Yesterday’s work day was pretty hectic, considering that I work for twelve to fifteen hours depending on any given day, and the fact that I work alone for such a long stretch may also contribute to the mundane nature that is “hectic” in the eyes of most people. Of course, in the type of environment that I work in, the hellish nature ebbs and flows like a tide. Some days, it will be nonstop crazy, while the very next day may be so slow that the day drags to an unbearable crawl. That’s really all part of working in an issue-based operations center, likening it to a firehouse or another type of emergency service. A good day is one where you’re fighting to keep your attention focused, and a bad day is when so many things are happening that you worry about being overwhelmed. As I began, yesterday was one of those days where it would have been nice to just relax.
I only work three days out of the week, and for four days I get to relax and lounge around the house. This week, as I had written in a previous entry, I did not enjoy any such luxury. Friday morning, when I arrived for my shift, I had to endure a few annoying facts. My workstation was completely dismantled as they installed my new desk. It was a mixed feeling, being really glad that my desk arrived five weeks early, but dismayed that I had to spend thirty minutes putting all of my components back together. If they had taken it apart, one would think they would have enough sense to not cause me any grief about returning to work on Friday to see my machine and keyboard, mouse, speakers and monitor all sitting with the connections piled in a heap, waiting for me to put it all back together again. It seems petty of me, but I’m just the kind of person who, when arriving for work, wants to be ready for work as soon as I sit down. Now having to sort through a pile of shit to bring my workstation back online. But, as I said, it was a blessing to get the desk that early, so I just let it slide amid some sotto voce grumbling. As the day went on, though, I was constantly being fed information about several different issues. Rather than risk forgetting, I began to enter in notes in notepad, to keep atop all of the problems being passed through my little corner of the operations center. As I was walking around the entire building, trying to assist local users, I would make a mental note to perform a task and then forget about it. It was quite frustrating to deal with that fact through the day, and then it dawned on me: I need a Persocon. For the uninitiated, a Persocon is a fictional appliance/android that acts like a walking/talking Palm VII or other variation on the PDA, except that they’re far more pleasing to the eye. The anime it’s from is called Chobits, and I think there’s a community (
I think that having a Persocon would both simplify and complicate matters, but in the end, having a PDA that could interact by voice would be far more engaging than having to use a Palm or Handspring. Hmm, perhaps I should actually look into getting another Palm, instead. I used to have the Palm VII (original), but the screen cracked on it and I never got around to replacing it. The machine that held all of my information and address book is also gone, so that means having to get the same model is not an issue. I hear they don’t even make the Palm VII anymore, but it’s been such a long time since I even had a PDA, I’m wondering if I would even use the stupid thing. I remember blowing almost five hundred on that model, and I think I only used it perhaps 25% of the time. It was a glorified GameBoy, though the graphics were far less impressive than the GameBoy. I guess it was just another lil’ gadget I just had to have at the time. But I digress. It would be a lot of fun to learn how to program a Persocon, but then would I really be risking the whole human contact aspect? Given my nature to find something and focus myself on it wholly and ignore everything else, I think I would lose friends if I got a Persocon. Either that or become the most popular guy on the block with one of those things.
In my preparations to journey to the Pacific Northwest, I’d forgotten entirely about the weather up there. I looked at the forecast for the next week and it looks like it’s going to be raining on Monday night through all of Tuesday, which means that I may actually have to find myself some warmer clothes than my typical year-round California outfit (t-shirt/shorts). Oregon and Washington state are pretty well-known for their rainy seasons, especially Seattle. I don’t think I’ve been in such cold weather since I visited Great Falls around the same time. When I got off the plane, there was already a couple of feet of snow on the ground, and I was wearing shorts. I didn’t mind the cold too much, in fact, I love cold weather, but as you get older, you tend to be very thankful for warmth. Here in Silicon Valley, the weather is beginning to get a lot colder than it had two weeks ago. We’ve seen the temperatures drop twenty degrees at night, which is a pretty welcome change from the near summer nights we had been experiencing in the middle of October. Personally, I love California rain; the smell, the sight, the feel, the chills. But I think I’ll buy myself a Giants baseball jacket this weekend to go with my new Giants baseball cap.
2 comments
Weirdo. /Fan/. *runs off giggling insanely*
Truly, I can think of things more fun to watch. KOR, for instance. Make me copies! Of everything! 😉
I got my new jacket last night, as a matter of fact. Baseball is a sport worth watching, simply because I think it’s really all about playing numbers with subtle strategy. Not to mention the sheer strength needed to crush a baseball into the San Francisco Bay.
KOR’s good too, but I can’t make copies of DVDs, dear… at least, not yet. 🙂
— ZC