Uncategorised

thats racist af

I got up early this morning so I could go to the high school for our welcome back assembly. Breakfast was suboptimal. I got the last piece of real bacon. There was a ton of turkey bacon left though. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever had, but geez.

I actually won a door prize this year. Most of our table did. Allen, Heather, Jason, Dale, Gary, Ryan, and I all won something. I think Ryan’s $50 Leaning Willow gift card had the highest technical value/lowest personal value ratio possible. I made a joke about my prize being racist because of the bamboo. I didn’t realize they were just getting started.

The actual assembly at the Center was interesting. We actually sat through a live OSHA presentation this year instead of watching a prerecorded video. The guy giving the presentation was super old and southern to the point that I actually had some trouble understanding him. My favorite part was when he made a joke that he submitted a recommendation for a new HCS Pictogram for explosives involving a guy wearing a turban. I’m not one to shy away from off-color humor, but the balls on this guy to say it on stage in front of a mixed crowd. Holy. Shit. Just a few minutes later, he asked us to “pardon his French” for saying that a kid dying “sucks.” Priorities, I suppose.

After the assembly, Summer wanted to get lunch. She was craving Mexican, so we decided on Morelos. It wasn’t until the third one of my team pulled into the parking lot that I realized everyone happened to make the same decision collectively as they left the auditorium. I’m only just now realizing that this meant they didn’t invite me, but we all sat together anyway.

The afternoon was spent catching up on the massive influx of work orders I had been receiving all morning while we were at our mandatory meeting. The couple of things I tried to finish quickly at Oakland ended up taking a couple hours, which left little time at the junior high. I stayed a bit late, but I’ll still have plenty for tomorrow.

Summer had to stay for the open house, so I headed home and burned the entire evening.

I keep dragging around what’s bringing me down.

Uncategorised

Feelin Froggy

It was a bit rainy last night, but it was dry enough for us to do our group work this morning. Jason asked if I wanted to go with him and Allen or Dale and Ryan. I hesitated out of courtesy, but then Allen made a comment about being stuck with Amanda and I took the opportunity to ditch them for the brofessionals. We hung one TV and one touch panel at the middle school for Allen, then headed to the high school arena to hang a TV there.

We finished just in time for lunch, and Ryan told me to pick something. Given the company and the amount of time since my last visit, I chose Popeye’s. It was by far the fastest service I’ve ever had there. They actually had spicy chicken cooked and ready to go for lunch. They even had shrimp ready. The disappointment came in the size of the meat under the breading. I got plenty to eat to be sure, but it still wasn’t worth the price of admission. Summer stopped by to visit after a while until we had to go back.

When we got back to the shop, most everyone else had left, so we split up to work on our own things. I got a bunch of work orders closed out at the junior high, and managed to go from having the most work orders to third place, even after being out of my buildings for three days last week, so I was happy. I also had the second most closed work orders of all the building techs.

After work, I dropped my dad’s retainer off at their house, then came home to start a load of laundry. Then I fished out the most frogs I’ve ever had to release at once. There were three that had completely lost their tails, and two more that had very short tails. They don’t seem to be coming out super healthy, and I don’t know if that’s just because normally they wouldn’t survive this long in the wild, or if it’s something to do with their environment. I definitely feel like more tadpoles generally die before making the transformation though.

Once that was all done, I headed to Summer’s for a leftover sloppy joe for dinner. Eaddie was still stuck watching Arrow, so we watched with her over some cake and ice cream until I had to head home to finish laundry. Tomorrow is the back to school extravaganza, so it’s early to bed and early to breakfast.

Do it right, do it well, and do it once.

Uncategorised

Needy Much?

We had originally planned to hang TVs this morning, but by the time I got to work, the crew had already decided they didn’t want to do that. It was fine by me though, since none of it was for my building anyway. Instead, we all got to split up and do work orders.

I chose to work all morning at Oakland. Before I left the shop, I emailed the digital sign company about my failed sign on that campus because I hadn’t heard from them in two and a half weeks. Then just after I got there and started my first work order, I spotted a guy from a local sign company working on it. I wasn’t expecting a service call at all, so I started off a bit concerned. Ben gave me the okay to return the sign computer I had pulled to the shop. It wasn’t long before I had to take over the call to tech support to configure the sign, but after some troubleshooting, we determined we would need another new controller.

I wrapped up right at lunch time, and ended up going home to eat a leftover Subway sandwich from yesterday. When lunch was over, I stopped by the shop to pick up all of my lab laptops, then delivered them to the junior high. It took me a while to get everything swapped out, and I found out I have some missing and/or misnamed devices that I’ll have to track down. Things like that make me really wish I had just done the whole thing by myself from start to finish.

