Tag: work

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Opportunities Rebound

I didn’t sleep great last night, but my biggest struggle was slow traffic and feeling hungry on the drive in to work. I parked by the loading dock for the second time, assuming kids were only out there yesterday due to the staff softball game they had, but evidently that’s just what they do every day after lunch. Some of them were playing basketball nearby, and the ball hit my car and set off the alarm. What surprised me the most was that I didn’t even notice the notification because it wasn’t a special sound. It was just a regular notification that didn’t draw any special attention. One of the maintenance guys had to come in to get me when the alarm was going off. Unfortunately I didn’t even catch the event on sentry mode, beyond seeing a basketball bounce away from my car, and then be caught by a girl that looked like a deer in headlights.

The best part of the day was the “taco Tuesday” nachos, which was a big, ugly glob of meat and cheese with a heap of vegetables on top from the salad bar. I’ve actually been overall pretty happy with the lunch there. Otherwise I spent most of my day writing up thoughts on our device deployment, and trying to come up with compelling ideas for administration to limit damage and loss.

The second best part of the day was the confidence boost of getting a job offer from Compsys, and then later a request for an interview at Green Bay Packaging. The former wasn’t going to pay well enough for the commute, but the second would be worth the sudden jump. I’ve really liked the people at Two Rivers so far, but it is a lot of work for very little compensation, comparatively. It’s a bit like when I started at Russellville, making way too little for an ever-increasing workload.

I made it home through some more slow traffic, but Summer was charging in the garage, so I changed clothes and took my car for a wash. Then I came back home to do some laundry. Once it was in the dryer, I left to visit my parents, but they were out at Lelan’s shop getting Mom’s hair cut. I turned back around and waited out the laundry, and then headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

Summer was already in bed and wanted me to sit with her for a bit. Autumn started watching TV at an obnoxious volume in the living room, but fortunately left around the time I was getting ready for bed. Eaddie decided she didn’t want to go to work with me, but then came out fussing that she didn’t have a source to stream The Office. First world problems.

Don’t blow it.

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Director? I Hardly Know Her!

I was exhausted this morning, but I made it to work just before the bell rang. Today was the first day I really let people just fetch me out of my office, which was annoying, but Kim wasn’t reliably available, or possibly yet capable of fixing some of the issues. I got a pat on the back from the superintendent as he walked down the hall, so I guess that meant the school board approved of hiring me.

When I got back to the office for a while, I dug around at a couple things, but what took the most time was finishing up the Jamf purchase. It was my first purchase order, and they wanted even more paperwork filed after I submitted the PO. I had a break for a cafeteria burger in the middle of that, and then I was one of the last few people out of the building.

Traffic back home was slow and stupid, but I think it was mostly due to the bridge construction. I reviewed an email from Alisha when I got home, and made some refinements to our next home offers. Then I headed up to Summer’s house for the evening.

Eaddie was playing her instruments while Summer bathed. Autumn was gone to Adam’s house for a while, so I warmed up some leftovers for everyone. Then I laid in bed with Summer for a bit. Everyone went to sleep pretty early, and I was exhausted myself, so I managed to get down by midnight.

So much for eating light.

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Liquids

I brought a couple things to work today, like the nameplate I got from Dad, and my keyboard and mouse, since the one in the office was kind of gross and difficult to use. I didn’t care much for the ergonomic keyboard. They were having a field day, so Kim took me around the elementary building and then through the high school just to tour a little more of the place before she leaves. I got to see their golf simulator which was tucked back in an old science room, but we never made it to the heavy equipment simulator.

When lunch time came around, she described it as “the school cafeteria’s version of chicken alfredo,” so I stuck with the remainder of my Soylent and some lemonade instead. Then we had to help the Gator Parent Organization set up for awards in the auditorium for the following morning.

I ended up staying pretty late, debating on staying for the board meeting in the evening. I had a little less than an hour to go when I finally ducked out, since I had to start some laundry if I wanted to leave the house the next day.

I made it home, started washing shirts, picked up a cheap dinner with McDonald’s fries for a buck, and a free Baconator from Wendy’s. That was probably the hottest, freshest, best-assembled Baconator I’ve ever had. I wished they had added more veggies, but it was great.

When I finally finished my laundry, I headed up to Summer’s where all the girls were already in bed. I should have just stayed home for the night. I was exhausted anyway.

Seriously, way nicer facility so far.

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Stupid Pilot

I was just a hair late for work this morning, but I don’t think anyone even noticed since I’m not really expected anywhere at any time. I had my first encounter with a vendor when I got an email from a months-long chain trying to renew our Jamf license. Fortunately I was relatively familiar, so I responded and got us on track. Purchasing will be a weird, probably easy thing to learn that I’ve just never been a part of before. It’ll be nice to be the one making a few decisions, but I’m sure I’ll have to make other less fun ones in the future.

