Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Tuesday – Work, Jero, and Ke

Tuesday I decided to embrace the busywork at the office, and let go of my stress about trying to take calls and handle everything no one else seems to be doing. It was so pleasant to just relax and clean up the database, leaving the ACD to other people unless specifically asked by my manager to jump in and help. My boss did appreciate that when he pointed out my points-per-hour were low for the month, I gave him my plan for bringing them up instead of a bunch of excuses about there being no work. Woot.

However, once the call volume spiked, I had to get back on the phones, and then it was all downhill from there. I was slammed with call after call, and since I’d only had a cup of soup all day, I was starving. Eight minutes before my lunch I got an ISDN cut call which took two hours to resolve. One thing that did help my mood was a call from Jero, just when I was finally escaping the call from hell. I’d been missing Jero and hadn’t gotten to talk to her recently, so it was very nice to hear from her.

Unfortunately I won’t have a chance to see Jero again until Monday. It sounded like she was missing me, and that really made me with I was with her instead of at work. By the time I was able to escape for ‘lunch’, it was 8 PM, and I was ready to eat office supplies on my desk. I wound up having to drive to Hardee’s since by then everything in walking range downtown was closed. After I got back I ate during my ‘break’ and didn’t manage to do much more work for the tiny remainder of the day.

When I did flee work, I went home, where Ke was waiting for me in my apartment. I’d left Ke my key so she could use my hot tub after her pilates class.. Instead, when I got there she was putting together media shelves she’d bought for me to help me organize my apartment. I cleaned off the shelves I already had in my room, and moved all the books off the floor that had stacked up over time. I vacuumed by bedroom, and by that time Ke had finished putting together the second shelf.

We took a break to run out and get me a snack and Ke caffeine. When we got back, we moved my old shelves into my closet, and moved my low dresser under the window in my bedroom. We then set up the media shelves and put all the the CDs and DVDs collected around my room up and out of the way. We then cleaned off my bed, putting my books in the closet and gathering a garbage bag’s worth of old mail and paperwork that could be thrown away in the morning.

By the time we were done, we had my room looking rather nice, and Ke even found the remote for my TV, which will be useful for volume changes while snuggling. I put clean sheets on my bed and we showered off the dust we’d collected, finally getting to sleep around 6 AM. This morning we trucked down a cartload of cardboard to recycle and old electronics to donate, freeing up even more space in my apartment. Ke and I were hoping to go for breakfast together, but we slept too late and I had to go to work.

I’m very lucky to have such sweet and supportive people in my life. Now if only my worklife could be as nice as my home life…

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Week in Review – Week of 2009 Aug 16th – Aug 22nd

Last week seemed to speed by incredibly quickly. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had the week before off for Gen Con, and then Thursday off work to go with Jero to see the Eagles play the Colts. I did get to see Mira a bit on her way back from her Chicago trip with Ke and Nivagi, so that was a pleasant bonus (not to mention getting to see Ke and Nivagi, which is always nice!).

Last Sunday was the last day of Gen Con, so Jero and I headed back to the convention center for one final day of geekiness. We didn’t have any games scheduled, so we wandered the dealer room and then went to a paint-and-take workshop that Jero has wanted to go to for years. We painted little miniatures and then went back to the dealer room so I could pick something up for B! and R@(.

When the Con ended Jero and I escaped for a quiet dinner to recharge our social batteries, and then went back to my apartment for a smaller geek get-together. A group of our friends showed up to hang out, and since it was B!’s final game night for a while (he was moving to Virginia later that week), we played a long game of Munchkin before heading to Denny’s for a last meal.

Last Monday morning I went to Ke’s to see Mira before she headed back to Evansville. She had spent the weekend in Chicago with Ke and Nivagi, and they got back late. The three of them were still asleep when I arrived, but woke up after I let myself in. I hung out with them until I had to go to work and then kissed Mira goodbye before leaving and heading into the office. Work was quiet and surprisingly failed to ruin my good mood from the weekend.

