Tag: work

Turkey? No. Traffic Jam? Yes

Well that was a kick in the scrotum.

No turkey for me. They closed down the gift distribution system at 2:00 without ever telling us whether the small turkeys had arrived or not. I take that to mean they did not. If they tell us to come in another day to pick up our turkeys I am going to blow it off. Any unclaimed gifts get donated to a shelter, so that works for me. I really love me some xmas turkey though. I’m a little ticked off. Hooray.

What was even better? I left the office at 2:00pm. Waze told me I would be home by 2:45. Well, 2:58 is what it ended up being. You see, I hit me a traffic jam on route 93 North. Yup, pre-3:00pm traffic jams. Oh yeah. The accident I was stuck behind wasn’t the cause of the traffic, it was a symptom of it. Hooray.

I tried blindly taking a picture for my photo a day thing as I was crossing the Merrimack River. All I got was the upper left corner of my passenger door frame. Oh well. Hooray.

Turkey Blues

As mentioned in a post earlier today, I am in the office for holiday gift distribution day. My company gives out food for xmas. Turkey, ham, lasagna. It’s your choice. This year they gave us multiple turkey options. Big, small, or kosher. I signed up for small. Our freezer is little and I wanted it to fit.

The announcement said the distribution would start at 9:30. At 10:30 they announced the small turkeys haven’t been delivered yet.

Oh, come on.

Packing Up

I’m heading to the office again today. This makes five times this month. Crazy! My company hands out holiday gifts each year. The last two Covid flavored years they’ve mailed it to us. This year they are going back to handing them out, pre-pandemic style. I prefer the mail method.

Today is trash day and Poland Springs five gallon water bottle delivery day. I put the trash barrel on the street last night and our empty bottles at the base of the steps so it would all be ready today.

After my shower, at about 7:04am, I looked out the window and saw the trash truck pull up. Woah! Glad I did it last night! I also saw one of our water bottles out in the street. Either it was windy last night or the deer decided to mess with me.

It would be more dramatic to say that the trash truck nearly ran over the bottle, but it wouldn’t be true. The scene was not that wild. Oh well.

I’m all packed up and ready for the commute. I just need to go… but I don’t wanna. Nope. I’m hoping they do the gift distribution early so I can head home during my lunch break at about 1:30. I usually break at 1:00, but someone booked me into a 12:30-1:30 meeting. Ugh.

Happy commuter Tuesday, my loyal readers and only friends.

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.

Lucky Guess

Who is the luckiest sonofabitch in town?

Wordle 542 2/6

🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Having a weird day in the office today. We had an xmas party thing this morning which was nice except that one of our extended group has Covid and was in the office with a bunch of us last week and who knows if last week will forever be known as a super spreader event which would make today a mini super spreader event. Crud, I hate covid so much.

Anyway, the party included pizza. I didn’t have any. My team member who lives in Minnesota did because I DoorDashed him some Pizza Hut. Order entered in Massachusetts, order delivered in Minnesota. Like a Boss, as they say.

Like I said, no pizza for me. Can I have pizza? Probably, if there is no sugar in the tomato sauce. I just haven’t tried it and I really don’t want to. I brought some chicken salad. Meals have been tough over the last few days. Not terrible, but I have been stopping myself early due to signs that stomach issues may be coming forthwith. I prefer to dish out a certain amount of food and then eat it all as it makes tracking protein counts easier, but if I have to stop I have to stop. Today I had to stop. I ate a protein bar in the car on the way in for breakfast, and then maybe an ounce and a half of chicken for lunch. Round about 3:00pm my stomach, which was no longer upset over lunch, started getting upset over being empty.

I am sitting in a conference room with a couple of co-workers. It’s a smallish room but we’re spread out okay. No covid transmissions here. It’s quiet though, and that means everyone can hear my stomach moaning and groaning. It’s super embarrassing and it’s yet another reason why working from home is better than coming into the office. My stomach can sing and dance all it wants when I am alone at my desk at home. Here? Now? Today? I just want to hide. No one has said anything. Everyone is being super polite. I just wish my stomach would shut the fuck up.

