In recent work news
It's been quite the couple weeks at work. When last I really gave an update on things over there, we'd just gotten our system upgrade. At that time, things were still new and we were getting used to them.
In the meantime, we got a surprise. This is normally our busy season, like how the holidays are to retail and tax season is to accountants. With the pandemic, the vast majority of our services are rendered moot. Things were looking bleak. And then, suddenly, one of our major clients decided to go forward with their typical plans this time of year, and we found ourselves in the midst of craziness. None of us expected this to happen, so it was a pleasant surprise, and in fact when we started getting phone calls and people stopping in to ask about our services, we were like, uh, are you sure this is happening? This all picked up the week of Labor Day, and it wasn't for a few days that we found out our one coworker--the one who'd been off for six months--had been given a heads-up on things, but didn't bother telling the rest of us because he wasn't sure exactly when a particular notification would go out. Uh, but you *knew* about the notification and that it was happening; that's enough forewarning for the rest of us, you know? (We quickly realized that we hadn't exactly missed him all this time.)
On the plus side, the flurry of activity meant plenty of chances to work with the new software! Whee! That is, when it worked. For the most part it was fine, but there was a Wednesday a couple weeks ago where my computer bogged down so badly it almost couldn't be used. It had started getting slow that Monday, here and there, where it would take a minute to do a task. I would find out it was doing that on the previous Saturday, as well. We happened to get a couple new computers for two workstations, one back by the cubicles, one in the other building, so our IT guy came in that Wednesday to install them. Since he was there, I mentioned to the manager, hey, can we have him check out my computer? While he was there, but before he came up by me, I started doing what should be a relatively quick task, but the computer stalled while pulling up a screen. I gave it a few minutes. Still stalled. I went to the bathroom. Still stalled. I gave up and did my task on YC's computer. Still stalled. Probably 10-15 minutes had passed before the IT guy came up, and he started to fiddle with things, and then stuff stalled on *him*. After a few minutes, he said something like, this is officially excruciating. Exactly! Welcome to my world these past few days! Except at least it still was functioning, if slowly, prior to that Wednesday. He must have gone in and looked at the memory on that computer, and I guess there was stuff that was open that was bogging it down. He asked, do you need Skype open on this computer? ...I wasn't even aware that Skype was on that computer, let alone open. He ended up closing a bunch of things and after that it worked much faster, but late last week it started bogging down again. I didn't get a chance to see if anything random had opened up again. On Thursday, it was so bad, and had frozen for 13 minutes (my computer's clock said one time, while YC's said another), that I ended up just pressing the power button and starting over, and it was okay after that.
We've started to notice some quirks with the upgraded system. If you go to look something up in a particular sub-program, let's say, it'll keep you in that sub-program unless you close the window. Considering all the windows tend to look the same, you'll think you're in a basic look-up window, but you'll actually be in something you didn't want to be in, so now you've wasted time. I've started to immediately close the window for whatever sub-program I'm in just so nobody's confused, since pretty much everyone uses my workstation at some point during the day. There used to be keyboard shortcuts for certain sub-programs but a lot of them don't work anymore, or they don't work the same way, so that's a bummer. Some things are better. And, well, being so busy means we got in a lot of practice, so a few things are old hat to me now. That's kind of a blessing. Everything works out, I suppose.
