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The Chronicles of How Much I Hate Today: A Study in Why I Should Have Stayed in Bed
The Chronicles of How Much I Hate Today
So, this week has been the shitter anyway. Between Schu and Dean getting into a scrap that required kitty ER intervention for an inch-long gash on Schu’s face, and the subsequent antibiotics he’s required to take to prevent infection (banana-flavored Clavamox - I swear to God I took the same thing when I was a kid for an ear injection, and gagged every time), and the fact that work has personally been out to get me for the last two days, I was not holding out much hope for today.
But how bad could it be, I thought? After all, it was Wednesday. I get off work at noon on Wednesdays, because everyone else goes to the outreach clinic in Gilbert. I’ve missed my half-days for approximately the preceding month - basically every since I’ve gotten back from vacation - and had to work several half-Saturdays as well. I was definitely due for a break. I had a plan, too. I had a couple errands to run - grocery store, bank, Paradise Bakery for some richly deserved cookies - and then I was going to go home and sit on the sofa and watch movies all afternoon. And maybe write a little, but only if I felt like it.
I woke up at 7:15 AM, which is about 20 minutes before my alarm goes off. I woke up because the phone rang.
The phone never rings before 8 AM unless it’s something to do with work, usually my co-worker calling to say she’s sick, her daughter’s sick, her dog’s sick, whatever, entailing my need to be at the office early to cover for opening. Which never actually works, because the phone hardly ever wakes me, so I usually wind up getting in the exact same time as usual.
This time, the phone rang because our internet was down at work. My dad was calling from his cell phone.
I wasn’t so pissed about being woken early, because I was having one doozy of a bad dream, involving the death of a friend of the family and a time paradox that involved me having to watch the death, knowing it was coming, and not being able to do anything to prevent it, which is a dream I hope I never have again, kthxbai subconscious.
The internet being down is a problem, however, mostly because our electronic medical records software is internet-based, so without internet, we cannot do *dick* at work. So I logged on at home so I could at least print out today’s schedule and bring it with me, in case it took an hour or so to get it working again.
As of the time of this writing (12:27 PM), we still have no internet.
But wait! There’s more.
I got to work around 8:30 AM (which is on time, not early), because despite the phone waking me, I didn’t actually check the message until after I was up and dressed (why bother?) and then had to wait for Karasu to get ready to go, which she is, I’m sad to say, categorically incapable of doing any faster than the speed of a blind turtle.
So I got to work and was informed by my father and co-worker that actually, the phones were down, too. Great. My dad immediately starts throwing fifteen million problems at me (all of which I was already aware of, like, say, not being able to use our software), and I’m just like, “Will you shut up so I can call XO (the phone company)?” And he finally grumbles and wanders off. Patients are already showing up.
Now, I don’t know how it works with most phone companies. Hell, maybe this is typical? But my dear neechan works at a cable/phone provider, and I really don’t think it is. Basically, I called in and described the problem. The CSR opened a ‘trouble ticket’ for me, and said someone would call me back *within the next two hours*. I was like “…wait. No trouble-shooting? No checking the wires, no rebooting the telephony modem, no anything? Just a trouble ticket and a technician will call me?” “Yes.” “Within two hours.” “Yes.” “But we are a *doctor’s office*. We can’t be without phones for the next *two hours*.” “Sorry, but it sucks to be you.” Or something along those lines.
At this point, I was pretty steamed. I was using my cell, obviously, but I figured, this was not a total disaster. I dug out the back-up disks for our EMR, which theoretically enable us to use an offline version, and set my dad to them. Then I dialed into our voice mail system and changed out recorded greeting so it said, “Hey, our phone service sucks! Call this number!” And put the office cell phone’s number on there.
Well, it turns out that no one can even reach our recorded message. They either get a busy signal, or it runs two or three times before turning silent. So we are totally unreachable. Great. Fuckin’ perfect. I hope no one’s dying and needs medical attention or anything.
Meanwhile, the back-up disks are password protected, and we can’t figure out what password was used. I call the EMR. They try their standard passwords. No dice. They look up the specific back-up disk in their system and give me another one. Still doesn’t work. They tell me quite forthrightly that that password should work and they don’t understand why it’s not. I tell them that I appreciate their confusion but don’t *fucking care now make my back-up work already*!
I get transferred. The nice woman tells me that if I go to their website, they can dial into my computer to try it themselves. I tell the nice woman that this might be an issue since the entire reason we *need* the back-up is since we have no internet.
There’s quiet for a moment.
