A weekend that feels like an actual weekend again
So, yeah, there was the thing where I'd been offered a job and told I'd be starting training after September 1st and was making plans for my last week off and starting to adjust my budget based on the prospect of getting that extra paycheck every Friday... And then Friday morning the recruiter who'd sent me in to interview for the position called me up saying I needed to get the drug test she'd told me about Thursday afternoon taken ASAP, because they wanted me to start this very next Monday -- tomorrow -- rather than next week, but they needed the results of that drug test before they could give me a start date.
I was kind of appalled, but I was planning on getting the drug test dealt with Friday morning anyway (before going to visit a friend I haven't seen in person in years) and was in fact in the process of printing out the form I needed to take with me when the recruiter called. Or trying to, anyway -- Mom's shared printer hadn't worked when I tried accessing it from my own computer to print a resume, so I tried getting on Mom's computer -- and the damned thing takes for-freakin'-ever to boot up. Like, half an hour after I'd tried turning it on, I was still sitting there waiting for Chrome to load so I could go into my Gmail and print up the PDF I'd been e-mailed -- and eventually failing to do so, incidentally. (Turns out one of the multiple error messages that kept popping up was regarding an issue that Mom always has to restart to resolve -- of course it was -- and that if I'd tried doing so, I might have been able to get the printer to cooperate.) As it was, it took long enough that I tried turning on my own computer and trying once again to print to the shared printer -- nope. And I couldn't get a printout from Mom's printer. And while doing all of that, I was having a Facebook message conversation with the friend I was supposed to be going to Arlington to visit, regarding the toothache he was having and cancelling the visit and just kind of kicking our problems around via back-and-forth messaging while I waited on Mom's computer.
And also during this process was when I got the call from the recruiter saying go take the drug test, start working Monday -- so I was able to say I was having problems acquiring a copy of the form (this recruiter having already been told on Wednesday about me having printer issues at home), and she suggested I get the fax number from the clinic I'd go to for the testing and she could send them the form that way. So I went off prepared to do just that in the early afternoon -- and had some more delays, as one of the clinic's staff members suggested I use my phone to e-mail the message with the attached form directly to the clinic so they could print it right off (only the attachment failed to attach to the forward), then I called the recruiter with the fax number but only got her voice mail, then she tried faxing the form but it never showed up. Eventually they took the "verbal authorization" route, having me call the recruiter again and then pass them the phone so they could get the information they needed (though I gather she still needed to try again to send the fax along to them afterwards). So the upshot was I spent a couple-three hours waiting in the clinic and it was 4:30 before I got taken back to pee in a cup (and after a few cups of water drunk in the waiting room, I was really glad to finally get called in), and it seems entirely likely the results won't get back to the recruiter and/or hiring company until late Monday or even Tuesday.
I'm working right now under the supposition that I won't be going in tomorrow after all, and possibly not Tuesday either -- but I might get an early phone call and have to abruptly throw on work-suitable clothes and hit the road. (So, showering on the way to bed tonight. And I think it would actually be wisest to try hitting the gym tonight, rather than planning on going tomorrow morning or early afternoon.) I don't know how this will affect the training class schedule -- whether I'll just miss the first day or two, whether they'll have me wait till the next class, when the next class would actually start. I could live with a week or two postponement -- but I've largely resigned myself to having to get back into the corporate habit within the next few days. More time off to wind things up would be great -- but so would starting up that weekly paycheck earlier. (Fiddled around with the numbers a night or two back, and discovered that between the ongoing bills and the smallness of the impending new paycheck I'm looking at three months of keeping a tight rein on expenses and coming to the end of it with the CitiCard paid off for good but probably half the debt on the MBNA remaining if I'm lucky. Being rid of the CitiCard payments and with the permanent salary being a bit higher than the temp salary is going to help somewhat -- but that's still when my severance checks run out and I'll have a lot less to work with each month.)
Regarding the things I was hoping to finish up before going back to work: Got all of Teen Wolf watched, and I've got about two and a half disks left of an old BBC series I wanted to finish watching (no rush there, especially with Mom still watching baseball and now pre-season football as well). Getting very close to finished on my second Slippery Sock, and making progress on Grandma's second Xmas sock. A third of the way into A Clash of Kings -- and I really need to be pulling out Mom's sock if I'm going to spend hours reading, the way I have been this weekend...
Might get pretty close to the heel on this tonight, if I don't lose too much more time to reading (or on the computer). Almost certain to get the heel taken care of if I get tomorrow to work on it (especially if I go to the gym tonight instead of tomorrow).
Perhaps another four or five sessions on this (at half a pattern repeat a session, and figuring the ribbing for two sessions). Unlikely to have it finished by tomorrow night (even if I have the day at home to work on it), but quite likely to have it finished by next weekend's photos.
Definitely need to put in more work on this. If I'm going to be reading, I need to have this in my hands while I'm doing so. And I need to get Mom to try on my finished Warlock Sock so I'll have a better idea where to make my tweaks to the leg increases...
