Tag: work

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Catching Up Over Deals

I decided to work today instead of taking even just the morning off. I went to the shop first, where we didn’t really seem to have a meeting planned. The pizza I ordered Sunday night would be ready at 9, so I worked on some stuff there until it was ready, then picked it up on the way to the high school. It wasn’t fully decked out, but I think the only thing I really wished I had added but didn’t were jalapeños. I showed Summer a picture and she decided to try a couple slices, so I dropped some off really quickly along the way.

My morning went by pretty quickly again, though I managed to stay decently busy. Lunchtime approached quickly again after such a late breakfast, and I was to meet up with Amanda. She said to invite anyone else along, so I texted Allen and picked him up before getting her on the way to Zaxby’s for BOGO chicken. As we left, Allen said the others were meeting Dale at Taco John’s, but they hadn’t said a word to me about it. It’s not the first time they’ve had lunch with him without mentioning it to me, so I felt less bad about missing out.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly too, and I jammed out with no teachers down my hallway. I ended the day setting up another computer at the old fieldhouse, then made a lap to burn the last couple minutes before quitting time. I spent a little time cleaning up and started a load of laundry before Summer decided she wasn’t hungry enough for dinner, so I let her handle the girls while I went to my parents’ house for dinner.

My parents had already eaten, so I warmed up some spaghetti and ate, then talked to then about work and finances for a little while. It’s probably past time that I research high interest offers for both savings and checking accounts. I figure I’m missing out on another hundred bucks or so in interest income, and that’s just too easy not to collect. I started to look at some different banks when I got home, but then Aaron got on to play some Overwatch with me until bedtime.

It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen…

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Lunch With Newbies

I got up a little early this morning to pick up a breakfast pizza for work. The two new guys started today, so they were off with some of the others doing new hire stuff all day. My morning was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. I barely made it back to the shop by lunch time, though that ended up not mattering much because Zach was at London with Josh and didn’t make it back until about half an hour later.

Greg, Ben, and I met them at Brangus where Ben ended up buying all of our food since we were the only ones that showed up for the traditional new-guy lunch. Hearing them in conversation helped me feel a little better, but I’m still bitter about their starting salaries. I guess there’s just no getting around it now, so I’ll just have to move up by moving out when I have the opportunity.

My afternoon went by pretty quickly too, as the high school had their parent-teacher conferences. I got a few things done, and then Melinda sent word that central office was sending us home an hour early. I went home for a little while until Summer got back home with Eaddie. She stir-fried some leftovers, and then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

To work, or not to work…

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Let’s Talk About That

I didn’t get shipped off with anyone this morning, but I didn’t want to just go off to the high school for more of that. Oakland had a few new tickets, so I spent all morning taking care of those. I even got a little breakfast when the girls handed me a slice of pizza as I walked past the kitchen. A handful of the work orders I dealt with today were due to a print issue within Chrome, but I didn’t realize it until Gary mentioned other schools in the area talking about the same thing.

Zach, Gary, Heather, Ben, and I went to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads and got one of the slower servers. We didn’t make it back in time, but nobody ever really cares anyway. When we got back, Ben let me run to Leonard’s to pick up a KeySmart because I was tired of wearing my keys and badge around my neck. I think after almost four years, I’m ready to graduate and get that jingly chain off of my chest. Then I went to the high school to finish up the day.

I didn’t get a whole lot done, but I did close out all the work orders I had done throughout the day. I stopped into the library for a little while, and Karen told me a story about how our superintendent had discovered a destroyed student laptop while he was out on a run. Evidently he thought enough to send a picture of the library barcode in to one of the principals, but didn’t mention that he didn’t actually pick it up. He left it there because he was in the middle of his run, and then it was gone by the time anyone drove out to pick it up. Classy.

I had forgotten to return the district card, so I ended up having to run back to the shop to return it. Ben was back in the shop working on a sign computer, so I brought up the fact that we are still bringing new hires in at step nine. I told him that really made me not want to work at the high school, and that I really only owed him a level of competence equal to our worst performing tech if he’s not going to re-evaluate us before moving on with these new hiring rules.

Just as I was leaving, I saw my order at J. C. Penney was ready for pickup, so I ran across town to get that. Kevin was at work at AT&T, so I stopped in to chat for a bit while I was in the area. Then I stopped by the shop, but Summer had already left to get the kids, so I went home for a little while before heading up to their house.

They were watching TV, so I ate some leftover pizza before we started watching Glee. Then Eaddie came out talking about having some horrible grades due to missing homework. Evidently teachers just let you turn in assignments whenever you want these days, and there are no repercussions. That’s not how I roll though, and Summer tasked her with finishing up all of her assignments over the next day.

Unable to continue in the living room, we retired to the bedroom to chat for a while. Then I forced one more episode of Glee before having Summer set up her new Nest Mini, and then we crashed.

You can’t expect them to pay you for what you’re worth, so you have to give them what they paid for.

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Snoway!

