Tag: work

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Stop Buying Things You Don’t Need

I went straight to Oakland this morning for the first time this year, and got in just a little late. It felt warmer and more humid all day, which had me looking for an escape from my mask more often. I feel like the buildings need to be showing some solidarity with so many people stuck in them all day long without a break.

After running around a while and fixing what I could, I ended up back at the shop until lunch. I didn’t have a whole lot of really pressing stuff to work on, so it was finally a bit more relaxed. Our new guy, Jacob, has started reaching out with questions, but it’s a little odd since I haven’t really worked with him at all yet. He’s always just at the junior high by himself.

I went home for lunch and had some more leftovers, then took some to Summer since she wouldn’t get out for a break. Then it was back to Oakland for a bit longer. As I pulled up, Darla was unloading a big printer from her car, so I helped her bring it into the library. I don’t think she should be allowed to buy those things with any kind of district funds, since she’s one brick wall away from a giant copier, and across the hall from a multifunction color printer. There’s just nobody filtering that kind of stuff from happening, so we’re left stuck trying to decide how much we’ll support it. Imagine that, a lack of accountability.

I ended the day back at the shop, and it was just as quiet as it had been all day. I went home and just stayed in for the night. I was going to go vacuum the pool for my parents, but I thought it was going to rain. It certainly looked that way on the ride home. I guess that’ll be a job for tomorrow then.

But I waaaant it.

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WOOWOO

You just haven’t lived until you’ve been wooped by a big black guy riding a bicycle as you zip past on your Grom. He may have been making fun, but I chose to interpret it as encouraging excitement for how much fun I was having. The weather was much more mellow today, so aside from some time in a mask in the afternoon, it felt pretty good out.

I worked on some stuff at the shop until a group of us went to La Chiquita for lunch. The carnitas were smaller than I remembered, but I was still stuffed. It was nowhere near as much as Gary’s giant prime rib burrito.

After lunch, I went straight to Oakland for a while to close out, or at least investigate as much as I could for closing on the next trip. A large part of that time was spent in the library shuffling through damaged or failing Chromebooks. As the end of the school day approached, I was run off again, and I returned to the shop for the remainder of the day.

When I left work, I stopped by Casey’s for a free drink, then went by the shop to try and see Summer again. She had been in the pit all day, so all I could see at lunch was the top of her head when I stopped by. They were still busy, so I went on home to change.

I took the Grom back out to go see Mom for a bit. She was insistent that I pick up some potato salad that we left when we cooked out for Labor Day. Julie called while I was there, and we chatted for a little bit. Then I eventually made it back home for the evening.

Uno Uno Uno!

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Deadlines

The crew had a little training meeting this morning, but I just stayed in my office and continued working on my Autodesk deployment. It took me all morning, but I finally got the idea to build it on a non-domain computer so AppLocker wouldn’t keep interfering.

Kyle was the first one to ask me about lunch today, and suggested Ridgewood Brothers before we walked out and learned that the rest of the crew was going out to London. The joke was on them though, because the weather was cool enough, and the line was short enough that we were actually in and out faster than they were. Even Josh joined us at a picnic table there.

After lunch, I had to run across the street to help Judy for a bit. Then a little while later, Zach, Greg, and I went to Oakland to install a touch panel. When we got back to the shop, I finished up my deployment and just hoped that it would work over the weekend as intended.

I ran by Superfast to see Summer for a bit, then went home for a few hours before making it up to her house. She was already watching TV in bed, so I laid down with her for a few minutes before going back out to watch House with Eaddie for a while until she couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Well that’s one way to get rid of a character…

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Manualdesk

My entire day was eaten alive by a surprisingly uncooperative Autodesk Inventor deployment. There’s no reason that software these kids are using should be over 10 gigs. It took forever to download, extract, build a deployment package, and then finally incorporate that into Configuration Manager. I even stayed a couple hours late, but for whatever reason it just wouldn’t install. My only break was a lunch trip to Bocadillo for a beef chimichanga with Zach and Gary.

It would have been one thing to fight and test different things all day, but this took all day to build, and then didn’t actually start failing until the end of the day. I just wanted to shoot myself. Unfortunately I couldn’t even get it to install manually on a single device, so Monday’s deadline for such a massive deployment is no good.

At least apple pie is almost in season again.

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Wild Bus Chase

Today was a little bit weird. I spent all morning chasing my tail trying to fix something that appeared to not be an issue. I tried to go light for the day, so I had half a Soylent for breakfast and then the half grilled chicken salad at Brangus for lunch. My only saving grace was the pile of peanuts I ate, but then I spent all afternoon smelling like an elephant.

