Tag: anger management

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They’re Missing the Point

“The whole point of the conference is to get us out of there and get away from the work orders and the teachers.” Quote of the day, and at least one of the themes for the whole day. Jason was clearly only there so he could not be at work. Some may be puzzled by how this might make any difference at all.

Classes started at 8:30 for real this morning, so I grabbed breakfast and headed into my classes. I was really disappointed by two out of three today, with the first being mostly a sales meeting, or at the very least an introduction to what they do sell. The second class was actually pretty good, though not necessarily very useful since we don’t actually have any Extreme equipment. The third was another dud only because it was an hour class on how to perform fewer than six steps. I don’t even know why it was a class. It could have been almost anything else.

The lunch was buffet-style this time, and pretty awesome. Fried pork chops and baked chicken with tons of extras. It was way better than yesterday, and the carrot cake for dessert was awesome. I failed to win any door prizes, so we headed home right after lunch. I dropped Jason off at his house, then merged back onto the interstate right next to Dale and Allen. I think Heather and Gary left quite a bit earlier in the day, but I don’t know when.

When I got back into town, I decided to stop by the shop to talk to Ben and Zach. Zach got his Pixel 3 XL in, and it seemed pretty nice, but he didn’t seem too keen on handling it much. I’ll get some more time with it once it’s in a case. Once he left work, I headed home to unpack before eventually making it to Summer’s. She had me take her to the football game to be honored for quiz bowl during halftime, and then we came right back home where I unpacked my stuffed swag backpack before bed.

The point is to learn something that you can bring back and share with the department.

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Call Me When It’s Over

I started off trying to finish up my printer work this morning, but was interrupted when Ben called to see if I could look at the junior high’s phone system with him. He had just gotten to my office when I noticed an email from my counselor at Oakland about an issue during Aspire testing. I failed to create calendar entries for the testing dates and completely forgot that it was happening today, so I had to drop everything and go there to sit on my hands after she resolved the issue by restarting the devices.

I sat mostly useless until lunch time when Jason texted me directly asking about lunch. I assumed he needed someone to go with so he wouldn’t be lonely, so I let him talk me into Fat Daddy’s in London, but when I got to the shop, he and Allen were outside waiting for me to pick them up. I ate some overly heavy nachos that left me dissatisfied, and then made it back to Oakland for afternoon testing.

When that finally wrapped up, I headed back to the office and tried to absorb as much information as I could from Ben as he showed me a bit about the Avaya system. I felt completely lost and overwhelmed, but I know I’m going to have to become intimate with that stuff sooner than later, so I soldiered on. After school let out, he and I went to the junior high to finish what we tried to start in the morning. Once he figured that out, he came to help with my printer issue, which we ultimately gave up on, and resolved manually on each machine.

After work, I headed home to gather things for the conference before heading to Summer’s for the evening.

‘Til you died, but you’re still alive.

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Coaching Needed

I spent a good portion of today in the ceiling cleaning up some old cabling at the junior high. I spent more time there than I should have, but I was working with a cable that was only just long enough to do what I wanted. I went back to the shop to try and take Allen out to lunch for his birthday, but found out that he had called in sick for the day, so I went to McDonald’s to grab some fries, then went home to eat my leftover reuben from Arby’s last week.

When I got back from lunch, we had a conference call with some PaperCut people to go over some things that we mostly already knew. I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on it already, which was nice. Then I spent some more time finishing my work in the junior high ceiling before closing out what new work orders I had received.

Too near the end of the day, I got started troubleshooting some print issues the coaches were having in their office. I figured it was a quick in-and-out fix, but I ended up staying about three hours late and frustrated myself to the point of giving up until tomorrow. I’ll have to try and steal some cycles from Gary to figure it out, but I feel like I’m just missing something dumb.

Load Balancing Needed

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Instant Frustration

I got up this morning and watched as the whole day burned away. I did motivate myself enough briefly to clean up after the cats and do a partial water change in the aquarium, but otherwise we just laid around all day long. Summer picked up some Wendy’s for lunch on her way back from the gym. Then I started the old family classic Blazing Saddles half jokingly while she was in the shower, but we actually managed to finish it.

After the girls left with their father for the night, I tried making some chicken as my first meal in the Instant Pot Ultra. I didn’t realize the rice would cook so quickly and keep the water from boiling and building up pressure, so what I thought was going to be a 10-minute meal ended up being a multiple-hour shit show that ended with me transferring the entire thing to a couple of glass dishes to bake in the oven. Luckly the food wasn’t completely ruined and we could eat it for a super late dinner, but by that point I was so tired, hungry, cranky, and frustrated that I was just exhausted from dealing with it in the first place. Even cooking that meal the traditional way only takes about 45 minutes.