ADDENDUM: I should say, in the interest of accuracy, that I am not positive one of my co-workers has covid. It looks that way, but it has not been confirmed.

In the Office

Today is our work Xmas party. I got a coffee mug in the yankee swap. It was a pretty cut throat game. One of my staff members lives in Minnesota. I just ordered lunch for him via DoorDash. The app kept yelling at me for being in Massachusetts and placing an order in Minnesota. Come on, app. I know what I’m doing.

At Home and Loving It

I haven’t punched in to work yet, but after two days in a row of a 73 mile morning commute, I can definitively say that working from home is way better than working in the office. I’m home today and I’ll be home on Monday and then Tuesday and Wednesday I’m in Foxborough again. So it’s a brief respite from commuting, but it’s welcome and I am going to love every second of it.

There isn’t much going on this weekend. Cleaning in preparation for the holidays. Wrapping presents. Visiting my father. Worrying about my mother’s Covid. She’s still symptom-free but also still positive. We’re bringing one of the cars to the shop for a little maintenance. That’s actually preparation for us becoming a one car household in the very near future. I’ll write about that when it happens. I want to play guitar. I might want to do some car singing. I want to take some film pictures. That’s about it.

Here’s hoping today is a quiet day at work. I have a truck load of administrative stuff to do. I got through a chunk yesterday afternoon, but there is a ton more to go. Wish us luck today, folks. Have a happy Friday.

Various Updates

We just got off the call with Dad’s rehab facility. Good news all around. There are a couple of things they will follow up on and get back to us. He’s not ready to go home yet, but he is at a point where they can bring his assisted living facility staff into the discussion to see if they can handle his needs.

My stomach still feels like sh-sh-sh-shite. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s not the kind of thing where I am wondering if I am sick or just hungry. Nope, I’m just sick. Harry had a stomach bug on Sunday. I’m wondering if that’s what I have now. Not so much a couple of meals gone wrong, but just a bug.

I left work at 2:00pm. I wanted to try to stick it out for the day but my boss let me off the hook. I probably should have left earlier. I was no good to anyone. I’m already questioning whether I will be able to pull off work tomorrow. It’s starting to look like a good thing we cancelled the New York plans. I need to be over this before Sunday when we go to Bellana’s concert in Vermont.

I would say I am starting to get into the first season of Pennyworth. I am still not sure though. The whole Aleister Crowley storyline… Crowley died in 1947 so if this takes place in some weird version of 60’s London, then he would have been in his 90’s. There’s a new episode of Titans today that I haven’t watched yet. That’s the better show, I think, but I’m having trouble getting into the new season. Oh, DC on HBO… how you vex me.

In closing, Penguins:

DSC_0010

Shakes

It’s cold in our basement. My office space is in the basement. I am wearing a fleece jacket but I’m still a little cold. I have a space heater near my desk but I don’t like to use it too often. I sometimes turn it on around lunch time and let it go for part of the afternoon. It’s running right now.

Two hours ago our biggest, scariest customer had an issue blow up on them. It’s something that happens now and then and the case was assigned to me when it started. I got pulled into it and for some reason it freaked me out. I think (hope) I was able to stay on top of it and the issue is no longer occurring, but it got to me. I haven’t been bugged by a problem at work like that in a very long time. I can’t tell if my hands are shaking because it’s cold or because I am freaked.

Weird.

The take away here though is that it’s not happening anymore and I did stay on top of it and I kept everyone up to date on all of the latest as it progressed. I did okay with it. Why did it freak me out so much?

Weird.

Now I get to go into a 2.5 hour meeting and I didn’t really have any lunch. I snuck in a protein bar so I should be good to go, but I was hoping I’d be able to have a break during my lunch break. You know how it is.

Happy Tuesday, good people.