made lunch, filled up a water bottle, did the dishes, took the trash out to the street, put a new shower mat into the tub, and I think that’s it.

Now clearly most of those things aren’t necessary for me getting to my desk tomorrow, but they are all things that would happen on a normal post-Covid Tuesday that I won’t have time for tomorrow because I have to make the approximately 1.25 hour drive.

Will I get up early enough to do my exercise before I leave? That’s the question.