Nearing the end of the afternoon, I had to meet with my EAST coordinator, Ben, and Matt to determine how we want to handle the lab. Traditionally, EAST wants to be completely independent, but that hasn’t seemed to work anywhere. Aside from being gone on maternity leave, my coordinator doesn’t really know much about computers, which would seem important for someone over a computer lab. Then again, I guess most of the people I’ve had over labs haven’t been particularly savvy.

I left there a bit late, then ended up visiting with Gary at the shop for a while before heading home. I worked up a pretty bad headache and asked Summer to pick me up to go to my parents’ for dinner. We had to get Autumn at the junior high first, drop her off at her grandparents’ house, and then finally went to have some leftover bún bò Huế. It was just an eat-and-run evening though, because I had to get home to do some laundry for work the next day.

Just let it happen.

Uncategorised

Every Tech for Himself

It’s the last week before school starts, and we’re still occupied with summer projects. I spent most of the morning delivering Chromebook carts with Dale and Amanda. It was a bit aggravating to fully indispose three people for such a task, but such is life in the district. I’d had enough when it came time to deliver a single tech tub with five Chromebooks to my elementary campus while towing a trailer and two extra bodies, so I had them drop me off at my car.

I was just in time to help unload a short pallet of laptops for Jason. I would have thought we would finish imaging mine before he started unboxing his, but the moment I touched my boxes, he had Allen help him unbox all of his and stack them up under one another in all of the imaging stations in the shop. I managed to squeak four extra lines in and ran power so I could continue imaging my own, but it was super frustrating that he had come along and disconnected mine when I was already two thirds done.

Everyone expected to have to go to a presentation with Ben in the afternoon to learn how we would work with non-touch displays in the classroom, but I opted out since all of my teachers were good with the change. Dale, Allen, and I went to Subway for lunch early though, so the two of them could go. When I got back, I continued imaging all of the laptops, both mine and Jason’s, so he could take Amanda to do something else.

Zach insists it’s like this every year, but I maintain my belief that this is worse than last year. He says everyone always stresses out and hates each other, and that I was just working with the rose-colored glasses of being newly hired. Maybe that’s true in that last year I was more willing to just follow orders, but this year I’m really feeling the burn of my coworkers’ knack for slack.

After work, I stopped by the house briefly before heading to my parents’ to grill hamburgers. Dad already had everything ready to go, so I just had to patty the meat and throw it on the grill. Summer got there just as I finished grilling everything. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, though the buns could have been bigger, or else the patties smaller.

When we finished eating, we ran by JCPenney to spend some rewards cash that was due to expire soon, then headed home for bed.

P for Pie is somehow disappointing.

Uncategorised

No Taxation Without Edumication

After a quick breakfast, I came home and showered while Summer dropped Autumn off with her grandparents. The remaining three of us headed to Conway for some more back to school shopping since we wore ourselves out at the mall yesterday. We accomplished less than I expected, and I didn’t get to pick up the one thing I really wanted, but it went okay all the same. We even all agreed upon one restaurant for dinner before heading home.

Once we got back, I got to work on the house to wrap up weekend chores. Once that was done, Josh wanted to play some PUBG, so I played a round with him, then another couple rounds after Clint joined us. I wonder if just a new graphics card would solve most of my issues.

Let the needy sweat it out.

Uncategorised

Feeling Flushed

We got up this morning, had breakfast, and packed everyone up to go to the Alma Aquatic Park. They had half a dozen tubeless water slides and a decent sized pool with a climbing wall and diving board. There was even a toilet bowl slide that dumped you into a tiny, deep pool as not to crack your skull. It was pretty impressive, and we lucked out by accidentally visiting on a BOGO for $5 day. We expected to pay $50, but got everyone in for $15.

The lines weren’t bad on the slides, so the kids wore them out pretty well. It was tax-free weekend for back to school shopping, so I think that helped thin down the crowd. We stuck around for a few hours, then headed in to Fort Smith for an early dinner at Furr’s Fresh Buffet.

Once everyone finished eating, we decided to stick around town to get some shopping done at the mall since we wouldn’t have everyone with us on Sunday. Eaddie and Noah didn’t much want to participate, but after dragging them around for a while and then pumping them full of some sugary lemonade, they pepped up a bit. Summer and I were still super tired, but we all survived and made it out of Penny’s with some pretty great deals.

We headed back home after dark and opted not to go to my house for the kids to continue watching Lord of the Rings, even though Eaddie and Noah seemed to find their second wind with some more Arrow.

Wake up everybody, no more sleepin’ in bed.

Uncategorised

Easy Overtime

I spent all day working at the high school handout today. It was probably the best day I’ve had at work in a long time. Even when it was busy, things went smoothly and correctly. They’ve done a really good job of making the whole process pretty efficient.

