56 posts tagged “work”

So, you know that really cute pink laptop I got less than three weeks ago? The one with the really fast processor and 4MB of RAM?

Yeah...

The operating system crashed on it and all is lost. And as it's month-end/quarter-end/mid-year-end at work, it couldn't possibly have happened at a worse time.

I'll be bringing it back to work tomorrow to ask one of my buddies in IT to work some magic and reinstall all the good stuff I need.

In the meantime, I'm hitting the hay early because tomorrow is going to be a loooooong day...

I wasn't expecting it to arrive for another whole week, but my bright, shiny, new pink laptop arrived this morning! Hooray!

Of course, as soon as I took it out of the box, I cornered my buddy in IT and asked him to install the VPN on it right away - so it's still downstairs in the IT Lair. But no worries. When he pulled it out of its case (oh, yes - it came in its own little pouch), he said, "Um, it's pink." I nodded gleefully, and he asked, "So you know? Did you do that on purpose?"

"That way, you know it's mine!" I explained. "No one else is going to have a pink laptop!"

"I can't work on this downstairs!" he protested. "All the guys will laugh at me!"

After a little cajoling and much reassurance that, no, his masculinity would not be affected by handling my pink laptop, he headed downstairs with it.

I've never been so excited to know that I can do work from home. This truly shows now that I do, indeed, lead a sick, sad life.

I just need to vent for a second.

A major pet peeve of mine is when people wait until the very last second to do something. There are very few things in life that cannot be planned. (Death, ironically, happens to be one of them.) In business, there are even fewer things that cannot be planned. (This is why there are analysts and planners.) Moreover, when specific holidays are involved, there are even fewer surprises.

Take, for example, the Fourth of July. This happens each year on - you guessed it - July 4. The date never changes. And it's been a national holiday for almost two centuries. More importantly, it's marked on just about everyone's calendar (here, anyway) as a work holiday. (I think I've established that this is a static date.)

So why, then, does it come as a shock to some people (who will go unnamed) that this holiday is coming? And if you know you need to have something before July 4, and the lead time is usually about 4-6 weeks, wouldn't you want to order it well in advance? After all, April 4 is always 3 months before July 4, just as May 4 is always 2 months before July 4, just as June 4 is one month before July 4. (June 9, for those playing along with their calendars at home, is 25 days before July 4.)

It's not hard. You know something's happening July 4. You know you need it before July 4. And you know what? Last year, you needed the same thing July 4. In fact, you need it every year.

Is it too much to ask for some people to think ahead from time to time?

[sigh]

My head really hurts now.

That totally describes my day.

I hit my desk at full force again this morning, knowing I've got so much to do and I really don't want to be here until the wee morning hours doing it. Then, I got an e-mail from my boss. Apparently, one of the data warehouses was still not loading correctly, so all the reports I'm scheduled to run at the end of the day will be wrong. Alas, the world stops for no one - so we came up with a solution to limp through this month end process. That's the plus side. The down side is that it will take three times as long because it requires building and running multiple reports, opposed to just the one that automatically feeds into my spreadsheet for minor manipulation.

And, of course, this is all stuff that people want in their hands today. Crikey!

I'm once again thanking the Microsoft programmers for vlookups. I don't know how I would get any of this done without them!

Today started out a great day. The Boy didn't sleep well last night (he boycotted dinner and probably kept waking with a grumbly tummy), but he still woke me at 6, just after Chris left for work. It wasn't too terrible; I managed to pull it together and get him fed (almost 7 ounces of peaches, 3 ounces of yogurt, and about 3 ounces of milk), dressed, and both of us out the door just after 7:30. (That's a record, by the way.) This week I'm reviewing the month of May, you see, and I knew I needed a head-start at work.

And that's when the great day evaporated. I logged onto my e-mail to find urgent messages from our CMO and VP of Finance looking to resurrect a project I thought we had already killed. So I scrambled to update the data and form new conclusions, then painstakingly reviewed them with our department head before I could meet with the cafe analyst to review my assumptions and conclusions with him.

(I still haven't met with him, BTW. It's month end for all of us, and Mondays are always pretty manic around here.)