And then, as suddenly as everything started, everything quit. Our client's sub-clients' needs were fulfilled, and after last Monday, there was a dramatic drop in phone calls and visits. It was kind of startling, really. We knew it would happen soon, as is the nature of things, but didn't realize it would be like that. If anything, I figured we'd still have the rest of the week, but no. Except for Friday; Friday was a bit hectic, but still not as bad as the previous two weeks had been. I ended up staying late, even past close of business some of the time, so I could catch up with things. Even YC stuck around for a bit to make sure we were okay, which was kind of surprising, because normally she'd want to get out, but she could tell there was a fair amount of stuff to do. If there was something needed, I'd ask her to do that; otherwise, she was free to go. I did appreciate her offering to stay and help, at least. She's maturing. One night I stayed over an hour past close because I just wanted to catch up on a few things, including the big project I'd worked on at the end of August; I still had some paperwork to send over to that client that I knew would take a while; I simply couldn't get to it for a couple weeks, partly due to the system upgrade (it kept the manager busy and prevented him from doing his portion of the paperwork, which had to be done first), and I didn't want to wait any longer. Well, my workstation is in view of the door. The front office lights were off, though the back lights were on (I could still see just fine with those--and it was still light enough outside that I'd have been fine either way); the door was locked; and our sign was flipped to "closed." Our hours are posted. We're clearly not open currently. That didn't stop two people from trying to get in. Look, the only reason I'm here has nothing to do with you. I get that our business hours are not entirely conducive to everyone's lives, but if the door is locked and the sign says closed, respect that. Go visit our website; not only is there helpful information there, but you can do what you need to via the website. The first lady tried to get in, and I made "No!" gestures to her, and she walked away. Then a second lady came right afterward; same thing. Then the first lady came back, calling our phone number. Yeah...we have something called "night mode" on the phone. It's off and goes straight to voicemail. I finally walked over and turned the back office lights off and worked in the dark the rest of the time just so I could have some peace. At least I got done what I wanted to get done.
Some days were more trying than others. YC at times impressed me and confused me, like she's never dealt with this before. Considering she's worked here for three years, she absolutely has, but her brain must not remember things or something. (It is a different sort of brain. This can be very frustrating for me some days. She's capable of so much but I'm not sure she believes it, and in some cases she needs to find a way to remember all the tasks she needs to do. I only want to tell her things once or twice. I don't want to have to do things daily.) Anyway, one day she came in and was being kind of ditzy, so she said to me, it's a hand-holding day. Sigh. Okay, at least she warned me. I went back by the cubicles with her, in order to show her something, and mentioned this to the people back there. The cousin was there on one of the computers and said, I think it's a hand-holding day for me, too. Okay; I have two hands. (I think they were fine the rest of the day, thankfully. Sometimes you just want to know the hand is there if you need it.)
There was also an odd moment back on that same Wednesday where my computer got so slow. My boss' mom was working on something and asked me to double-check it. Honestly, I was kind of honored that she did that, because it means she respects my authority of sorts with that particular item. However, she asked me to not get it dirty--kind of impossible since I needed to touch the item to look it over--and ended up getting me a pair of gloves to wear, and even let me keep them. Given our relationship over the years, I was impressed she'd gotten to that point with me. This would not have happened about five years ago. Alas, this may have led to another revelation--people had gone through her stuff. Well, sort of. She has a desk in the other building, but she was gone for months, hiding out during the early days of the pandemic. We still needed to do her tasks while she was gone, and her desk was a good place to do so. At one point, our one coworker--the one who'd also gone MIA for months--ended up cleaning up her area prior to his leave of absence. He was not asked to do so; he'd taken it upon himself. And, recently, BBC's helper number 2 also cleaned up what had been BBC's dad's old desk to set it up as a shared work space for Helper 2 and our one coworker. (I really need to come up with a nickname for him. Maybe I'll go with DW, for Dilbert's Wally, because that's the character he most reminds me of in that cartoon.) Discovering that things had been touched and moved and cleared out really upset my boss' mom, fearful that important paperwork might have been pitched. The business originally was hers and her husband's back in the day, and some of that old paperwork is there in a drawer, plus probably some other stuff that really should be kept at her house, and my boss had to remind her that the business keeps going even if she's not there, and people need to use her area to work, and if people had found any of that personal stuff, they would've left it alone. Nobody touched the particular drawer I know of, because it's labeled, and again if she's that concerned, take it home. She's got a bit of a temper and I think some of that came out that day, but it must have happened in the other building because I was not privy to it, oh darn.
Meanwhile, it's been quite a month for her. Her last remaining sibling passed away at the end of August, just a couple weeks shy of her birthday, in her upper 90s. Auntie was a remarkable woman who'd worked for an airline, and I knew her daughter had run a travel agency as well, so they did a lot of traveling, up until just a few years ago. She'd come up here and spend a week with her sister, and my boss' mom would visit her in the Southwest for several weeks at a time. (Not gonna lie, we looked forward to those trips.) In the past year, maybe at the start of this year, she took a turn for the worse, but pulled through. It was still surprising to hear she'd passed. Then, just a few days ago, my boss' mom celebrated her own milestone birthday and had family come in from out of town for that (hence "Sue's in/Susan" from the other day). She's definitely at an age where she could slow down, but that's up to her--and my boss--to decide.
