A coworker is on leave, overseas, for weeks. In the middle of that, apparently, one of the offices he supports has to go through renovations and a bunch of computer stations have to be removed and stored so they can remove all the furniture. It had to be done by tomorrow. I found out two days ago. And I’m covering his customers remotely in his absence.
So I agreed to fill in. I had to drive hours to get there because it’s nowhere near me. To an office I’ve never been to, to dismantle and record and store 14 workstations all by myself, then drive hours back.
I got it done, and I did it all on the spur of the moment (having to adjust my whole week’s schedule), and they are calling me a hero at work. This is how I build up goodwill, and I know it’s good in the long run. I’ve done favors and bailed people out over and over again, and have a good reputation. It makes things easier, because people all over know and trust me.
But right now, I’m just so tired. Just typing this exhausts me.
Not looking forward to going back in a week to set everything back up again, which takes around three times longer…
That does sound totally exhausting! But building goodwill among your co-workers while (presumably) getting paid well is definitely a net positive – hopefully also duly noted by your manager – and you never know when you’ll need to call in a favour! Plus, you’re obviously young and fit enough to actually do this stuff – I tend to get exhausted just going grocery shopping!
There’s an old joke about an Irishman who walks into a bar & orders three drinks, taking a sip from each, in order when the bartender comments to him that he would gladly make him three fresh ones in a row. The Irishman replies that this is how he has a drink with his brothers when they can’t be together. He becomes a regular & does this every time which really touches the bartender.
One February day he walks in & only asks for two whiskeys. The distraught bartender immediately offers up condolences on the loss of his brother; to which the Irishman replies that they’re fine. The confused bartender asks why only two drinks tonight to which the Irishman replies that he has given up drinking for Lent.
I did that last night; i walked into a bar & ordered two drinks (which really didn’t go together, but each’s favorite) to have a drink with someone i couldn’t.
My mom died Wednesday (96, not unexpected, lucid and mostly pain free to the end).
She is going to be buried at the Fort Snelling military cemetery in the same plot as my dad (gone 30+ years). Funeral is Friday in my small hometown, then the plan was to drive into Minneapolis by 2:00 (as late as they will allow a ceremony) to inter her.
After some minor bullshit involving my dad’s death certificate (which nobody had so my brother waited 2 hours somewhere to get a copy), it turns out that they have time slots for this, and they are booked through July. My assumption is that somehow Trump/Musk/DOGE is to blame. So we’ll find a time after that that we can gather and have a ceremony.
On the plus side, we are now raiding the estate and having drinks and food at her favorite watering hole. She would have strongly approved, being of the opinion that money was best spent on having fun.
When my wife died (has it already been over 20 years ago?) in addition to a memorial service at a local SF convention I rented time at the VFW Hall where we had had our wedding reception and had a good old-fashioned Irish Wake. Patti was in attendance in a custom-made urn, and we swapped stories and toasts.
Up until a few minutes ago, today was truly the Day from Hell. Very late last night, my internet started acting up. The modem lights indicated everything was fine but a bunch of big mainstream sites were suddenly unreachable. At the same time my landline phone went dead. It doesn’t use internet but it depends on a frequency band on the same cable.
I finally called the utterly useless customer support line on my cell phone (if you hate your cable company, I assure you that this one is 10x worse). I was on hold for over an hour before I gave up, having used up all those minutes on a limited ancient grandfathered cell phone plan that starts charging per minute after a certain threshold.
My next recourse was to go to a few neighbours and ask them if their cable landline was working. Nobody was home anywhere I tried, and furthermore I almost killed myself on some of the stone porch steps, which were less accommodating to a frail Old Fart like myself.
I was just in the process of checking to see how much I’d be charged per minute of wait time if I called the morons at customer support again when the phone and internet suddenly came back into service, having been completely down and partially down, respectively, for just short of 12 hours!
I am so pissed off that I think a letter to the Office of the President of this shitshow is in order, along with a copy to the CRTC, the federal regulator, emphasizing that a telephone is an essential emergency lifeline and this is not the first time that these incompetents have had outages. When I had a conventional landline with Bell I don’t remember ever having an outage.