After work I went to Jero’s to MUX, but since aerosar.net was down I mostly just hung out on the couch with Jero reading TVTropes while we played on our laptops. Cawh eventually IMed me to tell me the MUX was back up, but by that point I was tired, so I just got some admin stuff done and tried to catch up my week’s month’s year’s backlog of email and journal notes. When it got too late Jero and I shut down out laptops and went to bed.

As nice as work was Monday, Tuesday more than made up for it in shittiness. Every call was crap, everyone I spoke to was an idiot, and every order I pulled down was an absolute mess that took me ages to resolve with little to no credit for my effort. Things did calm down after lunch, but by then there was no work, which made my points-per-hour rate suffer even more. They’re cutting back on e-time, so I was stuck there ‘til 10:15.

After work I hid out at home. I was originally planning to try to be productive, but Cawh had convinced me to log onto the MUX Tuesday since I wasn’t able to roleplay Monday night. When I got on, Anpe suggested a scene where the Decepticons cause trouble for G.I. Joe, so I ran a combat between Valour on one side and Ace, Slipstream, and Wisp on the other. It wound up being a lot of fun (the Joes ultimately won – barely).

Wednesday morning I stayed up until 6ish role-playing online and doing laundry, so I slept right up until the point I needed to get up and go to work. Work wasn’t as bad, although we didn’t have much to do so I spent a lot of time wishing they hadn’t started getting so stingy with e-time again (not that I can afford it if they offer it…). They want us to do busywork instead, which I’ve been resisting on principle.

Wednesday night Ke called me as I was getting off work, letting me know she was escaping also and was hungry. I’d planned to meet Nivagi at 11 anyway, so the three of us got together and went to the Red Eye CafĂ©. I was feeling a little down, so I was mostly quiet while Ke and Nivagi chatted. After we ate Ke headed home and Nivagi went up to my apartment. It was late by then and both of us were tired so we pretty much just went immediately to bed.

Thursday I took off work to go with Jero to the Colts/Eagles game. I had big plans for productivity with my morning off, but instead I slept late with Nivagi and then just relaxed and read X-Men: Messiah Complex for a while before calling Dada to wish her a happy birthday. I got to talk to Ra as well before it was time to get dressed and head to Jero’s house.

Jero had just completed her day of telework, so we went downtown and had dinner before going to the football game. Jero’s team lost, unfortunately, but I still had a great time going with her and enjoying her enthusiasm while they played. After the game we went to the top of my parking garage and took pleasure in the cool breeze and pretty view before headed back to Jero’s to collapse into exhausted sleep.

Friday Jero had to go into work early, so I went over to Ke’s for a few hours to nap before going into the office. Work absolutely sucked, and was more or less a repeat of Tuesday – stressful crap all day, and then not enough to do at night so my points-per-hour continued to descend into hell. I tried to work on the wiki, but some script from the new skin I tried was killing my computer, so I had to give up.

Friday night, though, I started celebrating my one-year anniversary weekend with Nivagi. She made dinner for Ke and me, although Ke didn’t each much since she wasn’t feeling well. The salad and tortellini with vodka sauce Nivagi prepared was incredibly good, however, so Nivagi and I more than made up for what Ke didn’t eat. The three of us hung out in the living room for a little while before going to bed to cuddle and sleep.

Saturday Nivagi had to work, so I slept in and snuggled with Ke until hunger drove us from the bed. Ke and I went to the Paragon Restaurant, which I hadn’t tried before. The food was very good, and I definitely intend to go back. Eventually Ke had to leave for her job, too. I hopped onto the MUX quickly to approve two new Players before heading home to meet Nivagi.

Nivagi and I went upstairs to snuggle and nap for a while, enjoying the rare chance to hang out before 11 PM. We then ventured out to get food, stuffing ourselves with yummy noodles. Once full, we headed back to my apartment to cuddle and watch Dexter. It was a slow, lazy day, and an excellent way to cap off and celebrate our first year together. I’m very much looking forward to the next one together.



Private the Penguin: “Skipper... don't you think we should tell them that the boat's out of gas?”
Skipper the Penguin: “Naah... just smile and wave, boys; smile and wave.”
-- Madagascar