Summer brought Noah in to get his laptop in the afternoon, and we were all done by 3:30. Central Office dismissed us at three, but I still had work to do at the junior high, so I stayed until nearly five.

After that, I went home to get some things and then went to Summer’s for the evening. She made sloppy joes with mashed potatoes and some asparagus that all turned out pretty awesome. Eaddie made cupcakes for dessert, and we played a game of Uno before the kids started watching The Fellowship of the Ring. I played a bit of Limbo before settling down for bed.

Uncategorised

First Class

There were several out of the office first thing this morning. Even Allen showed up a few minutes late. Nobody really spoke to me, and I sort of imagine it was because they were upset with me, but I don’t much care either.

I got a new line of laptops imaging since nobody had touched them for a couple days, and Amanda only got six of the second set done. I upped it to eight and left for Oakland to try and complete some work orders. Just as I got there, I noticed an email requesting immediate help at the junior high for a CPR presentation the nurses were giving. This was two-for-two of their technology completely failing. Last year it was a bad audio input port on their mixer. This year it seemed to be an issue with reading their DVD on the laptop the building provided. I guess there’s always next year. One of the girls just ran home and brought in a personal DVD player.

I went straight back to Oakland to knock some things out before heading to the high school. I actually kind of felt good about what I had completed, but next week won’t be any picnic. High school time came up on me faster than I expected.

It wasn’t quite as crazy as I expected, but I guess the real circus will be tomorrow with the sophomores. Today it was the juniors, which would have been the first 9th grade class I supported at the junior high. I was kind of surprised how few faces I recognized, but looking back I guess I would have seen the 8th graders more often anyway.

After work, I headed home and unboxed my Google Daydream View VR headset. I got it for a steal, so I practically had to get it just for the controller. The girls stopped by for a bit before I headed to my parents’ house for dinner. After some chit-chat there, I stopped by CVS to use a coupon, then went to visit with the girls before heading home to bed.

Tomorrow’s an all-day laptop extravaganza.

Uncategorised

The Handout

Today started the three-day process of handing out 1:1 laptops at the high school. I’ve secured my place for all three days because I feel like right now I deserve some light work. I’ve spent too long pushing other people this summer, so I don’t care to be selfish enough to do something I want to do now. It won’t get me any closer to getting my own work done, but technology be damned.

We were meeting at 10:00 for the handout, so I got a little bit of time in at Oakland to clean up a few work orders before then. I’m hoping that my absence in the buildings will motivate others to try a little harder at setting up their own things. It’s not hard to plug in a computer, even with all the peripherals they have. Once I got to the high school, it was a relatively easy day to deal with seniors that have all gone through this before. We actually handed out just under 300 laptops, so the next two days will be much crazier. It’s my kind of crazy though, and I doubt anyone back at the shop is breaking much of a sweat doing anything else.

Once that was over, I had to run to the junior high to take care of a couple things before heading home. Summer got there right after I did, and we went to my parents’ house to swim and have dinner. Julie brought a tiny hairless baby critter over, and nobody knew quite what to do with it. Most of us voted to euthanize it because it looked like it wouldn’t survive very long. She left to try and find someone to take care of it, and ultimately did. After she left, I guessed correctly that it was a squirrel, which made me regret not trying to raise it. I probably didn’t really want a pet squirrel, but I’ve always thought I did since I was a child. In any case, it’s got better odds now.

When we got back home, I started a load of laundry while we watched a couple episodes of The Office before bed.

But I’m the one that does that!

Uncategorised

Slags

Another day of motivating my coworkers. A recycling company was scheduled to visit today, so I took a trunk full of scrap electronics to work with me. Then it was straight into hanging TVs at the middle school. Neither Jason nor Amanda claimed to feel very well today. I’d like to say this affected their performance, but it noticeably didn’t. There was every bit as much leaning and sitting and playing on cell phones as usual. I did what I could to push everyone along as quickly as possible because I still had two more to hang at the junior high.

We finished up right around lunch time. Ryan, Dale, Allen, and I met Summer at Ruby Tuesday for salads. They were super busy this time. I guess people have started to catch on to the special pricing announcements.

When we got back to work, the recyclers were cleaning out our graveyard. I was supposed to help take some laptop carts to the middle school, but I was reassigned to one of Jason’s work orders with Amanda to set up three dual-monitor stands at the special services building. We didn’t even get to jump into that right away though, because just as I was walking in to do that, a FedEx truck pulled up with three pallets of Chromebooks for mostly my building. Gary and I unloaded all of those pallets into the graveyard, and then Amanda and I completed our re-task.

After work, Summer and I went to my parents for dinner. We both ate too much and then called it an early night because we were both so tired. We caught a couple episodes of The Office, and then headed straight to bed.