Tag: work

Half Day

I’m at my parents’ house in Tewksbury. About a 17 minute drive from my house. I logged into work about 30 minutes early and now I’m on my lunch break, roughly halfway through the business day.

Any thoughts?

I have a mask that includes a neck strap. I love it. It’s always there. I never have to stop and think about where I put it the last time I took it off. It was around my neck but not on my face when I logged in to my group’s daily meeting. My staff thought it was a bib. It kinda looks like a bib.

I’ve decided that a three monitor setup might be too much for me. I’m not sold on that yet, but I think that might be the case. At home I have a single monitor but it is gigantic. Hijacking my brother’s workspace, his three monitors definitely have more screen real estate than my single monitor, but not nearly as much as you’d think. I initially put my schedule on the left monitor, my email on the right monitor, and then worked on the middle. In theory that is perfect, but in practice I was missing emails because the screen requires me to actually move my head to see it. I moved the email back to the middle and adjusted the windows I was working on so that I could do it in front. Basically reproducing my single monitor from home. I like this.

My mother came over and talked to me as I was waiting for a meeting to start. I was on Zoom with about 10 other people. They asked me if I was trying to talk to them while I was on mute. Nope, just talking to Mom. I don’t know if she gets the telecommuting concept. She seems to, but maybe she just forgot when I told her I was on a meeting. Later, when I wasn’t on a meeting, she walked over and passed me a note. Okay, maybe she does get it. Cool. Thanks, Mom!

There is one thing that I need that I don’t have today and that is a haircut. Soon, my long, flowing red locks. Soon.

Commute?

I am about to head to my parents’ house for the work day. I’m still telecommuting but I also sort of have a commute for the next week. I sort of forget how that works.

A morning commute? In Covid-Land? Does not compute.

Anyway, here’s hoping the traffic is okay.

In the Office

March 13, 2020 was the last time I was in the office.

Until today.

A month or so ago my company announced that the building my desk lives in was being sold. Another company made an offer we couldn’t refuse. We needed to clear out all of our stuff. They put together a schedule for all of us to go in and do our thing. My turn came today.

I drove to Waltham, took my temperature, double masked, and went for it. It was exceedingly uncomfortable.

An elevator? For real?
I’ll never take a sunset pic from this window again.

Tomorrow Will be Scary

Want to hear something super scary that’s happening tomorrow?

I have to go into the office. It will only be a short visit but the fact that it’s happening at all is scaring the shite out of me.

I’ll probably live blog it in a vain attempt to keep the scary at bay. We will see.

Long Day

Today was a long day. Just busy from start to finish. I didn’t have a chance to stop for dinner until around 8:00. I was able to talk to my father at the rehab place for a couple of minutes but my mother’s phone kept going straight to the answering machine. It’s a landline and sometimes when you press the button to hang up it doesn’t actually close the line. That’s probably what happened.

Tomorrow is likely to be another long day. I hope it goes smoother though.

We found out this week that the building my group works in is likely to be sold. I guess someone approached us out of the blue with an offer too good to refuse. They asked us to go in and clean out our desks. They set up a schedule so there will never be more than five people in at a time. I signed up for the last day on the sheet, April 9, 2021. The last time I saw my desk was March 13, 2020. what a fucked up world, eh?

I’m so tired of it all.

New Week, New Attitude

It’s Monday. The first day of a new week. Yippee. The 52nd week of Covid shut down. Last week had a nasty work issue. This week is likely going to have another. Still, I have made a decision.

I have decided that this week is going to be better. Granted, every week since late January has been pretty crappy, but this week is going to be better.

The bed is made, the dishes are done (except for the caste iron skillet, I have to do that again), the cat is fed, I’m 3/4 of the way through last night’s Walking Dead (Dog, the early years), Harry just found a playlist with the theme songs from all of the episodes of WandaVision. Today is International Women’s Day and my wife and my step daughter are shining examples of intelligent, strong, powerful women who deserve to be celebrated every day of the year not just today, but given the situation I will celebrate them like crazy today.

This week is going to be better. New week, new attitude.

Granted, it’ll probably go to shit as soon as I punch into work, or try to scoop the kitty litter, or something. For now though… This will be a good week.

Two Random Things

Two random, unrelated things that just happened inside my deficient little (tiny, actually) brain.

  • I just found out that daylight savings begins next weekend. March 14th. One day after my company’s Covid-aversary, and one day before The Ides of March (queue the Iron Maiden song). Somehow… I think… I mean, daylight savings is a great thing, bring it on… but… on that day? Right smack in between those two unhappy (for Caesar, at least) anniversaries? Maybe we should hold off a week? Just saying.
  • I feel like this week has been a tough one over all at work. I’m seriously ready for the weekend. Like… super ready for the weekend. It’s also important to know that whenever possible I take my lunch break at 1:00. Okay… back story over… I have been working on a task at work this morning and every time I feel like I’ve got it wrapped up I find something that shows me that I am still way off. I thought to myself that I’ve been digging into this for hours now, I must be really late for lunch. Then I looked at the clock. It said 11:50. Oh, good grief.

Until next time, folks! (queue the walk off music)

THE STIR CRAZY FILES – EPISODE 74

Today is the magical day.

Back story: I’ve been working from home for over 11 months now and there hasn’t been a single instant, not even a nanosecond, when I’ve missed commuting. Not one. I do not miss cramming my fat ass into a metal box for 80 minutes or so, working 8.5 hours, and then getting back into the metal box for another 80 minutes. I don’t miss it even one tiny little bit.

However… When I was commuting there was one day of each year that was sort of magical. It was sort of a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel of which I speak is winter. It does not involve a groundhog or anything like that, it only involves the sun.

My shift ends at 5:30 PM. That’s 1730 for you military time folks. During the winter, when I left the building to go home it was dark. During the summer it’s light. You know how the sun works and seasons and all of that, right? You know what I’m talking about.

The one special, magic day each year was the first day when the sun set at the same time my shift ended. 5:30 PM. The sun would, of course, be down by the time I actually go out the door, but that’s not the point. The point is from that day forward, the days were not only getting longer but I could actually perceive them getting longer. Does that make sense? Sunset at 4:30 or 5:00 didn’t affect me at all because I was inside the whole time and I didn’t actually get to experience the extra minute or so of light each day. Once the sun started setting after 5:30, I did get to experience the extra light.

So every year I would check the times of the sunset and quietly celebrate the symbolic moment when the sunset started happening after my work day.

Today is that day. It’s Friday February 25, 2021 and the sunset in Methuen, MA today will happen at 5:30 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Happy 5:30 day, everyone. Enjoy.