Can’t you see that that man is a nih?

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Shush!

I found myself getting frustrated a lot today. I had trouble getting traction on anything I would start, and I kept getting pulled away to do something else any time I’d start. I tried watching the Google hardware announcement live stream, but kept getting interrupted by people, or even by loud students in the hall outside my door. I missed my FedEx shipment again, though at least this time he left a door tag. I had to work on a stupid printer that I can’t really repair. I even skipped lunch because I just kept trying to get work done.

I ended up staying late after work because I thought I had to label some laptops that a coach didn’t label properly, but after fussing around town trying to find the labels I needed, he walked in and was about to write on the laptops in permanent marker. I had to explain again that they were a lease that had to be returned, and gave him half of the printed labels I made to place on the laptops himself.

When I finally left work, I stopped by my parents’ house to give my dad a flash drive, and had some ribs for dinner. I was starving, but it ended up giving me heartburn. It started to storm pretty badly, so I drove home past multiple tornado sirens. I spent a little time there, then headed to Summer’s for the evening where we debated on the Pixel 3 for a while.

Somewhere along the way I’ve lost sight of the minimalism I wanted.

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G.C. Phone Home

I spent all morning working on switching a single handset to a new Avaya model. The instructions were straight forward and overly simple, but that seems to be the only way to get others to follow them. Jason emailed me for status on several of my work orders that already had notes on them. I got a little upset, but mostly talked myself down from that just because I know I’ve had over 30 work orders since school started, while everyone else is down to almost nothing.

Sonic was doing 50 cent corn dogs, so I grabbed lunch there and ran into Keith at the drive-through. He got out and chatted with me for a bit, and then I was off to the shop to meet Ryan for some help with a couple issues I had with the phone swap in the morning. We got it halfway figured out, but he or I will have to talk to Ben about the other half later.

When quitting time finally came around, Summer left Eaddie with me, and we went home to clean the bike up before dark. We started by riding a quick loop around town before stopping at the car wash. Once I got my chain cleaned and lubed up, we went to Wendy’s so I could get a half salad for dinner, and I got Eaddie some fries to dip in a Frosty. She loved riding the bike so much, but we had to get home for the evening.

On the way back and still hungry, I picked up a couple spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy’s after Hardee’s told me all of their chicken strips were frozen. I’m still not sure if that was just a polite way of telling me she wasn’t going to make them for me, or if they actually batter them in the store and can’t make them unless they’re thawed out. After eating, Summer and I went to the junior high to pick up Autumn, and somehow we made it back out in record time. Even more surprisingly, everyone settled into bed pretty quickly once we got back home. Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day for a ride.

Wait… which one is farther?

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One Man’s Job is Another Man’s Work

I finally received the replacement sign computer for Oakland today from Vantage LED. Right out of the box, the standard power cable was completely dead. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a dead one before, yet somehow I wasn’t surprised to find one from them. The computer wasn’t set up for our specifications, and they told me it wouldn’t keep a configuration unless it could verify functionality first, which means I’ll have to plug it into the sign and run another monitor out there to use as a display to change the settings before plugging it into the sign. It’s the most janky setup I can imagine, and the invoice listed the device at $2,000. The video cable was invoiced at $75. Total bullshit.

I eventually made my way through McDonald’s and Wendy’s for a drive-through mix-n-match lunch, then got a few things done at the junior high. Then Jason called and wanted me to help Allen run a USB extender across a room. Evidently he was too busy, and me with over twice as many work orders as the next highest tech made the most sense. I didn’t mind the work, but the logic there just makes me shake my head.

After work, I came home and made some popcorn with the new popping oil we got at Sam’s. It was pretty good, but it’s still missing that buttery goodness I’m looking for. Once the girls got home, I ran through Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s for another mix-n-match cheapo dinner, filled up on some gas, and went to visit with them before bed. Team Lift first thing in the morning.

The internet made me this way.

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The Day Before I Almost Got Arrested

I started the day off at Oakland, working on a handful of things. The moment that stands out, though, was when I was helping Sheri with some technical issues she was having in a testing room. Erica came by and tapped on the glass and pointed at me, so I came out and was greeted by a uniformed police officer. He informed me that I was parked in a no-parking zone. I corrected him that it was a no-unloading-zone. He said I could finish what I was doing in the testing room before moving my vehicle, so I offered to walk him outside to confirm. He tried getting all tough-guy and said we could do things the hard way if I wanted. He asked to see my ID, but I insisted we should go outside to look first.