She explains to me that the back-up disks don’t work like that; it’s just a raw data file and cannot be viewed or manipulated in any way. She explains that the only purpose of the back-up disks is that so if their server gets bombed, they can use one of the back-up disks to reinstall all our data.
I ask her why no one explained this before we started paying them large sums of money for this service, which we wanted explicitly *because* we wanted to use them if the internet went down, and we were in fact *told* that this system was in place if our internet went down.
Needless to say, there’s no good explanation for that.
So there we are. No EMR. No phones. No internet.
On the upside, I won the expert level of Minesweeper for the second time in my life.
Of course, this is the morning when *everyone* shows up. For the past couple weeks we’ve been plagued by no-show appointments. We figured this is probably due in part to the economy being in the toilet. Today, everyone comes. Which is interesting since we have no records. But hey! Everyone’s good-natured about it. We’re all having a great time.
I give XO three hours rather than the prescribed two, because there’s no point in being a bitch if they’re going to be useless, before I call them back. The most condescending man on the planet explains to me that the problem is with the Smart Jack (whatever the fuck that is), which is owned/operated by Qwest, and so they’ve put out a dispatch to Qwest and we should hear from them in the next 45 minutes, at which point they will probably have to come to our office, depending on what’s wrong with the jack and where the jack is physically located. And no, we can’t call Qwest to check up on it, since we don’t have a Qwest account.
Good-bye, afternoon off. I really wish I had brought a lunch.
Or a book.
I’m sitting here typing this because, honestly, I have nothing else to do. I’ll stick it on my jump drive and bring it home with me (whenever I get to leave), so I can post it on LJ. Whee!
12:37 PM: An XO tech just called, wanted to know if the Qwest guy had showed up. I told him that that would be a good trick since they had never called to let us know they were coming. He seemed puzzled. He said that he had just spoken to Qwest and they stated they had discharged a tech and his ETA was 11:45. …I wonder why Mr. Condescending didn’t seem to know this when I called XO at 11:30? Ah, it’s not worth wondering. Anyway, the XO guy said he would call Qwest and call me right back. Suuuuuure… and who knows whether they were going to show up here or somewhere else? According to Mr. Condescending, the Smart Jack might not be in our office.
12:50 PM: Lunch. Sort of. Everyone else fucking left for the afternoon clinic without telling me (besides Karasu, who has no car and thus does not dictate the comings and goings), so now I have no chance to run home and grab a) food, b) a book, c) anything else to keep me sane while I sit here with no internet *on my God damned afternoon off*. There’s a pharmacy in our building that carries a fairly decent variety of snacks. I have chicken noodle soup from Cousins’ subs, and an apple.
12:52 PM: This soup is the most disgusting thing I have ever paid $1.08 for. I think I’ll eat my apple. Ooh, I have some Goldfish stashed here, too. That’s a balanced meal if I’ve ever seen one.
1:00 PM: Still no call back from XO or Qwest. Why doesn’t my cell phone have games on it? I’ve already won every version of Solitaire on the computer. I guess I could play Pinball…
1:07 PM: I picked up my cell and had dialed half of XO’s number when the fax machine rang! OMG OMG OMG! PHONES! BLESSED, SWEET PHONES! I CAN GO HOME!
1:09 PM: Well, that didn’t last long. They’re down again. I got halfway through changing our recorded greeting to the outreach clinic message, and then it cut me off. Now they’re gone. *weeps*
1:13 PM: Hey, I wonder what that fax was. *goes to look*
1:14 PM: X-ray reports! That I can do nothing with. How exciting.
1:15 PM: Hey! My CD case still has a bunch of burned Bleach episodes that I brought on vacation to New Hampshire with me! How fortuitous! Even if I’ve seen them all already.
1:18 PM: I… I don’t… have the codec… and I can’t get it… without internet… *sob*
1:19 PM: It’s up again! Wonder how long I should wait to make sure it’s permanent? 10 minutes seems like a good number, right?
1:21 PM: Whew! Got the phone message changed. So at least people will be able to reach the outreach clinic. Wonder if XO or Qwest will ever actually call me? Yume-neechan, is this normal behavior for a phone service company?
1:24 PM: Well, the fax line is ringing off the hook now. Today’s problems are going to be nothing compared to what *tomorrow* is going to look like - dealing with all the things we couldn’t do today, plus the backed up work from not having had the EMR all morning.
1:30 PM: Fuck it; I’m out of here. Still have time to run to the grocery on my way home and then watch a movie. If Qwest or XO needs to reach me - well, what the hell; they have my cell phone.