Today was super cold, and there was just enough moisture right over us that we got our first little dusting of snow. It wasn’t even really a dusting so much as a sprinkle, but it was snow nonetheless. I spent all morning at the shop fighting with the same desktop from yesterday, and got a couple responses from 2TAC. They finally agreed to take it back under warranty, though they still felt like it was an imaging issue and not necessarily hardware. Zach, Sara, Gary, and I went to Western Sizzlin for lunch in the freezy air, and then I went to the high school in the afternoon where I fought with the laptops again.

I thought we were going to Zaxby’s for Quiz Bowl trivia night, but Summer had a meeting at the high school and then just went to get the kids afterward. I stayed in and got cold enough to turn on my radiator again, but didn’t do much else. Some of the guys got on and played Call of Duty while I lurked. Eventually Clint got on for some Overwatch before bed.

I just don’t get it, I bought this treadmill two years ago and I still haven’t lost any weight at all.

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Ode to Toilet

I felt like I just banged my head against the wall all day long. I hardly left my office, and didn’t even take a lunch, snacking a bit and sipping a late Soylent. I just couldn’t figure out why one of my new desktops wouldn’t image, or why two of my laptops won’t wake up from sleep mode. I ultimately made my way to the shop for the last hour of the day so I could chat with Gary about it, and ended up leaving the computer there to try again tomorrow morning.

When I left work, I went by my parents’ house and finished up some eggplant soup before Dad came over to look at my toilet. The closet flange was just too big for the pipe, but we didn’t want to chip out the foundation to fix the poor build. We went to Lowe’s and decided to try a non-wax seal first, but it ended up being too small to fill the void. It took another trip to get two wax seals to fill in the gap. We ended up replacing the rest of the components as well since we already had everything torn apart anyway. It took too long, and it was pretty unpleasant, but we finally got it all back in place.

As I finally got to wind down, I saw a whole team of guys playing Overwatch, so I stayed up a little late and joined in for a couple rounds before bed.

I don’t have time for toilet humor.

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Nein!

It rained all day today. Work seemed pretty slow and quiet, but I took care of what I could. I have a constant feeling of being behind, but there’s also nothing of any urgency. I called Zach, then joined him and Gary at Smackin’ Wings and Things for lunch. It took them a full 50 minutes to get our food out to us. It was a pretty good green chili burrito, but no way worth the $12.52 including tip that I paid for it. In that amount of time, I’m pretty sure I could have prepared one from scratch at my own home.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly, and just as quietly as the morning. I went home for a while after work and waited for the girls to finish at karate. Then I took them home and ate some leftovers at their house as we waited for Summer to get home from her work meeting.

When she got home, she made me take a “short” enneagram test to compare me to what she had been “learning” in Little Rock. I proved her wrong by being as brutally honest as I could for fourteen pages of vague, Facebook quiz-style questions as I could. Ain’t nobody gonna sum up my personality in an online test.

INFP-T

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Plant Proteins

Today was warm enough to take the bike in to work, but it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. I never heard from anyone all day, so I just stuck to myself and worked on things in my office. My morning was fueled by Soylent, but I wasn’t going to miss out on a free Beyond Burger from Hardee’s, so I left for a super late lunch at the end of the school day.

I hate to be at all disparaging toward the employees at our only remaining Hardee’s, because they’ve never been anything but kind. I just can’t shake the feeling that they all arrived for their shifts on the same bus from their community care center. They do manage to get the food out, and my burger was actually put together quite nicely today. The fries were cold though, and every interaction I observed felt really…unpolished? I’m absolutely for the employment of people with special needs; work just wouldn’t be the same without Allen. I’m just suggesting that maybe one of the staff on duty at any given time should be a better trained and better compensated employee. I really think that would raise the bar and maybe help fill some seats. I’d hate to lose the restaurant due to poor ownership.

The afternoon went by super quickly after having such a late lunch. I tried stopping at Walgreens for my blood pressure medication on the way back, but the line was both long and immotile and I had to get back to work. When I left work, I went by my parents’ house to visit while I waited for the girls to be ready to go home. They ate with their grandparents while Summer was away for a work meeting in Little Rock, so I picked at some of what my parents had out. Once the girls were ready, I fetched them, made another stop at Walgreens, then went by my house to change before taking them home.

The evening flew by as the girls begrudgingly took care of their chores. Summer eventually made it home, and it was off to bed with everyone.

If you close your eyes, it’s like you’re eating a real, overcooked hamburger.

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Folly Friday

Today was a lot of work disguised as fun. Jason had a project with Allen, and Ben had me catch up on work orders at Oakland. I hadn’t been able to visit in a while, so it was great getting to see everyone again. I don’t ever get that kind of love from any other campus. We caught up just a little bit in the office before I wandered the building taking care of business. Then I made a stop in the cafeteria before heading out.

Ben and Heather were running a fax line at the junior high, so I joined up with them. We got really close to our destination when we ran out of cable because nobody checked what direction the length markers were counting. Heather had to run and grab a box of another color, and we used the first line as a pull, then continued on to the finish line. I’ve made it a little bit of a game to be extra-ridiculous around James, and it helped to keep things light for me. We worked right into lunch, and Ben left to eat with one of his kids.

