Tag: work

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I Sea Potential

We had a pretty lengthy meeting first thing this morning to cover some more processes and network structure. I felt great about my own understanding. Once that was over, we moved a bunch of tech tubs out of the shop and into the graveyard. Then I spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out the best way to run power to my desk since there’s no power outlet on that side of the room. Hopefully I won’t be drawing too much current through the single extension cord I have running across the floor.

Most of us went to Sam’s for lunch, and though the food was as good as ever, our server seemed a little off somehow. She wasn’t bad, but she just felt somehow clumsy. I got my food last, and after seeing my receipt, I was pretty sure I got the wrong side items. Everything I’ve had there is delicious though, so it really didn’t even matter to me what I got.

After lunch, I went to the high school to do some more work. Ben had a meeting with three of the computer lab aides and wanted me to stop by for a meet and greet. Then he came back to the office with me for a little while.

The girls went with their father after school, and Summer was feeling under the weather. She eventually came over as I milled around the house looking for things to set up in my new office. The night seemed to drag on forever, and I couldn’t ever really focus on anything, which made it worse. At least I was able to piece together a custom Linktree-style landing page with rotating filler text. I feel smartish.

This place needs more nautical decor.

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Mooving Day

Mike was out today, but I still spent all morning at the high school, trying to get some software to work. I picked Summer up for lunch at Western Sizzlin, then ran home to bring in a FedEx delivery. It was my McDonald’s chkndrop, which consisted of an overbuilt, square-shaped shoebox type container, a seven inch vinyl record, a gold colored metal gift card, and a hoodie.

I spent most of the afternoon at the shop, and claimed a new office space next to Ben. I really wanted his old office, but evidently it still floods, so I took the office next to him instead. The desks weren’t ideal for me, but I’ll make it work.

When I got home, Dad was already there with a guy to check out my bathrooms for a remodel. He seemed the most gruff of the three guys we’ve had out, so at that rate, I’d be afraid to see what scruffy kind of fellow he’d find next. His ballpark figure came in quite a bit lower than the first guys, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet.

The night went by slowly at first, and then sped by as it came time to wind down for bed. Hopefully I wake up more rested tomorrow.

I should have moved into the Murder Basement.

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I’m Not Your Bud, Guy!

I took the Shadow to work today since it was supposed to be at least a little bit nice out. I spent all day at the high school with Mike, and we closed out a few things. The work there was definitely more difficult than the screw turning I’d been doing at the junior high. I’ll have more to do tomorrow as well, and then lots of claims to finish before the end of the summer.

I met several of the guys at Bocadillos for lunch, and the service was extra good today. Then I finished up at the high school before running home to get the car so I could take the girls to karate.

Summer had their gear, so we stopped by the shop to get that first. Then I dropped them off and went to my parents’ house to visit for a little while. Summer had a long day at work and didn’t want to get back out, so I took the girls home, and it was an early night to bed.

The moon, you say?

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More Work?

This morning started out pretty cold, but the afternoon got up around 70. I spent all day with Brody again, and we just about finished up everything at the junior high. We both tore down some student devices all the way to the motherboards, and even that was easier than I thought, so we have loads of parts to make good laptops now.

Zach wanted to go to Quiznos for lunch. I tried to convince the crew to go somewhere else, but Brody left the office to go straight to Quiznos, and by the time Zach, Gary, and I got there, he had already taken his food back to the junior high.

After work, I went by Summer’s shop again until she closed, then went to Zaxby’s to pick up a quick dinner. Then I finally took my car in for a wash before settling in for the night.

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

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Orientation Days

It was back to work today after another super long break. With all the new blood coming in, Ben went over our new team structure, and I’ll be stepping back from the buildings in favor of more systems stuff, which is good. Hopefully we can offload more of the actual device repairs to the lab aides to free us up for other things.

I spent all day with Brody at the junior high, where we closed a few tickets and then stripped down a few laptops. We took a long lunch break at Linh’s with some of the worst service we’ve ever had, because the new guy was having to train an even newer girl. She just hasn’t been able to keep servers there for anything, and it’s suffering a lot because of it.

After work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer, then ran home to clean up before heading to their house. Zach took Autumn to her Explorers meeting and brought Eaddie dinner, so Summer and I just ate some leftover spaghetti. Then I picked Autumn up and we all settled in for the night.

