Tag: work

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No Power to Breathe

We lost power in the middle of the night last night, and I couldn’t breathe for the few hours while it was out. I tried going to sleep without my CPAP, but I just tossed and turned and couldn’t pass out at all. Eventually the lights all came on and I was back in business, but I was ragged by the time I had to get up to go to work. I don’t know what happened, but it just affected a small area down my street.

Once at work, we hooked up the trailer to deliver a bunch of Chromebook carts. I feel like I have way more devices than students, and it just feels ridiculous. It would make more sense if they actually used them properly, but most of the time they end up used as babysitting devices.

Allen and I went to Taco Villa for lunch, and then Amanda went with us to run some security wires in the high school arena. I got even more frustrated with Jason while trying to figure out exactly what we needed to do. We loaded up two trucks to go over there, and then as soon as we got there, Jason said he was going to show me what needed to be done because he had to leave us. I don’t know why I let myself be surprised at all by that. The rest of the afternoon ended up being me slave-driving the other two, because neither of them wanted to do anything. We would have finished the entire job in plenty of time if they had stopped dicking around in the bleachers, but instead we made it back to the shop a few minutes late. On the way there, we saw three fire trucks outside the Blue Chip Ice Co, which seemed super ironic.

After a quick trip home to change, I went to pick up Eaddie and talked her into going swimming for a while since she had been sitting in the house watching The Flash all day long. She resisted the whole way there, but we had fun once she got in the pool. Summer came over after her workout and picked her up to run home and get some things before coming over.

I went home and set up my new monitor before they got there. It just barely fit, with the back leg of the mount barely secured on the back edge of the desk. I could mount it on an arm, but that’s a project for another day. It’d probably be preferable to switch desks anyway. We didn’t get to start Rampage like we wanted because they got here so late, so instead we watched an episode of New Girl with some cake and ice cream, then called it a night.

What happened to pride in one’s work?

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You are maddeningly inconsistent.

I got really frustrated with several things at work today. The first task I was given was something that was scheduled for Jason to do yesterday, but he didn’t do it then because presumably he and Allen spent the afternoon watching a girl at the UPS Store properly pack the leased laptops he was supposed to ship back. The man is either completely devoid of any common sense, or a complete genius. I’ve never seen someone hand off so much of his own work in my life.

After Amanda and I finished that task for him, we went to Sequoyah to pull cables and rearrange a room for a new teacher there. This was frustrating for a few reasons. Firstly, the room was already in perfect form with the SMART board in the middle of one wall and the computer desk in the middle of an adjacent wall. Secondly, the technology committee is supposed to be there to deny requests like this that aren’t backed by any real instructional need. Thirdly, I felt like Ben should have stood his ground as a part of the committee. I get that the principal there may not make requests very often, so requests should be taken seriously. It was the fact that this particular room should have been the template for the setup of every other room in the district. The new layout made no sense, and I was made to feel like I was taking crazy pills just because Amanda didn’t want to try and convince her principal otherwise.

I left for lunch with Dale and Ryan at Chick-fil-A, then came back and completed the job with Amanda. I’m sure that I probably let myself get too upset over it, and at the end of the day I’m paid to do a job, so I completed the job. It was just compounded frustrations with specific coworkers.

That’s about the time Jason told Amanda and me that we wired too many of the laptop carts the other day, and that we would have to go undo the work we had just done.

That was right after he blew up in front of me about not being able to image a computer with Ryan’s new setup, even though he’s been told specifically how to do it correctly multiple times.

Home and beer in a quiet house.

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Iunno…

Dale was ready to roll this morning, and he and Ryan ended up pushing everyone else to get to work. We loaded up two groups of three and headed to Center Valley to replace eight touch panels. Ryan and I did four touch panels in the time that it took Jason, Zach, and Allen to do three. Dale took care of inventory for both groups since we didn’t need the extra hand. I wish we could get points for good work.

Dale, Allen, and I went to New China for lunch since we had a relatively light afternoon. I’m not sure what anyone else did, but Dale, Ryan, and I went to the high school to image a couple labs and reroute some cables into ceiling drops. I was just glad to be there so they couldn’t gripe about me not working along with the rest of the crew.

After work, I stopped at the car wash to clean all the grime off of the Murano from our trip. Then it was home for the evening. I spent some more time re-looking in every corner of my house for my box fan that seems to have completely vanished. Then I tracked down a leak in my air conditioner that was leaving puddles in the floor of my closet. Dad’s eagle eye spotted a drain plug that simply fell out, so tomorrow I’ll have to try and find a new one that fits.

