Tag: work

Uncategorised

Relentless

We didn’t have a team meeting this morning, so I spent all day in my buildings trying to keep my head above water. For some reason people feel like now is the best time to try and request new things from everyone, so on top of them finding things that have been broken since last year, they’re creating new work for us as well.

I met up with Summer at New China for lunch, then continued on with more of the same until it was time to go. I took Eaddie along with me while Summer went to work out, and we got some milkshakes from Sonic on the way home. Once Summer got here, we all went to pick up some Wendy’s for them before coming home to watch Unbreakable.

Monday will bring out the priorities in everyone.

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

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

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.

Uncategorised

Work Hard, Not Smart

I feel like the new school year is coming faster than I’m prepared for. I still have two labs worth of laptops to take care of on top of the usual setting everyone’s computer back up so they can get back to work. I was excited that I’d get the morning to take care of my own things. That’s about the time Allen asked for help mounting panduit on the walls at his campus. He loaded the entire toolbox into the truck to do this. I had to run to the junior high pretty immediately to take care of a surprise-fried computer, but I called him as soon as I was done. He was sitting in the truck waiting for me to help him unload the toolbox, even though all he really needed was a hacksaw. When I got there, he was parked on the wrong side of the building at the far end of the parking lot. Him saying it wouldn’t hurt me to walk just about set the tone for the rest of the day. No rest for my possibly-fractured foot today.

We spent most of the morning taking care of two panduit runs and then one internal wall run where he cut the pull line I was planning to leave in place for the future. It just kept getting dumber from there, and it was immensely frustrating, but I had to just laugh it off. To care too much there is to drive oneself mad. I spent what little time I had left before lunch at Oakland and tried to take care of a couple work orders. I got tied up with the librarian there, so I didn’t even get to leave lunch until 10 minutes late, so I ended up just going home for a couple slices of leftover pizza.

When I got back to work, we went upstairs to build a few laptop carts, not quite certain how many we needed to build and with what quantity of laptops in each. It mostly didn’t matter, though, because the cables were tied directly to a circuit board, and we maxed out the connections. When we finished, we loaded up two trucks worth of TVs, again for the middle school, and headed to start mounting them. Jason made a comment about mounting them tomorrow, and I scolded him into admitting that we could “probably get one” done before quitting time.

We had to wait at the front door with our load until Dale, Ryan, and Amanda finished unloading theirs and brought us the dolly. While we waited, I started to unload the truck, and Jason made a comment about not wanting to have to lift all the boxes twice in order to get them inside, even though I really didn’t add any extra steps. He was content to lean against the truck and watch me work, so I told him to run inside and find Allen, who was still trying to get two dual monitors working since I left him before lunch. I was finally afforded the silence to unload the entire truck by myself. Once we got everything inside, we managed to mount four TVs before heading back to the shop. On the way to the dumpster, I lost a box in the road, which just frustrated me more after I was made fun of for packing trash the way I do.

After work, I came home and waited for a long-winded Summer to get there so we could go to my parents’ house for dinner. We had a nice talk, then went to eat some bún thịt nướng. She did really great with the chopsticks. We killed a bit of time while a small storm rolled through, then went to the shop to pick up some scrap that I wanted to play with before it was sent to recycling. I feel like a crazy person, and most at work would probably agree, but this type of equipment still has a lot of novelty to me.

Break out the red ink.

Uncategorised

Once more, with feeling.

I may have fussed a bit this morning about always being on Team Lift. Jason broke down and said I could trade with noodle-armed Amanda if I wanted, but I didn’t want to do that to her. That shouldn’t have been my call to make. I ended up having to break away to fix something at the junior high anyway, so I had to catch up to the guys at the high school after that was done. We ended up hanging one TV twice because Dale wanted it higher after the fact. We only managed two inches higher, but every bit helped.

After hanging those TVs, we took a break for lunch. I started thinking it, and then Dale said it out loud – Western Sizzlin. We were on the same wavelength, so it was a done deal.

When we got back from lunch, and after a bit of arguing about Jason’s incorrect direction for the naming of Allen’s 90 new laptops, we touched every one of them again to correct them. I ended up hitting a wall, and nobody else was anxious to do any work as usual, so we rode it out until 3:00 and headed home.

I got home and was assaulted by anxiety-inducing emails and tried to mellow out with a couple beers. Such a wasted evening. I was tired anyway.

She’s done worse for only two inches.