The lunch ladies gave me a huge plate of chicken strips for lunch, and then it was a pretty quiet afternoon. I didn’t really figure out a whole lot of anything else because I spent most of the day trying to clean up old emails. Everyone has just been using a shared email account, which seems like very bad practice from where I came from.

I ended up leaving pretty late, and tried to make it a quick drive home, though I had to fight Autopilot from driving on the center line. I guess I should try to recalibrate soon. It was a beautiful day out though, and it was nice to have a couple days of big, puffy clouds in a big, blue sky.

Summer made it home a little early, or at least earlier than I did, so I didn’t waste any time getting up to her house. Eaddie and Vicky were outside trying to resize their History Day project so it would fit in the back of the Murano. I warmed up some leftover pasta to eat. I didn’t hear Autumn come out of her room even once, so it was like she was already gone. I just keep getting more and more bitter at her every day, so that was fine.

I talked to Alisha for a bit about the house and the stubborn sellers, Eaddie came out to chat for a little bit about her History Day trip, and everyone went to bed pretty early. I was tired as well, so I didn’t stay up as late as usual.

Doesn’t feel like home yet.

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Fix One Thing

I was a little less scattered at work today, and finally managed to resolve one issue that nobody was really talking about. Evidently one of our domain controllers had some major updates pending, and I don’t know if that was the cause, but Google Password Sync wasn’t working for Workspace for any changes to that controller. Once I fixed that, I was able to sign into my new email account with the password I set in Active Directory.

I followed Kim through the lunch line again for a lunch break, and afterward we went down to the gym to check out the sound system while the elementary kids practiced their musical before the big show in the evening. She said she had to go to the evening show and press “play” for each of the songs they would sing, because evidently that was too much work for whatever teacher would already be there adjusting the volume.

I ended up leaving a little bit early since I stayed late yesterday and basically worked through lunch both days. They had the construction lights going at the two bridges I crossed, so traffic was quite a bit slower coming home today. I stopped by Superfast once I got into town, to check on Summer and get some pictures of the paint defects on her car to send to the service team.

Autumn was running all around town for some reason, but Eaddie found a ride home. I went home for a little bit and Ben called to check up on the new job. We talked for a little while, and he offered to come visit since I guess we’re paying members of the APSRC. Finally I headed up to Summer’s house once she was off work. I stopped for some tacos and a car wash along the way, but had to backtrack when I saw both a train and emergency vehicles parked all over the road on Elmira.

When I got to the house, Eaddie was trying to figure out their History Day trip. They couldn’t figure out how to get everyone up there, so I finally said we could still chaperone if we needed to. Having a job again made me a little more comfortable with how much money the trip would cost.

The girls all went to their rooms early, but somehow I still ended up awake pretty late. I just kept coming up with weird Monopoly-esque offers in my mind for the house we liked on Ouita. I guess that’s more thought for the commute.

Then onto the next.

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Collector of Worst Practices

I got up super early today to make sure I would make it in to work on time. I wasn’t sure how the commute would go, but I was pleasantly surprised at how uneventful it was. I made it in early and had to track down someone to let me into the office. Blake was at a picnic table with several other admins watching kids come in from the buses, and came inside to let me in before I had keys or a badge. Those showed up pretty soon after that, though.

It was a fair first day. I spent most of the morning filling out my new hire paperwork. Kim and I had chicken noodle soup for lunch from the cafeteria, and then I spent the afternoon just poking around, generally getting sidetracked by one horror after another. It appeared that every prior tech coordinator still had active accounts in the systems. Among other things, I also found an installation of Starcraft II, and a VM dedicated solely for a Plex media server, which was hosting a singular video – The Polar Express. It was then that I knew without a doubt that my entire life was a work of satire.

I really didn’t accomplish anything at all, and only barely found some of the systems I needed to access. I’ll probably have to dig into one of their more pressing issues tomorrow, just so they don’t feel like I’ll also be putting all of those things on the backburner indefinitely. Everyone filtered out about an hour earlier than I anticipated, but I stuck around to tinker some more before heading home.

The drive home was literally much faster. Traffic just worked out that way. Some guy flew up behind me, so I just followed him at interstate speeds until we got to Dardanelle. Autumn called and wanted to know if I would get Eaddie after a middle school band concert, so I went home to wait. When Summer got back into town, I met her at my parents’ house for dinner, and then she went home while I went to the high school for Eaddie.

Summer was in bed by the time we got there, so I tinkered on my new work phone for a bit, and then went through my nightly routine so I could get to bed as early as possible. I didn’t sleep super well last night, and I don’t think tonight will be much better.

Seriously, nearly all of this is a very bad, bad idea.