The Chronicles of How Much I Hate Today
So, this week has been the shitter anyway. Between Schu and Dean getting into a scrap that required kitty ER intervention for an inch-long gash on Schu’s face, and the subsequent antibiotics he’s required to take to prevent infection (banana-flavored Clavamox - I swear to God I took the same thing when I was a kid for an ear injection, and gagged every time), and the fact that work has personally been out to get me for the last two days, I was not holding out much hope for today.
But how bad could it be, I thought? After all, it was Wednesday. I get off work at noon on Wednesdays, because everyone else goes to the outreach clinic in Gilbert. I’ve missed my half-days for approximately the preceding month - basically every since I’ve gotten back from vacation - and had to work several half-Saturdays as well. I was definitely due for a break. I had a plan, too. I had a couple errands to run - grocery store, bank, Paradise Bakery for some richly deserved cookies - and then I was going to go home and sit on the sofa and watch movies all afternoon. And maybe write a little, but only if I felt like it.
I woke up at 7:15 AM, which is about 20 minutes before my alarm goes off. I woke up because the phone rang.
The phone never rings before 8 AM unless it’s something to do with work, usually my co-worker calling to say she’s sick, her daughter’s sick, her dog’s sick, whatever, entailing my need to be at the office early to cover for opening. Which never actually works, because the phone hardly ever wakes me, so I usually wind up getting in the exact same time as usual.
This time, the phone rang because our internet was down at work. My dad was calling from his cell phone.
I wasn’t so pissed about being woken early, because I was having one doozy of a bad dream, involving the death of a friend of the family and a time paradox that involved me having to watch the death, knowing it was coming, and not being able to do anything to prevent it, which is a dream I hope I never have again, kthxbai subconscious.
The internet being down is a problem, however, mostly because our electronic medical records software is internet-based, so without internet, we cannot do *dick* at work. So I logged on at home so I could at least print out today’s schedule and bring it with me, in case it took an hour or so to get it working again.
As of the time of this writing (12:27 PM), we still have no internet.
But wait! There’s more.
I got to work around 8:30 AM (which is on time, not early), because despite the phone waking me, I didn’t actually check the message until after I was up and dressed (why bother?) and then had to wait for Karasu to get ready to go, which she is, I’m sad to say, categorically incapable of doing any faster than the speed of a blind turtle.
So I got to work and was informed by my father and co-worker that actually, the phones were down, too. Great. My dad immediately starts throwing fifteen million problems at me (all of which I was already aware of, like, say, not being able to use our software), and I’m just like, “Will you shut up so I can call XO (the phone company)?” And he finally grumbles and wanders off. Patients are already showing up.
Now, I don’t know how it works with most phone companies. Hell, maybe this is typical? But my dear neechan works at a cable/phone provider, and I really don’t think it is. Basically, I called in and described the problem. The CSR opened a ‘trouble ticket’ for me, and said someone would call me back *within the next two hours*. I was like “…wait. No trouble-shooting? No checking the wires, no rebooting the telephony modem, no anything? Just a trouble ticket and a technician will call me?” “Yes.” “Within two hours.” “Yes.” “But we are a *doctor’s office*. We can’t be without phones for the next *two hours*.” “Sorry, but it sucks to be you.” Or something along those lines.
At this point, I was pretty steamed. I was using my cell, obviously, but I figured, this was not a total disaster. I dug out the back-up disks for our EMR, which theoretically enable us to use an offline version, and set my dad to them. Then I dialed into our voice mail system and changed out recorded greeting so it said, “Hey, our phone service sucks! Call this number!” And put the office cell phone’s number on there.
Well, it turns out that no one can even reach our recorded message. They either get a busy signal, or it runs two or three times before turning silent. So we are totally unreachable. Great. Fuckin’ perfect. I hope no one’s dying and needs medical attention or anything.
Meanwhile, the back-up disks are password protected, and we can’t figure out what password was used. I call the EMR. They try their standard passwords. No dice. They look up the specific back-up disk in their system and give me another one. Still doesn’t work. They tell me quite forthrightly that that password should work and they don’t understand why it’s not. I tell them that I appreciate their confusion but don’t *fucking care now make my back-up work already*!
I get transferred. The nice woman tells me that if I go to their website, they can dial into my computer to try it themselves. I tell the nice woman that this might be an issue since the entire reason we *need* the back-up is since we have no internet.
There’s quiet for a moment.
