I'll talk about the kids in a second.
Up until this week, I've blogged the way some of my colleagues take a smoke break--I'll just take ten minutes when I need a break from editing and take a deep breath. The metaphorical deep breath of recording stuff about the boys refuels me the way a literal deep breath of noxious fumes refuels my fellow cube farmers.
But it's been tougher in the new job. For one thing, my workspace doesn't lend itself to blogging. My team is getting new digs soon, and in the meantime I have a makeshift work area in the middle of another department. Or sort of to the side of another department. The northwest wall of my "office" is the electrical panel for Elsevier Building 1000. Nothing like absorbing electromagnetic radiation eight hours a day.
At least cubicle 2240 was a safe distance from things that might cause sterility. It was also far away from my new neighbors, the People Who Talk Loudly. I've learned more in the last couple days about the girl scouts, skin inflammation, and early menopause than I really care to know.
So this workspace is in the middle of everyone, and I haven't quite been comfortable blogging during the middle of the day. It's not that I'm scared of The Man--I mean, it only takes a few minutes to blog--but I don't want people from this other department seeing me blog and getting the impression I'm not working hard. Come to think of it, speaking of bad impressions, I worked all day today checking Flash animation that instructs nursing students how to take rectal temperatures. Who knows what my neighbors thought.
Even if I hadn't minded looking lazy, I didn't get a computer until late Wednesday. And it's a laptop with one of those newfangled docking stations with a power button that, I must insist, is NOT intuitive (no matter what the IT guy says). Speaking of IT (for our older readers, "I.T." stands for the German phrase that means Computer Department), there were various other problems with my computer this week that took away valuable blogging time. I couldn't read PDFs (even though I have the proper software), I couldn't connect to the shared drive, and in another move that APPARENTLY made sense to the IT guy and not me, I was hooked up to the network printer that is approximately SEVEN feet away from me instead of the one that is EIGHTY feet away, which is where I kept looking for my papers.
Those problems sound minor until you remember that we like to outsource things here in the corporate world. You see, Aaron the computer guy has an office around the corner from me. But I don't get to call him when I have a problem--that would be too easy. Instead, I have to call the IT helpdesk. That's extension 3737. But extenstion 3737 is not in the building--again, too easy. Extension 3737 is in India.
So when I can't find my papers on the printer that's EIGHTY feet away and down the corridor, because I'm walking right past the printer that's only SEVEN feet away, I call extension 3737. After some wrestling over a bad connection and a bit of confusion caused by my southern accent and Mike's Indian accent (is "Mike" really an Indian name? -ed.) I finally get my problem across. Mike of India sends a work order to company headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and HQ Amsterdam sends a work order to Aaron (down the hall in St Louis, USA), who calls me up and asks me to look over my left shoulder at that putty colored box with the word EPSON on the side. So Aaron closes out the work order and sends it back to Amsterdam, who sends it back to India, and people on three continents know I'm a dumbass.
So the same thing happened like six times for different issues, although they were all perfectly valid problems. And I still hold that the power button on the docking station is NOT intuitive.
So that's why I haven't blogged.
But now I have, and it was even better than a smoke break.
I promise I'll talk about the boys tomorrow.
But it's been tougher in the new job. For one thing, my workspace doesn't lend itself to blogging. My team is getting new digs soon, and in the meantime I have a makeshift work area in the middle of another department. Or sort of to the side of another department. The northwest wall of my "office" is the electrical panel for Elsevier Building 1000. Nothing like absorbing electromagnetic radiation eight hours a day.
At least cubicle 2240 was a safe distance from things that might cause sterility. It was also far away from my new neighbors, the People Who Talk Loudly. I've learned more in the last couple days about the girl scouts, skin inflammation, and early menopause than I really care to know.
So this workspace is in the middle of everyone, and I haven't quite been comfortable blogging during the middle of the day. It's not that I'm scared of The Man--I mean, it only takes a few minutes to blog--but I don't want people from this other department seeing me blog and getting the impression I'm not working hard. Come to think of it, speaking of bad impressions, I worked all day today checking Flash animation that instructs nursing students how to take rectal temperatures. Who knows what my neighbors thought.
Even if I hadn't minded looking lazy, I didn't get a computer until late Wednesday. And it's a laptop with one of those newfangled docking stations with a power button that, I must insist, is NOT intuitive (no matter what the IT guy says). Speaking of IT (for our older readers, "I.T." stands for the German phrase that means Computer Department), there were various other problems with my computer this week that took away valuable blogging time. I couldn't read PDFs (even though I have the proper software), I couldn't connect to the shared drive, and in another move that APPARENTLY made sense to the IT guy and not me, I was hooked up to the network printer that is approximately SEVEN feet away from me instead of the one that is EIGHTY feet away, which is where I kept looking for my papers.
Those problems sound minor until you remember that we like to outsource things here in the corporate world. You see, Aaron the computer guy has an office around the corner from me. But I don't get to call him when I have a problem--that would be too easy. Instead, I have to call the IT helpdesk. That's extension 3737. But extenstion 3737 is not in the building--again, too easy. Extension 3737 is in India.
So when I can't find my papers on the printer that's EIGHTY feet away and down the corridor, because I'm walking right past the printer that's only SEVEN feet away, I call extension 3737. After some wrestling over a bad connection and a bit of confusion caused by my southern accent and Mike's Indian accent (is "Mike" really an Indian name? -ed.) I finally get my problem across. Mike of India sends a work order to company headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and HQ Amsterdam sends a work order to Aaron (down the hall in St Louis, USA), who calls me up and asks me to look over my left shoulder at that putty colored box with the word EPSON on the side. So Aaron closes out the work order and sends it back to Amsterdam, who sends it back to India, and people on three continents know I'm a dumbass.
So the same thing happened like six times for different issues, although they were all perfectly valid problems. And I still hold that the power button on the docking station is NOT intuitive.
So that's why I haven't blogged.
But now I have, and it was even better than a smoke break.
I promise I'll talk about the boys tomorrow.
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