Holy Wednesday
The washing machine repair guy came today. Computer on machine is A-Ok. However, there was another part, where a nut had come loose and allowed the piece to sink/sag/some how become dislocated from it's ideal position. This produced the god-awful grinding sound we've been hearing since day one with this machine. In other words, it came to us broken (well, not in 100% condition) and we have been using it DAILY (we probably do 10-12 loads of laundry a week between us) for a YEAR in this condition. Tonight, the washer is essentially whisper quiet. I had ignored the god-awful sound, because MANY of the reviews of the washer said it was *very* noisy. Well, now I know that those people probably also had this problem. More than one of the other "noisy machined" people had repair people out who said their machine was functioning normally. (shrugs) I hate that you can't trust repair people, of any ilk. But we got our repair guy through Sears (and I'm sure they are subcontractors) but he did the job. Yay.Best part about today? My 3 hour meeting for tomorrow morning was canceled! Yippee! Worst part about today, spent 3 hours hand holding the people who can't follow written directions if they are longer than 2 or 3 steps.
First was the data entry person/receptionist/do-everything person for the Counseling dept. She has been making MANY data entry errors in the pilot testing of my Counseling Database. 20 clients entered twice with some variation on the name (last name as first name, wrong birthdate, misspelled names, etc.) and then test scores entered under both names, the same test entered 3 or 4 times (I'm not sure if that is her or a problem with the workings of the db, TBD). I set up a spreadsheet for her to indicate which was the correct client (among the duplicate choices) and then where test scores needed to be transferred, if they were assigned to a client name that was being deleted. The process only had 3 steps, but she felt intimidated by it, and required that I sit with her for the 90 minutes it took her to make all of the corrections to the spreadsheet. I then tried to show her how to fix the errors in the actual database, and that was a disaster. So now *I* have to do that. Neither Little P or Big D (my director) will be happy about me spending *any* time on this project. And I'm still not sure how we can prevent this from happening again, because she is NOT being careful. This database will be a key linchpin in procuring United Way funding for the Counseling program next year. It has to be accurate. I will talk to my director who will have to talk to the counseling director about insisting on better data entry. Because I know that I will not be allowed to spend any more time working on improving the database. (Counseling doesn't contribute to my funding.) I'm going to have to sneak in the time it will take to make clean up the current errors. *sigh* And then I had to walk a few workers through the process of copying our Monitoring Reports database (the workhorse db for the caseworkers) to their computers. There are 3 (color coded parts) parts to the process, and each part has 4 essential steps: 1. Click the source link, 2. Copy the file 3. click the destination link 4. paste the file. (To start out a total of three files have to be copied and put in different locations, but after that, only 1 file ever has to be copied.) This person managed to get through Part 1 (pink) and Part 2 (yellow), and just gave up on part 3 (gray). She was whining for an easier way to do it, and I told her, this WAS the easier way. She groaned. It takes 2 minutes to complete the whole thing. What is the big deal? So that wasted most of my afternoon, and I was so frustrated by the time I got back to my desk, I had a headache and a hard time settling down. They took my keyboard away to try to get a replacement while it is under warranty. So now, instead of my great ergonomic split keyboard, I have the rattiest flat keyboard ever. First thing I had to do was a deep cleaning. Yuck! I am just glad the day is over. And tomorrow morning's long meeting is cancelled! (Dancing!)
Tonight I am grateful for canceled meetings, for our longer days, and for quiet washing machines!
Can anyone tell me why my TiVo failed to record even 1 show on Monday? We missed Castle, Mike & Molly and I'm sure 1 or 2 others. WTF-BBQ?