You know things are going pear-shaped when there’s all kinds of stuff, nonsense, and news happening in my life, and I’m too damn busy to bother mentioning it here.

I read this last week but didn’t mention it before: ginmar’s unit is slowly making its way homeward. She mentioned that they’d reached Kuwait on some unspecified date, and on another unspecified date they’ll head Stateside. This is a very good thing.

Kevin Sites has added new posts and pictures documenting the tsunami and its aftermath, this time from Indonesia.

In the meantime, what have I got to say for myself? What’s my excuse? I can’t really say that “dinking around on the computer” qualifies as a valid pass for not having posted much or written much or blathered much (the reader may pick which best describes what goes on here).

Busy? So What Else Is New?

Yeah, yeah, it’s been really busy at work. So busy that a little more than a week after working out a deal where I’d have a few designated hours for “my own” work and taking more res calls in the afternoon, I got put on a “special project” for something completely different. This apparently has such a high priority that I was asked to come in at 7:30 a.m. Thursday and Friday, with the classic “carrot on a stick” of being able to leave early.

Yeah, right. 4:30 p.m. comes around, there’s stuff that needs doing. And then sometimes late in the day, I find stuff that should have been taken care of earlier (in one case, stuff I should have done earlier, but thought the project meant I wasn’t responsible for it. Silly me). And then Friday was shaping up for another ticketing trainwreck; once again our own ticketer (who stays until 6pm) was out on family sick time. The other ticketer (on the other side of the floor) was to be there until 5:30pm, there’s a second person that can help out but was leaving at 4:00pm, and I was supposed to leave at 4:30pm (theoretically). This would mean that my TL would end up handling all the end-of-day backlog, and since she often stays late, she’d be there ’til 8:00pm just finishing up.

So I jumped in and helped issue tickets, fix records, and so on. The other ticketer walked by at 5:45pm with a question for my TL. She says: “What are you still doing here? Go home.” I growled back “Not until you leave.”

An hour later? Lather, rinse, repeat. So I walked out of there at 6:30pm, having found all kinds of crap that was sent back for correction, never fixed, and left undone by agents who waltzed out on time. Also found some of the previously mentioned crap that I should have done that morning… again, I had taken “special project” a little too literally.

This morning I actually had to call in to find out if I had to be there at 7:30am again, because I didn’t clarify it before leaving last week. I didn’t fall completely for the carrot; it was left up to me.

UPDATE:

Today was somewhat wacky, but I got out of there “on time.” I’m still confused about what exactly it is I’m supposed to be doing while assigned to a “special project.” I expect in 2 days that the world will change again.

Yesterday was extremely wacky, but not in a good way. I’m still trying to work out just what the hell happened. When I do, I’ll still probably not blog it. However, dinner was extremly nice with some good friends, so the day was not a total loss.