A Waste of My Time
In a staff meeting a few weeks ago, the Controller told us that, if we’re having to do work on vacation, something was wrong, and that the company should provide backup for tasks so that people could disengage from work while they were out. Then a couple of weeks ago, he said that, if we took off more than Christmas Eve and Christmas day, he expected us to check our emails the other days to make sure there weren’t any emergencies, so that work wasn’t affected. In over thirty years in my career, I have never been told to work during a vacation day. Nice lip service to work/life balance, guy.
So today, on my day off, I turned on my computer and saw I had a message over Teams asking me to approve something. I tried to get into the Accounting drive to look at the thing I needed to approve and couldn’t. This has happened from time to time, ever since we changed VPNs earlier this year. Usually, if you shut down and turn the computer back on again a time or two, it fixes the problem. Not this time! So I emailed the boss and asked her if this was an emergency, and if so, to text me. If that was the case, I would get with I.T. and stick by my computer this afternoon till they fixed the problem. I told her I did have something I was planning to take care of from 2:00-3:30, though, so hopefully we could work around it. Then I went to the kitchen and had lunch.
It continued to bother me, though, dammit. So after I ate, I turned the computer back on, and this time I could get into the Accounting drive, but the stupid guy who’d asked me to approve the document hadn’t saved it in the designated folder! So I messaged him to tell him that, and I emailed the boss again, telling her what had happened and saying I would sign back on, on Thursday. Screw them. Then I was angry for a couple of hours. Thanks for ruining hours of my day off, people. Work is rapidly becoming the worst.
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By this time, it was 2:15. I had something to pick up from Central Market curbside pickup between 2:30 and 3:30. First, I stopped by Target to pick up a prescription and some things we were running low on. I wavered on whether to buy the latter because some of it was perishable, and maybe I should swing by Target again on my way back from Central Market to get the food. Then I thought, surely Central Market wouldn’t take that long because the other time I’d used curbside pickup there, last year, it took just a few minutes. So I continued shopping at Target. Somehow, I just happened to walk by Haagen Dasz coffee ice cream, even though it wasn’t between the bathroom cleaner and the milk, and it ended up in my basket. Anyway, the place was a madhouse! The you-scan-it-your-own-damn-self lanes had quite a line, but it moved quickly, and I noticed the little-used register on the end was free and grabbed that one. I got out of there in plenty of time.
Got to Central Market and parked my car in one of the curbside pickup parking spaces. I texted the parking space number to the designated number and waited. I did get a strange response to the text, but I didn’t worry at first, but then I waited and waited and waited. I began to worry about the milk and ice cream from Target in the back of my vehicle. Finally, an employee came by and asked if I’d texted them. I did, showing him my phone. He said something was obviously wrong and apologized, saying the board inside the store showed no one waiting for their order but nine cars were actually parked outside waiting. Finally, they brought out my stuff. Then I had to stop by Whole Foods for a couple of items Central Market didn’t have, then back to home, two hours after I’d set out!
So today, on my day off, I turned on my computer and saw I had a message over Teams asking me to approve something. I tried to get into the Accounting drive to look at the thing I needed to approve and couldn’t. This has happened from time to time, ever since we changed VPNs earlier this year. Usually, if you shut down and turn the computer back on again a time or two, it fixes the problem. Not this time! So I emailed the boss and asked her if this was an emergency, and if so, to text me. If that was the case, I would get with I.T. and stick by my computer this afternoon till they fixed the problem. I told her I did have something I was planning to take care of from 2:00-3:30, though, so hopefully we could work around it. Then I went to the kitchen and had lunch.
It continued to bother me, though, dammit. So after I ate, I turned the computer back on, and this time I could get into the Accounting drive, but the stupid guy who’d asked me to approve the document hadn’t saved it in the designated folder! So I messaged him to tell him that, and I emailed the boss again, telling her what had happened and saying I would sign back on, on Thursday. Screw them. Then I was angry for a couple of hours. Thanks for ruining hours of my day off, people. Work is rapidly becoming the worst.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By this time, it was 2:15. I had something to pick up from Central Market curbside pickup between 2:30 and 3:30. First, I stopped by Target to pick up a prescription and some things we were running low on. I wavered on whether to buy the latter because some of it was perishable, and maybe I should swing by Target again on my way back from Central Market to get the food. Then I thought, surely Central Market wouldn’t take that long because the other time I’d used curbside pickup there, last year, it took just a few minutes. So I continued shopping at Target. Somehow, I just happened to walk by Haagen Dasz coffee ice cream, even though it wasn’t between the bathroom cleaner and the milk, and it ended up in my basket. Anyway, the place was a madhouse! The you-scan-it-your-own-damn-self lanes had quite a line, but it moved quickly, and I noticed the little-used register on the end was free and grabbed that one. I got out of there in plenty of time.
Got to Central Market and parked my car in one of the curbside pickup parking spaces. I texted the parking space number to the designated number and waited. I did get a strange response to the text, but I didn’t worry at first, but then I waited and waited and waited. I began to worry about the milk and ice cream from Target in the back of my vehicle. Finally, an employee came by and asked if I’d texted them. I did, showing him my phone. He said something was obviously wrong and apologized, saying the board inside the store showed no one waiting for their order but nine cars were actually parked outside waiting. Finally, they brought out my stuff. Then I had to stop by Whole Foods for a couple of items Central Market didn’t have, then back to home, two hours after I’d set out!