So the thing about weekends since I've been unemployed is that they haven't been as happy-making as they were before -- got a list of weekly tasks that I've left on Saturdays and Sundays because I might as well maintain the habit, plus there's Mom underfoot all day and I don't have the house to myself for hours at a time, like I've been getting during the week. Only since I'm likely to have to get back to working in the next few days -- well, this feels like a weekend again. Like the last weekend of vacation. Kind of saddening.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
I was kind of appalled, but I was planning on getting the drug test dealt with Friday morning anyway (before going to visit a friend I haven't seen in person in years) and was in fact in the process of printing out the form I needed to take with me when the recruiter called. Or trying to, anyway -- Mom's shared printer hadn't worked when I tried accessing it from my own computer to print a resume, so I tried getting on Mom's computer -- and the damned thing takes for-freakin'-ever to boot up. Like, half an hour after I'd tried turning it on, I was still sitting there waiting for Chrome to load so I could go into my Gmail and print up the PDF I'd been e-mailed -- and eventually failing to do so, incidentally. (Turns out one of the multiple error messages that kept popping up was regarding an issue that Mom always has to restart to resolve -- of course it was -- and that if I'd tried doing so, I might have been able to get the printer to cooperate.) As it was, it took long enough that I tried turning on my own computer and trying once again to print to the shared printer -- nope. And I couldn't get a printout from Mom's printer. And while doing all of that, I was having a Facebook message conversation with the friend I was supposed to be going to Arlington to visit, regarding the toothache he was having and cancelling the visit and just kind of kicking our problems around via back-and-forth messaging while I waited on Mom's computer.
And also during this process was when I got the call from the recruiter saying go take the drug test, start working Monday -- so I was able to say I was having problems acquiring a copy of the form (this recruiter having already been told on Wednesday about me having printer issues at home), and she suggested I get the fax number from the clinic I'd go to for the testing and she could send them the form that way. So I went off prepared to do just that in the early afternoon -- and had some more delays, as one of the clinic's staff members suggested I use my phone to e-mail the message with the attached form directly to the clinic so they could print it right off (only the attachment failed to attach to the forward), then I called the recruiter with the fax number but only got her voice mail, then she tried faxing the form but it never showed up. Eventually they took the "verbal authorization" route, having me call the recruiter again and then pass them the phone so they could get the information they needed (though I gather she still needed to try again to send the fax along to them afterwards). So the upshot was I spent a couple-three hours waiting in the clinic and it was 4:30 before I got taken back to pee in a cup (and after a few cups of water drunk in the waiting room, I was really glad to finally get called in), and it seems entirely likely the results won't get back to the recruiter and/or hiring company until late Monday or even Tuesday.
I'm working right now under the supposition that I won't be going in tomorrow after all, and possibly not Tuesday either -- but I might get an early phone call and have to abruptly throw on work-suitable clothes and hit the road. (So, showering on the way to bed tonight. And I think it would actually be wisest to try hitting the gym tonight, rather than planning on going tomorrow morning or early afternoon.) I don't know how this will affect the training class schedule -- whether I'll just miss the first day or two, whether they'll have me wait till the next class, when the next class would actually start. I could live with a week or two postponement -- but I've largely resigned myself to having to get back into the corporate habit within the next few days. More time off to wind things up would be great -- but so would starting up that weekly paycheck earlier. (Fiddled around with the numbers a night or two back, and discovered that between the ongoing bills and the smallness of the impending new paycheck I'm looking at three months of keeping a tight rein on expenses and coming to the end of it with the CitiCard paid off for good but probably half the debt on the MBNA remaining if I'm lucky. Being rid of the CitiCard payments and with the permanent salary being a bit higher than the temp salary is going to help somewhat -- but that's still when my severance checks run out and I'll have a lot less to work with each month.)
Regarding the things I was hoping to finish up before going back to work: Got all of Teen Wolf watched, and I've got about two and a half disks left of an old BBC series I wanted to finish watching (no rush there, especially with Mom still watching baseball and now pre-season football as well). Getting very close to finished on my second Slippery Sock, and making progress on Grandma's second Xmas sock. A third of the way into A Clash of Kings -- and I really need to be pulling out Mom's sock if I'm going to spend hours reading, the way I have been this weekend...
Might get pretty close to the heel on this tonight, if I don't lose too much more time to reading (or on the computer). Almost certain to get the heel taken care of if I get tomorrow to work on it (especially if I go to the gym tonight instead of tomorrow).
Perhaps another four or five sessions on this (at half a pattern repeat a session, and figuring the ribbing for two sessions). Unlikely to have it finished by tomorrow night (even if I have the day at home to work on it), but quite likely to have it finished by next weekend's photos.
Definitely need to put in more work on this. If I'm going to be reading, I need to have this in my hands while I'm doing so. And I need to get Mom to try on my finished Warlock Sock so I'll have a better idea where to make my tweaks to the leg increases...
So the thing about weekends since I've been unemployed is that they haven't been as happy-making as they were before -- got a list of weekly tasks that I've left on Saturdays and Sundays because I might as well maintain the habit, plus there's Mom underfoot all day and I don't have the house to myself for hours at a time, like I've been getting during the week. Only since I'm likely to have to get back to working in the next few days -- well, this feels like a weekend again. Like the last weekend of vacation. Kind of saddening.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.