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Accepting Rejection

I was happy enough with the response I got this morning, along with the general excitement expressed in the offer, that I’ll start at Two Rivers on Monday. Unfortunately we ended up offending the sellers of the Ouita house with our offer enough that they outright rejected our offer, along with the verbal one they received. I talked with Alisha some more, and the seller’s agent finally talked them into negotiating some.

Summer worked from home, so I took a shower and she took us to Mulan’s for lunch. I ate way too much and then had to go home so Dad could come help me fix my leaky faucet. That project snowballed on us, and it took one trip to Leonard’s to fix the leak at the knob, but then the shutoff valves wouldn’t close enough to stop the water and we had to shut it off at the curb. Of course the box was completely full of water from all the rain. I tried blowing it out with my leaf blower, and all that muddy water ended up in my face. We took another trip to Leonard’s and got some washers for the shutoff valves, but using the impact to remove the caps may have caused them to leak somewhere else. There’s still a small drip at the shutoff valve now.

I took another shower to clean off the mud, and then I had to go get Eaddie and a friend of hers from robotics. We dropped her off a couple blocks from my house, and then I took Eaddie home until we had to go back to the high school for their band participation awards.

The house lights stayed on the whole evening, and then having the directors read out every single activity that each individual senior had done in their entire school career was just the start to how ridiculous the night would be. After they finished the seniors, they called every single junior and sophomore onto the stage to collect their participation trophies. We almost left early because Summer thought they were going to call eighth and seventh graders up as well, but they didn’t.

The girls went out with friends, so Summer and I came home and watched a couple episodes of Modern Family. The girls eventually made it home and I added some flavor and correctly-sized vegetables to the pico de gallo that Autumn basically blended yesterday. I got a little sidetracked after that, but tried not to stay up too late.

How can I be so tired and so restless?

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Two Streams

I got home fairly early this morning after stopping for a car wash, and then dawdled around the house a bit before my interview in the afternoon. There was a decent chance of rain for most of the afternoon, so I didn’t get out for anything else. I just ate my leftover Damgoode pie and tried to do a little bit of research on Two Rivers.

I left early enough to get to Ola about 15 minutes early and found my way into the high school office where I was pretty quickly met with a panel of interviewers, which included the superintendent and assistant superintendent, the technology assistant, and the facilities director. Everyone really seemed to wear a lot of hats though, and I was reasonably surprised by how much overlap there was. It was pretty evident they had a history of having to know how to fix things themselves between technology coordinators.

My interview went really well, in spite of repeatedly reminding them that I was terminated from my prior district. After they finished going around the table, Todd gave me a tour of the facility. I was shocked by a few of the things I saw, but overall the facility itself seemed much nicer than my last office that periodically flooded with two to three inches of water when it rained.

I called Gary on the way home to laugh about them hiring the guy I would be replacing. Before I could even make it home, Blake called to offer me the job. Summer didn’t answer the phone when I tried to call her earlier, but then called me when I texted her that I got the offer.

Autumn was making dinner for the evening, so I headed up to their house when Summer got back into town. It took her a while to get everything finished, so I messaged Alisha to check on the status of our offer on the house. She indicated the seller thought the offer was really low, but that we should hopefully hear a counter offer soon. I made some guacamole out of some super green avocados, and then ate a minimal amount of the enchiladas that Autumn made, after adding some fresh ingredients to her otherwise awful, heavy meal. Then she disappeared into her room while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Eaddie climbed into bed with Summer, but then wet herself in a tickle fight. Everyone was off to bed at that point, but I got a little sick to my stomach. I felt exhausted, but didn’t go to sleep until much later.

Inside of you are two gators.

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Day 4 of Travel

I got up this morning and immediately started getting ready for my fourth day of travel. I stopped by the election commission headquarters on the way home and voted in the school board election. Then I continued home to get ready for my interview in Maumelle. I made it down the interstate fast enough that I got off early and drove through town to save a little bit of range. Of course the navigation was faulty, so I had to make a block, but I got there with plenty of time.

I only had to wait a couple minutes for them to come interview me. I talked to Tim and Ryan to first determine whether I could talk to humans, and then whether I could talk to computers. After Tim left, I felt much less confident in my answers, simply because Ryan was really looking for specific examples of projects I had completed. The work I’ve done for the past several years has been so sporadic that I really didn’t have any good solo examples. After we finished talking, he left me with a paper test and a pen, and I had to write out answers to the best of my ability. Once I finished that, I had to place it on the receptionist’s desk and basically walked out waving to the guys that were in their offices with headsets on.

