I did it. I got up nearly an hour and a half early this morning in commitment to a joke that only served to entertain myself. I had the time, so I stopped in to Casey’s for a free breakfast slice on the way to work. When I got there, the new guy was already standing awkwardly downstairs outside the basement doors. I guess nobody told him we’ve been starting at 9am, so he showed up at 7:45am.
We went inside, and I invited him into Ben’s my office, where I planted my pirate flag and sat down in his my chair. We chatted for a few minutes while I opened up my laptop to check some email, until Ben and Greg walked in together. Ben came in and without any hesitation just knocked my pirate flag off his desk and pushed me out of his chair. I was really hoping we’d have an hour to chat alone, but with Kyle starting his first day and others trickling in, it just didn’t happen. We all sort of openly groaned about how disappointed we were in his response to the board last night, but I guess that’s just what we get for trying.
I made my way to the high school and started on a few things there. Most of it blurred together into a haze of meaningless work, but I know I got a couple docking stations swapped. It was uncharacteristically quiet for my hallway, but I wasn’t going to complain. I made my way back to the shop in case anyone wanted to have lunch, and Allen suggested Cici’s. He got Greg and Josh to go, and even Kyle and Melinda decided to join us. Summer took the day off from work and met us there to eat.
Kyle was kind of super awkward, though seemingly familiar. He kept making jokes about all the cops and Army fellows coming in because they heard about my act of piracy this morning, but I never saw anyone from the Navy.
After lunch, I started to go back to the high school but got roped into helping Allen get the bus yard gate open. I thought it would be an easy task, but then we both got trapped and had to call on Gary to let us out. I guess our garage door opener was failing, so he had to borrow one from maintenance to let us out.
Once I finally got back to the high school, the afternoon went by pretty quickly. I started pumping out flash drives for the student devices, and it was time to go before I knew it. I headed home to meet Richard from Dependable, and he poked around my air units to check for leaks. I’m not even sure he checked whether it was low, but he ended up adding some dye before he left, and said he would be back in a few weeks.
Summer came back shortly after, and I started picking up a tiny bit while she watched TV. I washed my comforter, warmed up some egg rolls, and made myself a salad with what she brought over. We spent the evening shopping and dreaming about cars, and it just made me sad to know how poor I am.
You know it’s going to be a long day when you start by commandeering the whole department.