I should invest in submarines with all this diving.

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NERF THIS!

Melinda was dropped off a bit early this morning, so I just barely made it there in time to get into place. Ben showed up late, so I ended up waiting for him outside, and then came in once everyone was in the shop area. They had a short meeting, and then I had Zach and Gary shoot the disc launchers at her. They sort of chased her into the hallway, where I was waiting in my trench coat with my battery powered dart Gatling gun.

The assault was short lived, and we spent way more time hunting down the projectiles than we did shooting them. I really do think it would be more fun to have just a single shooter and a pocket full of darts. Who knows what we’ve escalated now though.

They didn’t have any projects for me, so I spent all day at the junior high trying to get anything at all prepped. They’re still waiting on laptops for so many teachers, and Matt has been super high strung about it. He did at least start enforcing some record keeping, so they know how many kids keep losing or breaking things.

Five of us went to Sam’s for lunch, and when Greg ordered the gumbo, I knew I had to try it. She brought out a good sized bowl full of gumbo, along with another bowl full of rice. It was less than half the price of my usual order, and super delicious. Did I miss out on the fried, fishy goodness? Yes, but the gumbo was piping hot and full of flavor.

The afternoon creeped along, and I ultimately only got one device deployed all day long. It was pretty dumb, especially since after all that fuss, Matt didn’t even make the teacher give up the student device she was using. She even had an entire laptop cart full of unused devices that she had to keep in the room to meet the class requirements, even though the kids will never use them.

I worked a little late, then picked up Autumn on the way home. We went to my house for a little while, then ran through Walmart on the way to her house. She said they didn’t have anything to eat at home and wanted to make taco salads, so we spent about 20 times what I was expecting to spend when we walked into the store. It took us a while, but we eventually made it up the hill just behind Summer and Eaddie.

Autumn got to cooking, and I left to deliver a big piece of pork to Dad for smoking tomorrow. I dawdled a bit on the way back, angry about being duped into buying dinner while they truthfully had a refrigerator packed to the brim with food. I stopped at Lowe’s to hunt down a couple deals, then got gas before going back. When I walked in, Autumn fussed about being tired, but the food was done. We had to press her to finish even prepping the vegetables correctly, because they looked like they had been sliced by a three year old.

After dinner, Autumn went to bed and Eaddie stayed on the couch while we watched Cobra Kai. We made it all the way through to the last episode, which we’ll probably finish tomorrow. I really hope the next season makes it out soon.

Kobra Kai Karate?

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More Phones, More Problems

I went to the high school again first thing this morning and did a bit of work while just generally being available for Mike to ask questions. It wasn’t long though, before I got an urgent work order from the junior high regarding some trouble in their cafeteria. I headed across town and got them going pretty easily, and even got a cookie for my troubles.

The library seemed a little terse today with their new duties, and I don’t really know what they have to be upset about. I guess it’s just resistance to change, which is common anyway. I went to lunch pretty late since I was on a roll on closing out work orders. I just grabbed a free Whopper and some onion rings, then ate at home.

I went back to the high school for a little while after lunch, but then had to meet Kyle and Greg for a touch panel swap at Sequoyah. Gary had already helped Kyle load up the truck by the time I got there, so we just met Greg at the school as the buses were loading. The SMART E70 came down without too much trouble, and it was about the best time I’ve ever had removing one.

The girls were staying in, so I left work a little late after chatting with Ben for a little while, then went to my parents’ house for dinner. I needed to pick up some batteries for my Nerf gun, so I went to Walmart and wandered through the aisles for a little while before coming home for the evening.

Summer’s phone died on her earlier in the day, so she had to file a warranty claim. My new Galaxy S21 Ultra was supposed to be here tomorrow, but now the shipping information says it’s delayed without any additional information. Hopefully it arrives early next week so I can get it set up in time for the trip.

Okay, so what do you need.. besides a miracle?
Nerf. Lots of Nerf.

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Imperotive

It felt super cold today from how wet it’s been. I went to the high school first thing, and sat in with Mike all day. I tried to just be there so he could ask his questions, and guide him on a few work orders. He’s still having trouble keeping on task and closing out some of the simpler ones, so hopefully we can break him out of that before the start of school when it becomes much more overwhelming.