Mitch was at Blake’s apartment, so I went there next to change and then take Mitch to a late lunch. As we did that, he told me that I was invited to dinner with Blake, but I didn’t realize it was at his girlfriend’s house and that she was cooking. We had lunch at The Fold, which had some killer fancy tacos which were a bit pricy, but the guacamole and cheese dip plate seemed really reasonable in comparison. Both the food and service were excellent.

We struggled to come up with a solid plan after that, so we went to Franklin’s Charging Station after that to get a little bit of free juice while we waited to go to dinner. I showed Mitch my Steam Deck while we sat in the air conditioning. After a while, I decided we would head on over to Justina’s house since I wasn’t sure how traffic would be. We actually arrived before either of them, but then she pulled in right behind us. Her two boys and their dog were all over the place while she started cooking dinner. Blake eventually showed up and we took turns playing Mario Party with one of the boys.

After dinner, we played a tiny game of Uno, and then another game called Forbidden Island. It was a cooperative game with tiles that were spaced out randomly. It was a little scattered at times, but eventually I had a fair grasp of how to strategize. We just barely won, but I thought it was a lot of fun.

As the kids went to bed, we parted ways. I took Mitch to another friend’s ritzy apartment complex with agate code and literal fire on the road sign. The amenities sounded pretty intense as well. We said our goodbyes, and I made the lone trip home in the dark. Just past Conway, I could barely make out a black tire in the middle of the black road. It appeared to be a whole tire, so I called 911 after failing to reach the state police using the short code on the road signs. They connected me to the state police, and I let the officer there know what I had seen so they could try and get it out of the road before someone got hurt.

I made it home safely, swapped cars, and then headed up to Summer’s for bedtime. Everyone was long asleep, so I finished up quickly and went to bed.

I just want my job back.

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The Clown Who Juggles

I woke up to an unexpected notification for a hard credit inquiry, which got me heated. I was under the impression that the pre-qualification for a mortgage loan would only be a soft inquiry, so having two banks check had me in a panic. That may have been premature though, as I later read that if they fall within a certain timeframe, only one will count against me for the actual loan we take.

From then, I continued to be bombarded with new information. I got two interviews scheduled for the next two days, and I very nearly had to go pick up Gary from Little Rock. Fortunately his parents warmed up to the idea of getting him themselves, because then Summer needed to take some supplies to Fort Smith in the afternoon.

I made it home to get cleaned up before Autumn’s military signing luncheon, all while communicating with loan officers. Then while we were at the luncheon in the Black Box, Alisha texted to let me know there was another verbal offer on the table, which got me in a rush to complete our loan application. The lunch itself was some pretty decent barbecue for free. The national anthem was played by a singular, laughably bad trumpet player. I got the feeling he should have been significantly better, but he must have gotten choked. It did feel very fitting to be as bad as it was for Autumn, who happened to also have zero support from the Navy. She ended up inviting the librarian and getting her boyfriend out of class to come sit at our table.

On the way out, Jeff stopped to talk to me and ask how things were going. I wished I had recorded the conversation just to have a record of him saying how gut-wrenching it was to watch them terminate me. We immediately went to get Summer’s car and load it up with a big box of towels from the wash, and then we were off to Fort Smith.

I spent the entire drive going back and forth with Alisha, and responding to the loan officers. We have no idea what the other offer is, or if ours will be laughed off. It’s difficult to keep from doing too much with buyers’ anxiety, especially now that our credit has been hit. We weren’t in a rush to purchase a house, but we liked this one enough to go through the paperwork. If it doesn’t work out, I don’t know if this will screw our credit for the next time, if we don’t find a place soon enough.

We made it to Fort Smith by way of Highway 22. It aggravated Summer to drive so slowly, but the whole roundtrip was only about 20 minutes slower than the interstate, but 10 miles shorter. That’s assuming we wouldn’t have hit traffic in the construction zones on the interstate. On top of that, we saved quite a bit of battery power going so much slower. She ended up talking to their quirky shift lead Viking for a while, so by the time we made it back home it was too late for her to go back to Superfast to close the shop. We stopped to get Eaddie, and then we got her car on the fast charger before they headed home.

I took my car to the wash for a thorough cleaning, then stopped by Casey’s for a couple drinks before making it up to Summer’s for the evening. I cleaned up some Popeyes they brought home, Autumn left for a multi-hour signing and awards event at the high school, and I took a call from Donna, who had questions as a challenger in the school board election. I got some possibly-useful information from her on who might be able to help my case. I don’t know if she got anything useful from me. I certainly don’t have any time to go out campaigning, and I’ll be lucky if I remember to go out to vote in the morning.

Eaddie and I wrapped up the evening with El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. I thought it was a decent, if not unnecessary sendoff for Jesse. It did run a bit long, and brought in some unnecessary new characters, but it was an okay story. I think Better Call Saul will probably be better.

Seriously, a kazoo would have been better.