When we got outside, John was already there and started telling the officer that maintenance and I park in that area all the time because we are employees that travel and may have to unload equipment or otherwise access areas that are not normally accessed by the public. When we got to my car, I pointed at each word on the sign as I read them aloud slowly. He pointed at the ground behind my vehicle where the old parking spaces had been painted over and re-marked with NO PARKING. I guess he missed the bright yellow school bus that was parked squarely on top of a painted NO PARKING area. He said he was checking all of the schools after complaints about people parking “suspiciously.” Outside of the building I didn’t want to push my luck, so I gave up my ID when he asked again, and then moved to a parking space so he would leave.

Back inside, Mollie said she would make me my own parking space. I insisted it would have to be in the front lawn by the tree, or somewhere else conspicuous and obviously not a parking area. She said that wouldn’t be a problem. After a quick run through Wendy’s for lunch, I ended up at the junior high and told Kevin about my harassment. He knew almost immediately who I was talking to and indicated that he wasn’t a fan of the guy’s attitude either. He even went as far as to tell me I should hang a “TECHNOLOGY PARKING ONLY” sign on top of the no-unloading-zone sign when I park there tomorrow, because he would be on duty again. I think the real problem was that he came into the building without a visitor badge. Office staff should really be trained to take IDs from everyone, even if they’re dressed up like cops. We’ve got to be vigilant with these predators and sexual offenders.

After work, I ran home to tend to the ailing betta. It looked worse off and seemed even less active, but I’ll keep doing what I can. I moved him to a small betta cup with just a little bit of water in it so he wouldn’t have to swim so high to get to the surface for air, but his eyes are clouded over and I’m not sure he’ll eat anything. I’ll feel a lot better if I can get him to eat something.

Summer beat me to my parents’ house for dinner, but they weren’t home anyway. They arrived shortly after I did, and we had dinner and played some more arcade games and foosball. The kids all ate pretty well, and then Summer had to get them home for homework and bedtime. I filled up on gas on the way, and it was pretty much straight to bed since Summer’s neck was out again.

Julie messaged the family late with her own troubles, and I guess all I can really do is hope for the best. Sometimes you’ve just got to make your own fortune.

I’ll give you one guess which one of us has more authority inside this building right now.

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Fishing for Help

I spent all morning back and forth between Oakland and the shop, and only had a few answers to show for it. I’ve got so many work orders to close all at once when these long jobs are finished. Ronda was going to go to lunch with us for $5 salads at Ruby Tuesday, but she ended up meeting Steven instead when our lunch hours didn’t quite mesh. I didn’t make it back to the shop in time to drive, so I met Jason and Allen there.

Most of the afternoon was spent waiting for a fix for PaperCut, and then an hour or so was spent on the phone with the VantageLED folks. The first half hour call I made ended up with me in a queue where I went from the first person in line to being the second person in line, and then I heard someone rattle a phone and hang up on me. The second call got me the resolution I needed, but still no answer for why my emails to tech support never garnered a response. They say there are notes that we were referred to an electrician, but that is both false and an incorrect diagnosis for the problem I’m experiencing.

The fix for PaperCut ended up being an update to the embedded printer software, and then I went to my parents’ house for a bit before deciding to go to the junior high to pick up Jessica’s dying betta. It looked dreadful, and Ronda felt like it was going to die overnight, so I decided to take it home to try and nurse it back to health. I hope it works, selfishly as an I-told-you-so moment. I wish I could impart some empathy and a willingness to properly care for fish, but I guess it’s just too small of a creature for her to care about.

When the girls got out of karate, Summer brought them to my parents’ house and we had most of a Christmas dinner. We didn’t stick around too long though, because the kids had work to do, and I had a fish tank to clean. I guess I’ve done all I can for now. We’ll see how he is tomorrow.

Thank you for holding. All our agents are busy helping more important customers right now.

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On Frugality

I tried not to sleep in too late today, and got up to clean the kitchen before Summer got up to cook breakfast. She made little ham, egg, and cheese pucks that tasted really good, but I think made better sense for a weekly meal prep. It’s super convenient to grab and go during the work week, but on a lazy weekend, for not much more work and an easier dish to clean, I’d rather have custom individually fried or scrambled eggs in a pan.

The girls wanted to watch the last bit of Split from the point Eaddie fell asleep, so we did that through breakfast/lunch until they wanted to go pick Noah up for his 16th birthday. I had fleeting moments of frustration with how wasteful the girls can be, or how they’re unnecessarily messy, or how they can’t seem to correctly put a single fucking lid back on any goddamn thing. It was nice to start and end with a clean kitchen though, so I guess I have their messiness to thank for that. This lid thing is seriously going to awaken the beast pretty soon, though.

After I got my shower, Noah’s pick for a birthday dinner was CiCi’s, so they all came back to pick me up. To contrast how money/waste conscious I am, I had us split into two groups to pay so we could double up on coupons. Everyone got their fill, and then I ran the circuit of dropping everyone off at home for the evening.

This is going to require everyone’s buy-in.