Lunch came around pretty quickly, and I picked up some Arby’s and surprised Summer at work. After we ate, I went to the shop and ended staying there the rest of the day, poking at Impero and contacting support so we can spin up another server to support all of the client connections we have.

The girls went to dinner with their father, so I went home and waited for Summer to get off work. She ended up just going home afterward anyway, which was a better choice all around anyway. Becky came by and dropped off a tiny painting she made me for Christmas, and we chatted for a little bit before I went to my parents’ house for dinner. Then it was back home for a cold, quiet evening.

Peek-a-moo!

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Adminton

Summer had to leave for Little Rock early this morning, so I took the kids to school. This time we even made it on time! I stuck around the junior high all morning since there were plenty of tickets for me to close. That office still doesn’t feel like mine, and it’s definitely not as useful. I’ll have to rearrange to make sense of all the crap that’s in there now.

Melinda wanted to go to lunch, so Josh suggested Morelos. Once we all agreed, she mentioned wanting pizza, so we went to Brick Oven instead. The service was actually pretty quick today, so we made it back relatively close to time. Then I tinkered in the shop until Ben sent me back to the junior high to meet with Matt, Janie, and Kelsey about their 1:1 device policies and procedures.

It took a little while, but eventually he understood what I was trying to explain, and I think tensions dropped a lot as we finished because he realized we weren’t hurting as badly for devices as everyone originally thought. Ultimately what I learned was that things are dumb because nobody wants to think through the policy and then enforce it until everything goes to hell, and then everyone just individually comes up with something that works until someone else tells them otherwise. If we had just assumed control of the project, I think things would have worked out better, and I doubt anyone would have bucked.

Eaddie had her flute lesson, so I dropped her off and got Autumn. Then they wanted to go on to karate early, so I dropped them off and went to my parents’ house to drop off the Fiero title. I wasn’t really hungry after the big lunch, but I ended up having a little bowl of curry before heading home to clean up.

The girls stopped by on the way home since Autumn failed to pack everything she deemed necessary, and then I continued to clean up clutter around the kitchen. It’s been slow progress as usual, but still working in the right direction.

Be gone, sticky mug!

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You Too Shall Pass

We got a bit of a downpour last night, with lightning, thunder, and the works. My power went out just long enough to turn all the living room lights on, and evidently something happened to at least one of the stoplights on the way to work, because it defaulted to either flashing yellow or red. I started the day off at the shop and quickly got pulled into looking at other peoples’ problems. We just have too many freshies and not enough support for them. They’ll be great if they stick around a while, but it’s too tempting to go somewhere that pays better for similar work.

Gary, Zach, and Greg wanted to go to Linhs for lunch. The food was great, but the service has been severely lacking lately, for similar reasons. I think I’ve seen new servers working every time I come in, and everyone she hires seems very green. It took us an hour and a half to get out of there, but nobody complained.

I spent the afternoon with Mike at the high school, and tried to show him a few other things. I’m sure he’s capable, but he really is kind of all over the place. I imagine he’s acting exactly like I did when I started, which is understandable. Working for the school is a whole different kind of beast. We left later than we should have to get a TV to mount downstairs. Of course we had to mount a plywood board first, since it was a drywall installation. We actually made pretty good time for it just being the two of us, but we didn’t get any of the new cabling run. We also forgot to remove the black tag from the box before we threw it in the dumpster.

As soon as we got back to the shop, I hopped in the car and went to pick up the girls that were still at the high school, and took them to my parents’ for dinner. We just had some quick leftovers before I had to get Autumn back to the high school for Monday night class. She failed her biology class, so for the next seven weeks she’s going to be eating up an hour and a half of our time every Monday evening.

I decided to treat Eaddie to some ice cream at Bocadillos since she passed all of her classes, and I guess that’s the bar we had inadvertently set. Then we went back to my house for a little while since we had more time to kill. When we got back to the high school, I ran back to the dumpster to retrieve the black tag we threw away, and then we waited for Autumn to make her way through a big crowd of students as they left for the evening.

Summer is leaving me on kid duty tomorrow morning since she has to drive to Little Rock, so I took the girls home to clean up, and then we all came back to my house for the evening. Hopefully tomorrow I can close out some of my own tickets.

Much disappoint.