She explains to me that the back-up disks don’t work like that; it’s just a raw data file and cannot be viewed or manipulated in any way. She explains that the only purpose of the back-up disks is that so if their server gets bombed, they can use one of the back-up disks to reinstall all our data.
I ask her why no one explained this before we started paying them large sums of money for this service, which we wanted explicitly *because* we wanted to use them if the internet went down, and we were in fact *told* that this system was in place if our internet went down.
Needless to say, there’s no good explanation for that.
So there we are. No EMR. No phones. No internet.
On the upside, I won the expert level of Minesweeper for the second time in my life.
Of course, this is the morning when *everyone* shows up. For the past couple weeks we’ve been plagued by no-show appointments. We figured this is probably due in part to the economy being in the toilet. Today, everyone comes. Which is interesting since we have no records. But hey! Everyone’s good-natured about it. We’re all having a great time.
I give XO three hours rather than the prescribed two, because there’s no point in being a bitch if they’re going to be useless, before I call them back. The most condescending man on the planet explains to me that the problem is with the Smart Jack (whatever the fuck that is), which is owned/operated by Qwest, and so they’ve put out a dispatch to Qwest and we should hear from them in the next 45 minutes, at which point they will probably have to come to our office, depending on what’s wrong with the jack and where the jack is physically located. And no, we can’t call Qwest to check up on it, since we don’t have a Qwest account.
Good-bye, afternoon off. I really wish I had brought a lunch.
Or a book.
I’m sitting here typing this because, honestly, I have nothing else to do. I’ll stick it on my jump drive and bring it home with me (whenever I get to leave), so I can post it on LJ. Whee!
12:37 PM: An XO tech just called, wanted to know if the Qwest guy had showed up. I told him that that would be a good trick since they had never called to let us know they were coming. He seemed puzzled. He said that he had just spoken to Qwest and they stated they had discharged a tech and his ETA was 11:45. …I wonder why Mr. Condescending didn’t seem to know this when I called XO at 11:30? Ah, it’s not worth wondering. Anyway, the XO guy said he would call Qwest and call me right back. Suuuuuure… and who knows whether they were going to show up here or somewhere else? According to Mr. Condescending, the Smart Jack might not be in our office.
12:50 PM: Lunch. Sort of. Everyone else fucking left for the afternoon clinic without telling me (besides Karasu, who has no car and thus does not dictate the comings and goings), so now I have no chance to run home and grab a) food, b) a book, c) anything else to keep me sane while I sit here with no internet *on my God damned afternoon off*. There’s a pharmacy in our building that carries a fairly decent variety of snacks. I have chicken noodle soup from Cousins’ subs, and an apple.
12:52 PM: This soup is the most disgusting thing I have ever paid $1.08 for. I think I’ll eat my apple. Ooh, I have some Goldfish stashed here, too. That’s a balanced meal if I’ve ever seen one.
1:00 PM: Still no call back from XO or Qwest. Why doesn’t my cell phone have games on it? I’ve already won every version of Solitaire on the computer. I guess I could play Pinball…
1:07 PM: I picked up my cell and had dialed half of XO’s number when the fax machine rang! OMG OMG OMG! PHONES! BLESSED, SWEET PHONES! I CAN GO HOME!
1:09 PM: Well, that didn’t last long. They’re down again. I got halfway through changing our recorded greeting to the outreach clinic message, and then it cut me off. Now they’re gone. *weeps*
1:13 PM: Hey, I wonder what that fax was. *goes to look*
1:14 PM: X-ray reports! That I can do nothing with. How exciting.
1:15 PM: Hey! My CD case still has a bunch of burned Bleach episodes that I brought on vacation to New Hampshire with me! How fortuitous! Even if I’ve seen them all already.
1:18 PM: I… I don’t… have the codec… and I can’t get it… without internet… *sob*
1:19 PM: It’s up again! Wonder how long I should wait to make sure it’s permanent? 10 minutes seems like a good number, right?
1:21 PM: Whew! Got the phone message changed. So at least people will be able to reach the outreach clinic. Wonder if XO or Qwest will ever actually call me? Yume-neechan, is this normal behavior for a phone service company?
1:24 PM: Well, the fax line is ringing off the hook now. Today’s problems are going to be nothing compared to what *tomorrow* is going to look like - dealing with all the things we couldn’t do today, plus the backed up work from not having had the EMR all morning.
1:30 PM: Fuck it; I’m out of here. Still have time to run to the grocery on my way home and then watch a movie. If Qwest or XO needs to reach me - well, what the hell; they have my cell phone.