Google it.

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Won’t you take me to Junkytown?

Today had me beat. We spent all day taking down projectors and SMART boards from the high school, and almost every single room was really hot with no air circulation. The heat, plus lots of boards mounted to drywall instead of brick made for a difficult and sweaty time. We filled up two truck beds before lunch and had to unload them into an already full graveyard. Someone got wise and asked if we could take the projectors and mounting booms to the scrap metal yard, and we got a little over 30 bucks for it all. For technology that really probably wasn’t all that bad, I found that to be pretty frustrating.

After a quick lunch at Quiznos, we jumped right back into it at the high school. The guys at the scrapyard indicated to our guys with the first load that there needed to be more metal than what they got, so Zach and I drove to a different scrap yard in the afternoon. They didn’t want to pay anything at all, but they offered to let us throw them into a junk pile. It kind of broke me a little inside to be throwing that stuff away when presumably it could be sold or donated to someone in need. Summer gears are turning, though, and we have to move the merchandise.

When we got back to the shop, we were told we had a truck coming with several pallets of stuff for us, so we all had to wait outside and clean out more room in the graveyard to store the new stuff. That took us the rest of the work day, so there was no hope of going home early for most of us. Somehow Jason managed to disappear somewhere, and Dale waved goodbye as he drove off.

I went straight to my parents’ house to have a swim in the pool for a while. Summer and Eaddie came over to join me eventually. I left for a bit to get cheap Kroger gas with Dad and Julie, and then it was back to swim. Mom made pork and shrimp spring rolls for dinner, so we stayed for that. Everyone else was pretty tired by then, so we came back to my house to crash.

Where the heck did I put that box fan?

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“We’re ready master.” “I’m not ready!”

Back to work. I woke up pleasantly ahead of schedule and made it to work a few minutes early. It was a pretty light day, with just a couple touch panels to install in the morning, and then the afternoon to myself at Oakland. I guess as far as coming back to work, this wasn’t too bad.

After work, I came home and set up my mini fridge. Summer came over to take me to meet Autumn at band camp for dinner, but I ended up not going. As I got the fridge set up to the point that I had to let it cool down, Mom texted for me to come clean up some leftover spring rolls. I ate and ran, coming home to fill the now-cool fridge with drinks. I ended up removing a couple shelves to get things to fit the way I wanted. It’s a silly convenience, but I like the way it looks with how it’s stocked.

Summer and Eaddie got here just as I was finishing up there, and we had some of Dad’s banana bread with ice cream before bed. I feel exhausted for what little I’ve done today.

I miss being away.

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Is this trash?

It was kind of an odd day at work today. I had to run to Oakland first thing to take care of some summer school stuff. While I was there, I found my tadpoles were more frog than tadpole. I’m pretty sure they ended up being leopard frogs. They’re going to have to be released in a day or two.

When I finished there, I met Amanda, Dale, and Allen at the middle school to hang a TV and clean out computers. I basically ended up dusting out an entire computer lab before lunch. I met Allen at KFC, then went back with him and Amanda to finish hanging the TV and rearrange another room. That move was so involved, it lasted until the end of the day even with all three of us. It was nice to have a group project where everyone actually kept busy.

After work, Summer and I went to pick up the betta from the library at the junior high, but Jessica had already taken it home because I took too long. From there, we went to Gardner to check out some discard stuff. We ended up taking every bit of it – two full-sized filing cabinets, two bookshelves, a kid’s table, and a couple raised monitor stands. It took us three trips to the junior high to drop off most of that, and then we took the table to Summer’s house for Eaddie. On the way, we stopped to pick up some Taco John’s because we worked up our appetites, then took it back home to eat over an episode of The Office.

There’s an ugly monster in my head that someone put there a long time ago.

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Bet they don’t reprimand their froggers!

I thought we might get a break from pulling cable today, and I was at least partly right. Amanda called in after what we had to go through yesterday, and evidently Jason and Allen didn’t get anywhere near finished with Sequoyah, so they wanted me to come help them finish it. I had some things to do for summer school though, so I went to Oakland first to take care of that. I checked on the tadpoles while I was there, and was greeted with a wave.

When I finally got to Sequoyah, I saved the day by fixing where the cable boxes were to reduce friction, and also punched a bunch of cables through a wall that Jason couldn’t seem to get through. We finished up there, and I don’t even know how much excess cable they pulled, but it was a frustrating amount. It’s almost as if they had never done it before. I fished the ends through where they needed to be, then let them finish up after lunch.