I made it back to Oakland for a bit before school let out and closed up what I could. Then they chased me out as they got ready for dismissal. The shop cleared out really fast, and I left to get some gas into the Shadow. I was never certain, but I was pretty sure the main tank died on me as I pulled into Brangus, and I didn’t want to risk running out.

When I got home, I dug out all of the old pairs of jeans I could find since the ones I’ve been wearing had all worn out and started to critically fail. None of the stiff ones I just received fit even a little bit, so they’ll probably all go back.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening. They got home just after I got there, and then I sat and ate a bowl of roast by myself because they were all preoccupied. Afterward, Summer and Autumn went to bed and Eaddie and I watched several episodes of House. Rewatching the whole series, it’s uncanny how I let it shape my late 20s.

Saving lives is just collateral damage.

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You Get a Raise! You Get a Raise! Everybody Gets a Raise!

I had my meeting with Judy this morning, along with Zach and Thomas. Pending board approval, we’ll both be promoted to the Network Tech title. Zach was uncharacteristically quiet through the whole event, and I would have thought he’d do a better job of showing some appreciation or excitement, especially with the news that his would be retroactive to the start of July. Oh well.

Lunch was light with just a couple spring rolls from Linh’s. Then I went to Oakland for the afternoon to try and knock out as much as I could. I still didn’t get the bulk out like I wanted, but I made a little progress before taking off at the end of the school day.

I was the last one out at work, and went home to change before going to Walmart to pick up the last couple of things we needed for dinner. Then I ran up to Summer’s to get the Instant Pot going for chicken tacos. Summer wanted me to get Eaddie to karate, so I was rushing through the whole prep only to have her leave work to take Eaddie herself.

Dinner was finished right as they got home, so at least that much was perfect. The tacos were pretty good, but I had to limit myself to four. All I wanted to do was continue eating them, but even four was too much. Hopefully I’ll feel a little lighter tomorrow for it.

Well, actually, that’s all. Just the two. Nobody else gets a raise.

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Good News Everyone!

We actually had a bit of a team meeting this morning, which was nice to break up how busy it’s been. I picked at a few different things to close out some old work orders, but didn’t make it to Oakland like I really had kind of intended. Most of the others went around to other buildings to clean out the tech offices that had accumulated a bunch of old crap. When they got back, everyone else came out to help unload the truck and trailer.

By then it was lunch time and someone made the call to go to Sam’s. Almost everyone went, and Thomas ended up buying. To make things even better, Brody only ate about half of his food before giving me the rest to take home, so I have plenty of fish for the weekend.

The afternoon went by pretty quietly as well. Thomas came and sat in my office for a few minutes after work to chat, and Judy emailed to say she had good news. We’ll have a meeting with her next week to see what that means. All in all, I think it was a pretty good work week.

I went by the shop to see Summer on the way home. Autumn was there too, but left when I did to go get gas. I went home to change and thought I was going to pick up Eaddie, but Summer ended up getting her after work. I came up to their house for the evening, but Summer didn’t get her mashed potatoes and coleslaw from KFC, so I drove her back to get them.

Everyone just kind of picked at the food before going off to do their own things. Summer crashed early in preparation for her long drive and obstacle run at Conquer the Gauntlet tomorrow. Eaddie and I stayed up until about midnight watching House until she fell asleep in my lap. With nothing else to do, I finally made it to bed myself.

Three day weekends are best when surrounded by four day weeks.

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Filed Under Completed

I made it in to work several minutes early today and just kind of eased into things. I knew I wanted to actually take action with a lot of work, but I still had a bit of trouble finding where to really chip into it all. I poked around a few different things at first, then went to Oakland to tend to Aimee and her fussy preschool cohorts. The girl that quit evidently stripped a bunch of stuff out when she left, and even took the USB cable for the touch panel.

I ended up leaving for lunch about 15 minutes late and met Gary and Zach at Arby’s. I tried their new Prime Rib Cheesesteak, which was loaded up a bit more than I expected, but was overly chewy and gooey. I actually found myself wishing it had less cheese on it. Summer had me drop some food off for her on the way back to work, and I continued to dig into the Print Nightmare exploit patch that we had to work around in order to resolve print issues for everyone.

Ultimately I fixed that issue and closed a whole bunch of work orders, so I felt pretty good by the end of the day. I left a little bit late and went to my parents’ house to deliver a patio table cover that I ordered for them. I ate a little turkey roll for dinner just to keep things really light, and then helped Dad move the oven out and into the trunk of his car so he could return it.

