Very happy that tonight I will get to see all of my regular favorites. Hopefully there will be many laughs. Things have been a little rocky this week, so a laugh or two will help out.
Yesterday I was working on my home machine when all of a sudden it locked up. So I issued a reboot command and it just took its sweet time. I was doing all of this remote, so it’s not like I could help it along. When it came back up I lost access to my encrypted drive that has passwords and other important docs on it. Think of it as a safe deposit box The only way in is a password and it wasn’t taking what I was giving it. Then I noticed I lost an external hard drive where I save some of my porn to, I wasn’t too happy about it. However, being away from home there was very little I could do, until I got home. The problem was fixed easily. Someone had apparently knocked the external hard drive off of the stand it was on. I picked it up, plugged it back in and powered on the machine. Everything came up like it was supposed to, but it had me sweating the whole time. Porn not such a big deal but the legal docs and passwords, that would have really crippled me. I was able to guess and get the master password changed so I have access to all of my stuff. Technology is a wonderful thing but only when it works. I say that all the time and it is VERY true.
I also got a letter in the mail from AT&T and found out that apparently they think I stopped subscribing to something so my home phone is going up $17 per month. Uh, don’t think so. I called and had to talk with 3 people but I got things back to where they should be Then I found out in 2 years copper landline phone service will be no more in my area. Everyone will be forced on to VOIP. I am not exactly jumping up and down about that. They tried to get me to convert to UVERSE and I will admit now I am thinking of it more and more. It sounds really nice. I asked about up time and they tell me it’s a 99.9% up time baring any cable cuts which are beyond their control. Perfectly understandable. They have a feature on the phone that if service is interrupted it will fail over to a number that you pre-determine. Plus you can have the phone ring at home and at I think 2 or 3 other destinations – all at the same time. So no need for Call Forwarding but they still have that. I checked pretty much all of my areas of concern and they were all addressed. Now the only thing left is to bite the bullet and go for it. They will give me 30 days to try it and if I don’t like they will switch back to the way things were before. Wonderful but if copper is going away I really am stuck. Right now you have to bundle phone with either internet or tv in order to get it. When we get closer to the 2 year mark, they will offer phone as a stand alone service. It is a money saver but for me it would only be $13 per month. If I moved Internet the savings would be greater more like $33 but I would lose speed. I will bring this up in a few months when my present promo offer expires with the cable company. If they can’t match or beat the offer then I will switch. For now still leaving everything the same. Hopefully, it all continues to work as it was designed. I will admit changing to a new whole house DVR would be nice and being able to record 4 shows at the same time and watch them where I wanted would be kind of cool. Right now I’ve got my old fashioned TIVO, which does 1 show at a time and more often than not, it doesn’t change to the proper channel so you miss the program. I understand that the person I spoke with is in it for a commission so she will tell me what I want to hear in order to win my business. I almost went for it today but figured wait, the push to get people to switch is on and will be on for sometime, I might get a better deal by holding out. Plus I am getting close to being on-call and I have to have something that works otherwise I get to live in the office, which wouldn’t be fun.
I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday evening just when I was ready to do some self pleasuring. Damn no peace. Anyway he told me that he just got the worst review in his career. We worked together before and he is 100% company and he works some damn long hours. He just doesn’t know the meaning of the word relax or quitting time. So for his boss to give him such a review totally caught him by surprise and honestly me too. However, from the way things have been going the writing has been on the wall that his boss wants him gone. She is now taking steps to make that happen. He will have to go on a Performance Plan and if expectations aren’t met within 6 months then they will walk him out. He plans on beating them to the punch and finding a new job. However, the big problem that he has is that he is an older gentleman, and not many employers will be attracted to him once they figure out how old he is. Even though your not suppose to discriminate based on age, employers still do but they do it in such a way that it skirts the law, so if you complain you won’t have a leg to stand on. I feel bad for him and know what it’s like to work in a toxic environment. This is all because of events that occurred that were outside of his control with vendors and 3rd parties. He preformed at his very best, which is nothing unusual. It just sucks when you are doing something you like and are comfortable but your boss hates you. Work turns into a chore and soon you find yourself not motivated to go in and when your there your mind is focused more on what your boss is doing or where the next land mine is going to blow up and you can’t do your job. Plus his employer is very short handed right now, so he is doing the work of 4 or 5 people – which he should be praised for. There are two sides to every story and I am only hearing his, not that I doubt what he is saying for one second. But it would be interesting to hear the other side of the story. I also told him to ask for examples of the behavior that his boss is referencing. He actually already did that and the boss can’t recall any incidents. That right there tells me that she just wants him gone. A good boss would have examples ready to go, figuring that the employee is savvy enough to ask. I told him put all of that in writing, send it to his boss and give a copy to HR and demand that it be put in his personnel file. That will help give him an edge. Plus I told him he might want to talk with an attorney to see if there are other steps that he should take. He doesn’t want to mess with it and figures it’s easier to move on. I’ve been down this road before and unless you have specific documentation you are pretty well screwed. I wish he would take my advice but he won’t and there isn’t anything I can do about that. I hope it works out for the best. Were supposed to get together over the weekend to grab a bite to eat, so that should be interesting.
After that phone call that seemed like it would never end I was talked out and tired. I took care of getting ready for today, medicating the cats, etc. while I was talking. I even brushed my teeth. Multitasking is just a given for me, when it has to be done. After we hung up, I watched a little TV and then went to bed. Sound asleep and 2am the UPS hiccupped and that caused my sound machine to change from Ocean sounds to Rain. I woke up instantly figuring that the power went out but no, just a burp. I had to get up to change it. I needed to use the bathroom, but opted to go back to bed because Marv would be upset. I was right he just talked and talk about it. Then I couldn’t fight it any longer and had to get up. He yelled at me again and finally we were off to sleep. Thankfully he didn’t wake his brother otherwise it would have been double trouble. They know how to work together and how to work against each other as well.
Here we are at Wednesday. Just wrapped up from a Team Meeting and of course change is the recurring theme. Now we have to answer the phone a specific way, people are going to think I am a recording and they may hang up on me, but I will follow the rules. There are many other changes but they are minor in nature. Next meeting in 2 weeks and major changes will be talked about then. Change can be good or it can be bad. The nice thing is that on-call is changing next month so we don’t start until 11pm and are on until 7am. So it should be mostly quiet. Except for weekends those are still 24 hour days and your on until 7am Monday morning. Again should be mostly quiet but you never know when something major will go wrong and you will be flooded with calls. Just the joy of being on-call.
So now it’s back to work and I am counting down the hours until I have to go back out in the cold and drive amongst the many slow people who are mostly in a slow hurry to get home. I hope that tonight will be very enjoyable. Then we are on the downhill slide of the week and a 3 days weekend is approaching – so I am super pumped about that. Even though my Monday is already planned out for me, I won’t be here and that is a good thing in my book.
I hope that your all staying warm and doing okay. Talk with you again soon.
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