Good news, bad news

Good news: The sore throat I've been having on and off for a month is almost certainly just sinus-related, and appears to be gone for good now.

Bad news: Now it's all draining out my nose, making it hard to breathe and really, who wants to wake up in the middle of the night because of a runny nose? Boy, I am tired.

*****

Bad news: The first leg of my return flight was canceled and the earliest they could reschedule me was for Thursday.

Good news: I found a flight with a different airline that would get me back yesterday.

Bad news: I'm decidedly behind at work, and not even kidding, my team totally changed while I was gone. It was 3 days!!!

Good news: No lives will be harmed because of this. Seriously. The probability that anyone's life will ever hang in the balance because of my job is really really slim.

*****

Good news: I got a new laptop at work. Which is mainly good news because now I don't have to worry about the old one overheating and exploding. (I've had to hard reboot it twice--with the little emergency reboot function hidden on the bottom of the laptop that I never knew existed.)

Bad news: I spent most of my day trying to set up the computer and still have the most essential program for my work that is not downloaded. Not great when I'm already inundated with work, but what can you do.

Good news: It should be up and running tomorrow, so no worries. Other than being behind on work. Which I blame on a tornado warning in Texas. What can you do. 

Bad news: 

And suddenly it's fall

Does anyone know how we got this far in the year? I know there's a one day at a time method and all, but has anyone checked to make sure that we're really getting all 24 hours? I feel like the universe's clockwork is just wonky. One day feels like it's 5 years long, and other days (usually on weekends, haha) seem to last 10 minutes. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

None of this is helped by the bizareness of the seasons these days. How am I supposed to gauge where we are at in the year when we have August temperatures in June, and June weather in September? 

I would also like to pin some blame on the greeting card and candy industries. I kind you not, I saw Thanksgiving cards and Halloween cards in the store at the end of August. Which, those are things? Are you kidding me? I am supposed to be sending people happy Halloween cards? Just, no. Although, it would boost post office business...

At any rate, here we are, with October starting tomorrow. And lovely fall weather, which I always enjoy. The mountains are turning red-orange-brown, which is always lovely. And at some point, I will close my windows and officially make my bed with blankets. Also, I have two trips coming up, one of which will involve hot air balloons and possibly a trip to the zoo, and the other a temple open house with family, huzzah!

And if the year seems like a blur, well, I think that's just the nature of mortality. So we're all good. 

In my lifetime

COVID-19 pandemic
Y2K
The internet for the masses
Google
Cell phones
9/11
Mt St Helens erupted
Challenger shuttle explosion
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Tiananmen Square
2 presidents impeached

Columbine and a bunch of other school/mass shootings

Gulf War

War on Terror

D.A.R.E. program

Hurricane Katrina

Reality TV (this is NOT my fault)

Social media (also not my fault)

Summer and winter Olympics being split into different years

First female Supreme Court justice

First female vice president

Arab Spring

Oklahoma City bombings

Indiana Jones franchise

Pixar

Black Lives Matter

Thriller (Michael Jackson)

Backstreet Boys and K-pop

Creation of MLK day

The Cosby Show

Nintendo and Mario Brothers

Minecraft

Michael Phelps

Florence Griffith Joyner 

Carl Lewis

Michael Jordan

MCU

Too many Batman's to count

Spell check

Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died

Chernobyl

Amazon

2008 crash

First black president

End of Apartheid

Harry Potter

CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, laser-disc

Full House and  TGIF lineup

Dolly the clone sheep

Lord of the Rings movies released

Occupy Wall Street

Brexit

Netflix and streaming

Office wars

We are going through a reorganization at work, and thus, relocations. In the first 4 years at my current job, I moved offices 5 times, so I've pretty much learned to not get attached. But, offices are strange things that end up meaning a lot to people. In some ways I get it. I work in a cubicle--a shared cubicle--at the moment, and sometimes, a little privacy would be nice. There are perks to a cubicle, but I get the desire for 4 walls that reach the ceiling and a door. 

Or course there are disadvantages to an office, as well. With great workspaces come great responsibilities. Also, offices can be a bit isolating sometimes, shut away from the masses. But, sometimes, that is exactly what I need at work. 

So, basically, at the end of the day office space is just office space, and you make it what you want it to be. And, it is not the hill I plan on dying in this lovely rat race we're in. But to each their own, and if an office is your thing, go for it. 

Rainbows and other pretty things

 

If life mimicked TV

 I've been watching a medical drama and it sure seems like patients are always unexpectedly going unconscious right as the doctor says everything is fine. Also, in the first season, the poor doctors couldn't go anywhere outside of work without running into people almost dying in the middle of the street. It's very similar to the murder mystery conundrum: the sleuth can't go anywhere without constantly encountering dead bodies.

Which got me thinking about what if this happened in real life in other professions? I'm an archivist, and my profession will (probably wisely) never have a TV drama series. And I do feel like I end up doing outreach for my job wherever I go, but my work duties aren't actually outreach. So, what if everywhere I went, I ran into people who needed their papers archived, stat? "Quick! I need my file cabinet arranged and described! Someone please help! Is there an archivist available?"

Or what if mail carriers were constantly running into people who needed packages delivered NOW? A grocer who, every time he left his house, ran into people needing produce and delivery trucks trying to transport cold cereal?

Or a farmer who ran into cows needing milked while riding the bus? Apple store employees constantly having to solve tech problems (oh, wait. That IS reality). Opticians running into people needing glasses, custodians always running into messes (probably also fairly realistic), sports announcers always ending up in the middle of a basketball game or tennis match having to announce (this could be pretty entertaining), or engineers having to construct bridges on their way to the movies? Accountants trying to have dinner with their spouse and getting interrupted by an emergency audit!

Thank goodness most professions don't run into life and death or any other emergencies outside of work. I, for one, would not cope well. (Thus, archivist). But it could be pretty entertaining. 

 

Back to normal?

Last week we were supposed to start working in the office again, like normal.* Except that half the people weren't there, which may have been because of some HR/director last-minute messaging about coming in that ended up being confusing, or because people are working hybrid schedules mashed up with 4 10s, 9 9s, or who knows what else, so honestly, it seems absurd to call it "back" to normal, because, well, not so much.

On Tuesday, though, we had a division meeting, and so lots of people were there, and we all wore our masks, and when we got out of the meeting, instead of just me and a couple of coworkers going back to our desks, it was a horde! I did NOT like it. There were far too many people. Oh, no, no, no. Not because of COVID. Just because I am more introverted and haven't had to share my space with anyone for 18 months-ish, and when I did go in the office, there was less than half the normal staff there. And I liked it that way. And now there are people everywhere, and I want them to go home! Or at least for me to just have my own little office hidden away in some corner where people forget about me until I emerge from the depths to go to a meeting or something.

Also, this mask thing. I don't have to wear one at my desk, but I do in public areas, but my desk is semi-public (it's a cubicle. I hope every business is really re-thinking the health and safety around cubicles at this point) and so it is a very blurry line between desk and public space and I keep forgetting because I haven't had to wear one, and basically, do we all feel like it's a Groundhog's Day scenario and we are back at last April? "Should I wear a mask? Is it safe to work? COVID is no big deal, or is it? What is going on?!?!?!" 

Yeah. So, we have gone back to that normal, but I think that isn't actually what we were shooting for.