So, while he's at lunch and I'm waiting for him to materialize at my desk (or give me a call - I'm not very picky), I start my other end of month reporting. Only something's screwy with one of the data warehouses and the dollar values are way off. Never mind that we've notified IT about this almost three months ago. It's completely screwed up, and that means one of my selling reports (thank goodness it's only one of three) is totally wrong. At least it's a semi-easy fix - it will just require a bunch of matching to get it right. Thank God for VLookups.

I feel like beating my head against a wall.

Today I sent The Boy to school with a banana and a small container of peaches for snack. (They were having animal crackers this morning, and I prefer bringing his snacks instead of letting him eat animal crackers because I'm not sure of their ingredients.) Last week, I got into a bit of trouble with his teachers because I only provided a banana, and he got very angry when he finished it and there was no more to eat. So I've learned my lesson and realize now that I need to provide extra food for him - just in case.

Tomorrow I have my first Parent-Teacher conference. It's really just an opportunity to sit down with his head teacher and go over his development and progression. I can't imagine it would be much more involved than that; it's not like she's going to tell me The Boy is doing poorly in Science or needs to stay focused while studying History.

And next week marks the start of "Water Days". I'm not totally sure what it entails, but I know that I have to send The Boy to school on Fridays with swimming trunks, swimming diapers, water shoes, and a towel. At yesterday's Target excursion, I contemplated getting him his own beach towel until I remembered that a bath towel is plenty big for his little body. Silly Mommy.

I've had enough of the day. I think I'm going to head home. After all, I can review weeks of supply tomorrow. It's not like it's going to change overnight.

There's a chance I may be able to telecommute one or two days a week. This would be fantastic, as I'm shelling out upwards of $55 in gas each week to commute in from the outburbs. I would still need to bring The Boy to school on those days (if I telecommute, I really would have to do uninterrupted work), but the plus side is that I'd be able to stay home with him on those days he's sick without needing to take a day off from work.

There's no guarantee I'd be able to start working from home immediately. Right now, it's being tested in other departments, but given my limited physical contact with the outside world, there's really no reason I shouldn't be able to telecommute.

The caveat? I would need a new laptop.

The laptop I have is new to me (a hand me down from my sister), but it's several years old and not compatible with the company's system. [sigh] Also, the hard drive clicks and it makes my husband very nervous. But for my current purposes, it's just great. I can surf the 'net, work on spreadsheets and Word documents, and play Webkinz games from the comfort of our family room couch while The Boy is asleep and my husband is racing the world via Mario Kart.

Alas, for work purposes, I would need a laptop with a faster processor and much more memory. And, being my father's daughter, if I'm going to get a new computer, I know it would be best to get a near-top of line processor and the most memory available.

Let the quest begin - and wish me luck!

(Yes, I did just throw out Hall & Oates there.)

Can't write much right now. I just got an e-mail from one of my devoted readers (okay, probably my only devoted reader!) who was wondering where I've been as my blog has been silent all week. If you must know (and why else would you be reading my blog if you didn't care?), I was at a conference for work all week. It was awesome, it totally rocked, I'm so hyper-energized now to start work again on Monday, and, yes, I'm totally zonked. Add to this the fact that The Boy has decided 3AM is the appropriate time to have his first (yes, first) breakfast, and you have an idea of what my body's been up against.

So, I'm about to jump in the shower and hit the sack, but I'm hoping to get some online time this weekend and catch up on my neighborhood (major priority) and gush a little about some of the amazing people I met at my conference this week.

The Boy got sent home from school yesterday. Well, he would have been sent home, except that I accidentally left my phone off, and, for some odd reason, they didn't call my husband at work.

Anyway, he's at home today with his daddy, and he has a doctor's appointment at 2:45. After all, Dr W told me to call and/or bring him in if he still had a fever on Thursday, and, well, it's Thursday and he still has a fever. And a bad cough. And if he has the same cold I have, a sore throat, too. But I think my sore throat partially came from the constant vomiting, so there's really no telling. His appetite has also decreased considerably (he didn't even finish his banana this morning for breakfast, and he only had a little more than half a cup of his favorite macaroni and cheese for dinner last night), he has a bad cough, and he's not sleeping well. Oh, but his breathing isn't labored and he's still in (mostly) good spirits, so that's the bright side of things.