In the meantime, we got a surprise. This is normally our busy season, like how the holidays are to retail and tax season is to accountants. With the pandemic, the vast majority of our services are rendered moot. Things were looking bleak. And then, suddenly, one of our major clients decided to go forward with their typical plans this time of year, and we found ourselves in the midst of craziness. None of us expected this to happen, so it was a pleasant surprise, and in fact when we started getting phone calls and people stopping in to ask about our services, we were like, uh, are you sure this is happening? This all picked up the week of Labor Day, and it wasn't for a few days that we found out our one coworker--the one who'd been off for six months--had been given a heads-up on things, but didn't bother telling the rest of us because he wasn't sure exactly when a particular notification would go out. Uh, but you *knew* about the notification and that it was happening; that's enough forewarning for the rest of us, you know? (We quickly realized that we hadn't exactly missed him all this time.)
On the plus side, the flurry of activity meant plenty of chances to work with the new software! Whee! That is, when it worked. For the most part it was fine, but there was a Wednesday a couple weeks ago where my computer bogged down so badly it almost couldn't be used. It had started getting slow that Monday, here and there, where it would take a minute to do a task. I would find out it was doing that on the previous Saturday, as well. We happened to get a couple new computers for two workstations, one back by the cubicles, one in the other building, so our IT guy came in that Wednesday to install them. Since he was there, I mentioned to the manager, hey, can we have him check out my computer? While he was there, but before he came up by me, I started doing what should be a relatively quick task, but the computer stalled while pulling up a screen. I gave it a few minutes. Still stalled. I went to the bathroom. Still stalled. I gave up and did my task on YC's computer. Still stalled. Probably 10-15 minutes had passed before the IT guy came up, and he started to fiddle with things, and then stuff stalled on *him*. After a few minutes, he said something like, this is officially excruciating. Exactly! Welcome to my world these past few days! Except at least it still was functioning, if slowly, prior to that Wednesday. He must have gone in and looked at the memory on that computer, and I guess there was stuff that was open that was bogging it down. He asked, do you need Skype open on this computer? ...I wasn't even aware that Skype was on that computer, let alone open. He ended up closing a bunch of things and after that it worked much faster, but late last week it started bogging down again. I didn't get a chance to see if anything random had opened up again. On Thursday, it was so bad, and had frozen for 13 minutes (my computer's clock said one time, while YC's said another), that I ended up just pressing the power button and starting over, and it was okay after that.
We've started to notice some quirks with the upgraded system. If you go to look something up in a particular sub-program, let's say, it'll keep you in that sub-program unless you close the window. Considering all the windows tend to look the same, you'll think you're in a basic look-up window, but you'll actually be in something you didn't want to be in, so now you've wasted time. I've started to immediately close the window for whatever sub-program I'm in just so nobody's confused, since pretty much everyone uses my workstation at some point during the day. There used to be keyboard shortcuts for certain sub-programs but a lot of them don't work anymore, or they don't work the same way, so that's a bummer. Some things are better. And, well, being so busy means we got in a lot of practice, so a few things are old hat to me now. That's kind of a blessing. Everything works out, I suppose.
And then, as suddenly as everything started, everything quit. Our client's sub-clients' needs were fulfilled, and after last Monday, there was a dramatic drop in phone calls and visits. It was kind of startling, really. We knew it would happen soon, as is the nature of things, but didn't realize it would be like that. If anything, I figured we'd still have the rest of the week, but no. Except for Friday; Friday was a bit hectic, but still not as bad as the previous two weeks had been. I ended up staying late, even past close of business some of the time, so I could catch up with things. Even YC stuck around for a bit to make sure we were okay, which was kind of surprising, because normally she'd want to get out, but she could tell there was a fair amount of stuff to do. If there was something needed, I'd ask her to do that; otherwise, she was free to go. I did appreciate her offering to stay and help, at least. She's maturing. One night I stayed over an hour past close because I just wanted to catch up on a few things, including the big project I'd worked on at the end of August; I still had some paperwork to send over to that client that I knew would take a while; I simply couldn't get to it for a couple weeks, partly due to the system upgrade (it kept the manager busy and prevented him from doing his portion of the paperwork, which had to be done first), and I didn't want to wait any longer. Well, my workstation is in view of the door. The front office lights were off, though the back lights were on (I could still see just fine with those--and it was still light enough outside that I'd have been fine either way); the door was locked; and our sign was flipped to "closed." Our hours are posted. We're clearly not open currently. That didn't stop two people from trying to get in. Look, the only reason I'm here has nothing to do with you. I get that our business hours are not entirely conducive to everyone's lives, but if the door is locked and the sign says closed, respect that. Go visit our website; not only is there helpful information there, but you can do what you need to via the website. The first lady tried to get in, and I made "No!" gestures to her, and she walked away. Then a second lady came right afterward; same thing. Then the first lady came back, calling our phone number. Yeah...we have something called "night mode" on the phone. It's off and goes straight to voicemail. I finally walked over and turned the back office lights off and worked in the dark the rest of the time just so I could have some peace. At least I got done what I wanted to get done.