Back when I was doing tech consulting these clowns were one of my minor customers. One thing thatt struck me at the time was how cheap they were compared to my other customers, and how shoddy their infrastructure was. It’s a culture that grew out of cable TV – who really cares if the cable is down for a few hours – you might miss a rerun of I Love Lucy. Now that they’re in the business of operating essential services like landlines and cell phone services, it’s a very different equation, but they haven’t adapted. The difference now is, when these incompetents have yet another outage, someone might die.
On top of everything else I noticed during my visits that my immediate neighbours all have security cameras and alarm systems and warning signs. I have none of those, and would seem to be the proverbial sitting duck.
I asked my next-door neighbour when he was installing his security camera if it was in response to any specific indicident. He said no, it was just a precaution. The problem with all these freaking “precautions” is that he who is not paranoid and doesn’t do the same becomes the preferred prey!
I have cameras for convenience. I can look to see if packages are delivered or if I left my trash can at the curb, etc. We can also watch birds at the feeder. And I can view them from an app on my phone anywhere. It’s not just security; in fact, security is a minor benefit for me.
We finally managed to meet hubby’s bandmates after not getting together since early December.
Three of the four members had medical events, and on Thursday we found out that the one guy’s medical event was sort of lucky for him. Because of the initial medical events, the doctors did some more investigating and discovered that he has cancer.
Had a real WTF encounter in the grocery store parking lot today. I finished loading my bags in the back of the SUV and was getting ready to take the cart to the cart rack (which was about three parking spaces away from me) when I heard someone shout “Hey!”, somewhat aggressively I thought. I turned around and some beardy oldish guy in tee shirt and shorts yelled “I can take that back in the store for you!”
I said “I was just going to take it to the cart rack” and he (definitely angry this time) said “Fine! Do what you want!” I said “You can have it if you want, but it’s got a noisy wheel” but he just turned his back on me and walked towards the store with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Seriously, WTF? He specifically said “take it back in the store for you”, not “hey, I’ll take your cart” or anything that indicated he wanted to actually use it, just like he thought he was doing me a favor. Which he wasn’t, because the cart corral was only like a dozen steps away. And like I said he seemed kind of angry from the get-go. Very weird.
Sometimes I’ll take a cart to the store (the vestibule where they keep the carts) if I’m conveniently close. I used to have to do cart collection at Toys R Us and I remember how it could suck, so if I can make things easier without going too far out of my way I will.
But that’s kind of weird if you were already next to the cart return, and extremely weird that he got mad at you for not automatically bringing him the cart as if strangers are supposed to just know that.
It seems like this is a person with some mental health issues. I kind of feel bad for him.
I routinely find a cart to bring in. I hate carts lying about in the lot waiting to catch a breeze and thrash a car.
having said that, you encountered a wacko. Wacko’s gonna wack; it’s what they do. Damned shame, but it sucks to be them a lot harder than it sucks to be the person they accost.
I was out the end of last week but apparently we had a bloodbath of a RIF on Friday. At least they did in on Friday & not Thursday so my-now-ex-cow-orkers are on Health Insurance for May but that was probably an oversite of timing rather than the company being nice.
Are stores like Aldi common near you? The sort where you can earn 25 cents by returning a cart? I’ve heard of homeless folks doing that as a way to snag a buck or three.
Different but related idea: If you’d handed him the cart he might’ve asked for a tip for his services. All just a come-on icebreaker for his begging schtick.
Greaaaat, I get to stay in Hell! No one on my immediate team (we’re mission critical & short as it is) but some people we worked directly with so we’re sitting here trying to figure out what needs to be done, both short & long term, as in, what were the things that ___ did that no one thought of & now needs to find a new owner/home.
At an old job, we called them “Bus People” as in if one of us went out to lunch & got hit by a bus what activities would cease because I/someone else was the only one who did/knew about {whatever}? Especially true with those once-a-year things that someone fluidly handled for years until they were no longer there & now some process doesn’t work because something like a license wasn’t renewed.
We do have an Aldi, but this was just a regular grocery store with cart corrals in the parking lot and an area for carts just inside the door.
There’s a bus stop on the side of the building where people tend to congregate, and some of them do look homeless, but I’ve never had any of them bother me in the parking lot. And if he was looking for a tip he’d be SOL since I have no cash in my wallet.
Six schools in the tri-county region were SWATted this morning, including the one (above) that did a shooter drill on Saturday. All ended up being hoaxes but that’s why we train, folks.