We had lunch at Dairy Queen, and Summer met us there just to stare at me. I’m now remembering that I had forgotten to get my 99 cent cheese sticks from Sonic in the afternoon. After lunch, I was instructed to go get serial numbers from 108 iPads so we could deploy a paid app to them for summer school. Gary volunteered to help, and we managed to knock out 85 in about two and a half hours. So many frustrating things could have been completely avoided with some better management, preparedness, and maybe a dash of testing things before committing to them and demanding resolutions at the last minute.

After work, I went by Superfast to get Summer because they were looking at her air conditioner again. We made it home and I started some laundry before having to go to her house to pick up something for her neck pain. Back home, I managed to get one round of PUBG in before server maintenance, and then it was off to bed.

That was scary-fast.

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Double Date with Folks

Work was supremely frustrating today. Amanda and I were sent to pull Ryan’s cables at Jason’s buildings, and even if it was unintentional, we had the distinct feeling that Jason was selectively assigning difficult jobs to others so he wouldn’t have to do them. I’m covered from head to toe in fiberglass insulation, and now my skin hurts everywhere.

I went to New China for lunch with Allen and Kristen, and we met Summer there. It was an interesting time, and Kristen wants to hang out with us as couples now. Life is strange.

The afternoon was finishing up the bullshittiest cable run I’ve ever had to do, and then Ben cut us loose at 4. I refused to let Jason beat me out the door, so Heather, Gary, and I all left a few minutes earlier.

I went home and started charging Summer’s Amazfit Bip before she got there to go swim at my parents’ house. Dad came out to join us in the pool for a bit until Mom got home from work, and then we all went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner.

CONGRATULATIONS.
UNITED NATIONS

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End of the Year Review: Year 2

It was field day at the junior high today, so on top of being slow this time of year, I didn’t have anything new coming in. I decided to walk around some of the activities there, and had lunch from Subway that was brought in. School let out two hours early for our awards assembly at the performing arts center.

The guys left the shop earlier than I expected, so I was the last one to make it to the PAC. I mingled a little in the lobby, then found a seat with Summer and Miranda. Ryan got tech of the year, which was well deserved after all the work he’s been doing on just about everything that makes the rest of our jobs easier.

I stuck around and chatted with Becky for a little while until traffic settled down, and then headed home. On the way toward Hickey Park, I saw a fox run across the road from the school into the little meadow between the campus and the park. It had a squirrel in its mouth, which I kind of assume was dinner for some tiny fox babies.

When I got home, I moved the rest of the tadpoles to the 55-gallon tank. I counted around 250 alive, and only really found one corpse. There were some others that didn’t seem too active, but there’s a ton of movement now that they all have way more space to swim around. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with over 200 frogs, but it should be entertaining. The pair I took to Oakland have gotten way bigger than any of the ones I have at home, which I guess is due to less crowding and better water quality. Hopefully the larger tank will fix both of those issues, though I still need to go buy some more filter media.

I drove through Wendy’s for a couple burgers on the way to Summer’s house. She baked some fries, and we watched The Office for a while. There was some leftover caramel apple pie from the bake sale that was super good too.

On the way home, I decided to stop at Walmart for some new batteries to put in my Nest Protect and a replacement lava lamp bulb for the one I broke in the library. Then I ran into Steven while I was looking at water hose nozzles. I see his dad around the neighborhood, but I haven’t seen him in years. Crazy how time works.

Price check on prune juice, Bob. Price check on prune juice.

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Two-Man

I spent all morning at Oakland, partially finishing up Sara’s office, but also babysitting ELPA testing. Becky finished her latest cow painting and brought it in for me. She always does a fantastic job, but seems so critical.

Ryan, Zach, Sara, and I went to Wendy’s for lunch. Ryan and I both got their Smoky Mushroom Bacon Cheeseburger, which was awesome. I was feeling the double, and it was everything I had hoped it would be.

After lunch, I spent some time at the junior high before heading back to the shop to help Ryan hang a touch panel for Amanda. She was there too. We were in and out in about 40 minutes, which seemed pretty awesome compared to the five-man jobs we usually pull on Fridays.

After work, I came home and boxed up my damaged Pixel and fried cable modem for their respective returns. Then it was a winning round of PUBG before bed.

Addicted to shopohol.