My poor little baby.

He woke up around 3AM and didn't want to go back to bed right away. I nursed him, let him drink some milk from his sippy cup (because, sadly, I'm only making so much milk now - but with both of us fighting the same cold, a little bit is better than nothing), gave him some Tylenol, nursed him some more, changed his diaper, and held him as I tried to coax him back to sleep. I thought I had him, but as soon as I crawled back into my own bed, he announced he wasn't ready for bed. So I brought him into the family room, reclined onto the couch, and tried to get him to sleep again. He was restless, so I let him walk around a bit before bringing him back into his room to go to sleep. It's impossible to be upset with a little boy who is just so excited to be alive, even at 4 in the morning. Finally, around 4:30, he fell asleep and (mostly) stayed asleep. He was still out when I left just after 7 this morning.

Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit tired.

I've taken myself off of Weight Watchers this week. After all, how do you count points when you aren't keeping most of what you've eaten in your stomach? When I'm better, I'll go back on it. It's not terrible, after all; it just requires keeping a list. And I love to keep lists.

There's a brushfire somewhere near my house (though not close enough for any danger), and probably a few more on the way to work. The air quality outside is terrible. As soon as I reached the Disney area on the freeway, the smoke was unbearable. And now all I can smell is smoke. It's awful. For this reason, I'm so thankful The Boy is staying home today. I really don't want him outside exposed to this if it can be helped at all.

The Boy enjoys watching Chris play Mario Kart on the Wii. I think he likes the pretty colors and the graphics. It works well, I think; Chris can play and The Boy will (mostly) watch. Last night they were watching something on G4 together, which was pretty cute. Chris was sitting on the floor, and The Boy was in front of him, drinking from his sippy cup, both of them engrossed in whatever was on the screen. If I thought I had time to take a picture of them together, I would have. It was completely priceless.

I'm a little annoyed today at work. See, a big part of what I do is provide reporting on a weekly basis on product performance. Twice a year, there's a group in my department that asks for information on specific items, which normally isn't a big deal - except that (1) they wait until the very last moment to ask for the information with every expectation of having it immediately, (2) they're asking for a lot of information that's already in the reports (with commentary) that I send out each week, and (3) 30% of the items on which they want information either don't exist, have not been delivered, or have less than a month's sales data. And, sadly, my crystal ball isn't working right now, so I can't tell you how these items will perform this year. If I could do that, I'd let my friends know the winning lottery numbers, too, and, well, as none of my friends have won the lottery, clearly I can't do it.

[sigh]

As I type, I'm running the first of many month-end reports. I was sent home yesterday because my boss thought I looked too sick to be at work, so I (obviously) didn't get a chance to do any of my work. Blech. The plus side is that I got a good nap in yesterday, which I definitely needed given that somebody (who will go unnamed) decided he didn't want to go to sleep last night. I'm not sure when he woke up, but after a little bit of nursing, four ounces of corn, a few sips of milk, and a few hours, I finally got him asleep in his own bed (with my sweatshirt) around 1AM.

And then he woke up at 4:30. That was just as well, to be honest, because I needed to get to work early and push out all the things I needed to have done last night. But I really would have liked another hour or two of sleep.

So, we'll give it another go today.

I asked Chris to bring The Boy to school today so that I could get to work extra early. I left the house just as The Boy was finishing breakfast and about to be changed out of his pajamas.

The worst thing, though, is that I'm still not feeling right. As I type, I can hear my stomach turning, and it's not a great sound (or feeling). The vomiting has stopped (thank GAWD), but then there's the nasty business of that other part which, though much preferable to vomiting, is just plain awful.

My husband bought me a Chumby for our anniversary, and I brought it to work this morning, eagerly hoping to hook it up and begin watching the web while I actually work. (It's much more convenient, you see, than having to pause every hour or so to open up web pages, blah blah blah.

At any rate...

Sadly, I've been denied WiFi access because my use wouldn't be work-related. So, now we really have to get a wireless router at home (I'm getting a Wii, I'd like to use my laptop, and now my Chumby really needs one).

But as soon as I get my Chumby up and running, I'll follow my neighbor's lead and ask everyone to send me pictures to view on my new little toy!