Heather had other errands too, but Allen called to let me know he and Gary were going to Wendy’s, so I caught up with them. Gary fussed over the girl spelling his name with two Rs, but then I beat him by placing a mobile order for a salad with added onions, and the girl asked if I wanted them on my salad. I confirmed that I would not be eating the onions by themselves, but she still gave me my order with a cup of onions on the side. I’d never seen the girl before, so maybe she was just nervous and new, but that still felt obvious.

After lunch, I ran by the high school to grab a charger before meeting up with Ben at the middle school. He wanted to take a truckload of discarded electronics from the technology office there. It took us a couple trips, but we somehow managed to load it all into his truck. Then I loaded us up with popcorn and we headed back to the shop. Jason was out for the afternoon, so everyone that was left took it pretty easy in the shop. I like it when Ben works back there with us, because he’s helpful and fun with random chatter while we’re doing other things. It just always feels more like a team effort, even if we’re all working on completely different things.

When I got home, I put my car back on the charger and cleaned it up a bit for the trip to Conway tomorrow. Summer has a run early in the morning, so I actually have to get up an hour earlier than I do for work just to get us all down there in time.

Let’s be honest. I’ve already done as much work as I’m going to do this week.

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Meeting the New Doctor

I had to go in for my 6-month checkup today, and my old nurse Stephanie had left some time ago. They actually scheduled me with Doctor Carter, whom I’d never once met. I got to sleep in a little, then went straight to the clinic where they got me back behind the door in record time. I still had to wait a while for the doctor to see me, and once he got there he basically went on a 20-minute rant about how I can’t eat starchy, fried foods. Both times in my life that I’ve had to meet a new primary care physician, that’s all I get. This time was probably the worst with assumptions about the kind of diet I have. Just tell me to exercise and move on with it.

When I finished up with that mandatory meeting, I went to Superfast for an oil change and to convince Summer to go to lunch with me before I had to go to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had left my car idling in line for a while, but after the oil change I had to get a jump start to get moving again. We stowed my car in the back bay for a charge, then took hers to Denny’s for a couple free Beyond Burgers.

Steven and his coworker were there for lunch as well, and they seemed to be having a better time. Summer seemed genuinely surprised that our service was horrible, but I’ve only very rarely had a good experience there. The food is always fine, but it’s always incredibly slow. It took us half an hour to get our drinks, and mine wasn’t even what I ordered. Our waitress actually brought them out with our food, so we just scarfed everything down at once. The burger was decent, but they were definitely disguising it with a fancy bun. The bun was great, but it was about three times the size of the burger patty. The patty itself tasted okay, but was a bit too tender.

With lunch out of the way, we headed back to the shop so I could go to work. Alex evidently tightened my battery terminal, so I didn’t have any trouble the rest of the day. I went by a nearly empty shop for a little while, then went to the high school and spent a good hour walking back and forth, getting in my steps, to work on the sign. I still couldn’t get the radio to talk, so I gave up again. The rest of the afternoon went by super fast as I did mostly things for which I did not have a proper work order.

After work, I went home to change and then ran by Superfast again for a tire rotation. Then I went to AutoZone to have them check my battery. I thought Alex had just adjusted the charger earlier in the day, but Summer said he actually moved the connector down the terminal, so the tester at AutoZone read my battery as low, but healthy.

By the time I finished there, Summer was on her way home with the girls. I stopped by Dollar General to kill a little time and ended up buying a rake. I joked with the cashier that this is why I’m normally not allowed out of the house. Then we had huge salads for dinner and watched The Matrix Revolutions.

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

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Deep Diving

I didn’t really have anything new come in today, so I got to spend my time working on some older work. I started at the arena messing with one of their Crestron iPads. Then I tinkered around in Group Policy for a while because I couldn’t figure out why a printer wouldn’t deploy properly. I ended up heading back to the shop, but lunchtime snuck up on me. Gary and Heather were going to Taco Villa, so I tagged along and we brought food back to the shop. Then Gary helped me pick through my Group Policy issue. It all came down to a rogue space in the share name of the device.

Back at the high school, I finally got the Crestron app working after receiving a call back from our vendor. Then I ended the day setting up a bunch of computers in the field house. Autumn and her friend were at the high school for the Harlem Globetrotters, but Summer came to get them and I just went home.

Dad and I talked a bit more about my clogged drain pipe this morning, so I dug out an old, long piece of aluminum to shove down the hole. I poured some more boiling water down the hole to fill it up, and then shoved the stick down as far as I could go. It bent around the angled pipe almost perfectly, and I managed to clear the drain. I still wasn’t sure if there were any roots inside it, and the closet flange was still offset on the pipe, so I left it for another day. I ran by Lowe’s to check out some parts to fix it, and to pick up a windchime on clearance.

Heather had told me during lunch that the Globetrotters event was free for employees, so I tried going out there to check it out. There was a huge line of people, and none of the other employees I talked to knew anything about it being free or even discounted. I wasn’t even aware that it was a charity event, so that made me feel even less good about trying to get in. I ended up going home and doing more research on toilet repairs until bedtime.

Still not hard. Just gross.