Some days were more trying than others. YC at times impressed me and confused me, like she's never dealt with this before. Considering she's worked here for three years, she absolutely has, but her brain must not remember things or something. (It is a different sort of brain. This can be very frustrating for me some days. She's capable of so much but I'm not sure she believes it, and in some cases she needs to find a way to remember all the tasks she needs to do. I only want to tell her things once or twice. I don't want to have to do things daily.) Anyway, one day she came in and was being kind of ditzy, so she said to me, it's a hand-holding day. Sigh. Okay, at least she warned me. I went back by the cubicles with her, in order to show her something, and mentioned this to the people back there. The cousin was there on one of the computers and said, I think it's a hand-holding day for me, too. Okay; I have two hands. (I think they were fine the rest of the day, thankfully. Sometimes you just want to know the hand is there if you need it.)
There was also an odd moment back on that same Wednesday where my computer got so slow. My boss' mom was working on something and asked me to double-check it. Honestly, I was kind of honored that she did that, because it means she respects my authority of sorts with that particular item. However, she asked me to not get it dirty--kind of impossible since I needed to touch the item to look it over--and ended up getting me a pair of gloves to wear, and even let me keep them. Given our relationship over the years, I was impressed she'd gotten to that point with me. This would not have happened about five years ago. Alas, this may have led to another revelation--people had gone through her stuff. Well, sort of. She has a desk in the other building, but she was gone for months, hiding out during the early days of the pandemic. We still needed to do her tasks while she was gone, and her desk was a good place to do so. At one point, our one coworker--the one who'd also gone MIA for months--ended up cleaning up her area prior to his leave of absence. He was not asked to do so; he'd taken it upon himself. And, recently, BBC's helper number 2 also cleaned up what had been BBC's dad's old desk to set it up as a shared work space for Helper 2 and our one coworker. (I really need to come up with a nickname for him. Maybe I'll go with DW, for Dilbert's Wally, because that's the character he most reminds me of in that cartoon.) Discovering that things had been touched and moved and cleared out really upset my boss' mom, fearful that important paperwork might have been pitched. The business originally was hers and her husband's back in the day, and some of that old paperwork is there in a drawer, plus probably some other stuff that really should be kept at her house, and my boss had to remind her that the business keeps going even if she's not there, and people need to use her area to work, and if people had found any of that personal stuff, they would've left it alone. Nobody touched the particular drawer I know of, because it's labeled, and again if she's that concerned, take it home. She's got a bit of a temper and I think some of that came out that day, but it must have happened in the other building because I was not privy to it, oh darn.
Meanwhile, it's been quite a month for her. Her last remaining sibling passed away at the end of August, just a couple weeks shy of her birthday, in her upper 90s. Auntie was a remarkable woman who'd worked for an airline, and I knew her daughter had run a travel agency as well, so they did a lot of traveling, up until just a few years ago. She'd come up here and spend a week with her sister, and my boss' mom would visit her in the Southwest for several weeks at a time. (Not gonna lie, we looked forward to those trips.) In the past year, maybe at the start of this year, she took a turn for the worse, but pulled through. It was still surprising to hear she'd passed. Then, just a few days ago, my boss' mom celebrated her own milestone birthday and had family come in from out of town for that (hence "Sue's in/Susan" from the other day). She's definitely at an age where she could slow down, but that's up to her--and my boss--to decide.