From there, I headed home to clean up a bit. The laundry room and kitchen had gotten a bit out of control, so I took care of that and then filed a bunch of paperwork. I even took the time to finally make folder labels with a proper label printer, so everything looks really nice now.

File the rest of that under “To Be Filed.”

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You’ve Gotta Fight for Your Right

I’ve been so worked up for most of this month over my employment contract, and it finally worked itself up into a head today. Maybe I was just feeling a dark cloud over my own head today, or maybe something really was up, but I’ve just felt really off for the past couple days. I spent the first couple quiet hours in my office before going to Oakland to try and fix some things. Then I made it back to the shop around lunch time and chatted with Kyle outside for a bit.

I ended up not doing anything, and just finished up the last quarter of my Soylent instead. I started working on an email to Judy to see if she could chat with me about my contract, and she actually had some free time to schedule with me. I went across the street and expressed my feelings, concerns, and did my best to make sure she understood I wasn’t trying to rock the boat, but that I felt like I had earned the contract I signed. She did a good job of playing it pretty neutral, but asked some good questions and took enough notes to make me feel like she really did want to help me personally if she could.

After my meeting, I went back to the shop for the rest of the day. Kyle and Greg came into my office for some help, which pretty well burned up any usable time I had left. I wrapped up what I could as everyone filtered out, and then stopped by to chat with Thomas on my own way out. He appreciated that I wanted to keep him in the loop, and I could tell we really agreed on a lot of the things we’ve seen, so hopefully this all works out well in the end.

I went straight to SuperFast to catch up with Summer, and then had to leave to return the canopy that I couldn’t get back to the Ridgewood Brothers yesterday. Then I went to my parents’ house for some surprisingly tough corned beef for dinner. After we ate, Dad and I tried taking his old oven out to swap it with the new one. We had gotten most everything in place to slide in before I had to pick Eaddie up from karate.

Once I had Eaddie, we stopped by her grandparents’ house so she could pick up some things she didn’t take into karate. Then we went back to my parents’ house to finish installing the new oven. Unfortunately once we had it placed, we realized how much space was left around the outside of it. We really needed to buy a size or two up from what Julie got, so we pulled everything back out and stuck the old one back in as quickly as we could.

I had to get Eaddie home so she could do homework, but first I wanted to get my laptop from work, then go home to change. Summer helped her with the homework while I tried yelling at Autumn to keep her from falling asleep. Evidently the hospital wants her a bit sleep deprived so she’ll be super relaxed or even doze off during her EEG tomorrow. I stayed up later than I wanted, but just kept feeling like I was forgetting something all night long.

I don’t know why they can’t write better descriptions for jean sizing. Maybe I’ll just start wearing jeggings instead.

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Another Long Week

This morning already started out pretty rough, and I don’t expect things to get better for a while. I suppose it could be worse, and at least I enjoy what I do, and it provides above-average flexibility. Things stayed pretty quiet most of the morning, with everyone still struggling to keep their work order counts from growing any further. As with the past couple weeks, this morning went by really fast. For the first time in a while, nobody was interested in going out to eat, so I just went to SuperFast a little late to have a couple hot dogs with Summer during their Paint the Town Green and Gold celebration.

After we ate, I stopped by my house for a few minutes before continuing to Oakland. I wasn’t really there to close mass tickets, but instead spent some time troubleshooting a widespread print issue we’ve seen. I didn’t really get any results, unfortunately, so I’ll likely still be working on it some more tomorrow. I fussed a little about how much I’m doing, and Gary kind of snapped back that they could put someone else in my position, but there really isn’t anyone to place there that won’t need months of training just to be a little bit helpful. I think he sometimes forgets that he makes $11 grand more than what they want to pay me, and $8,000 more than what they “accidentally” signed my contract for this year.

Still, I was the last one to leave the office for the day. I did what I could, and at least for the time being, it’ll all still be there for me tomorrow. I went home to change, then went to the shop to pick up the canopy Summer borrowed from the Brothers, Ridgewood. The gate was locked when I arrived to return it, so I continued on to my parents’ house to pick at some leftovers for dinner.

I received a refurbished Dyson fan today, and though it’s far from the worst condition that I’ve ever seen in a refurb, it wasn’t at all good. Paint was rubbed off in several places, and the thing was filthy with the exception of a new filter. There was heavy dust and black, oily smudges all over the thing. I fired an email off to the manufacturer, and hopefully they’ll do something about it, otherwise it may just be returned.

As with most things here, the more you dig, the angrier you’ll be.