Tales of Ordinary Madness

I have a work trip to Europe scheduled in my near future. Aside from being anxious about the plane trip, (a side note here: I am not your traditional fearful flyer. If I was the only one on the plane, I’d be happy as could be. I have great confidence in the physics that keep the plane in the air. It’s the other passengers that scare the crap out of me) I’m struggling with how to prepare and pack for a possible 11+ days away. It will be the longest trip I’ve ever taken and when I pack for a weekend, I bring half of my wardrobe (which isn’t hard) so the thought of packing for an 11 day trip overseas is at least perplexing at most terrifying.

I’ve been getting lots of advice like “pack an extra pair of underpants, in case you shit yourself” (what great friends I have). However, today I think I found the best resource ever. It’s called “OneBag, the art and science of traveling light“. This site covers everything from what to pack, how to pack it, and what to pack it in. From folding your clothes to prohibited items, it’s all there. I plan to spend some quality time this week reading over the entire site. Hopefully, it’ll clear up some of my traveling anxiety.

I guess I’m lucky; my timing is impeccably unpredictable in exactly the right direction.

This morning — my alarm failed to fire. I’m unsure if this was my doing or some actual failure of the device. At this point I’m assuming it was my doing. Scrambling to get ready for work — I trundle into the bathroom to start my morning maintenance when I notice a twinge in my stomach that suggested a colon revolt was about to occur. I’ll spare you the details but suffice to say the rebellion was leading a full fledge attack from the flank. When I had temporarily squelched the rebellion, I continued with the rest of my morning rituals.

Jess dropped me off at the “T” station as usual and I commented to her that I had forgotten my cell phone at home and hoped I didn’t need it. I scurried up to the platform to board the inbound train hoping to arrive downtown with enough time to grab a cup of coffee. The fates had other ideas.

For several stops, I noticed that the “T” operator was on the phone in her operator booth and wondered if that wasn’t bad form — driving a mass transportation vehicle and chatting at the same time. As we approached the “South Hills Junction” stop the T came to a stop and we waited a bit before the operator came on the loud speaker to inform us that one of the earlier trolleys (one I could have been on had I been in time) had caught fire and was blocking the tracks.

She informed us that they would be sending busses to carry us for the remained of the trip downtown. As I mentioned above, I had left my cell phone at home, so I had no way to let the BossMan know that I was indeed en route and would be there soon. I was also worried Jess would hear that one of the trolleys had caught fire and would be concerned. I ended up borrowing the phone of the guy next to me who was nice enough to let me call.

I ended up at work late — without my precious coffee but with a story to tell.

The deed is done. I have officially accepted a position with a company I used to work for previously (I’m intentionaly being vague until all the details are worked out) and I have turned in my resignation to the company that I currently work for.

It has created an interesting situation…I am an employee of Company A who has me contracted out to Company B. I resigned to Company A approximately 5 hours ago and it appears that they have not notified Company B that I am leaving. I’m going to give them some time to let their customer (Company B) know that they will be short one employee in a couple weeks — otherwise, I will break the news to them. It just seems to me that it falls with them to notify their customer.

Implicit in our job descriptions, I postulate these concepts for your approval;

1. We fix everything we can, given the inventory of our tools and components.

2. We cover our supervisor’s posteriors by giving them detailed worst-case scenarios of the potential costs associated with failures of what we are give to work with, and recommendations of what would prevent that. (Don’t forget to mention putting retreads on a Ferrari).

3. We cover our posteriors by keeping copies of such documents in our “Pearl Harbor” file — ESPECIALLY if they don’t cover our posteriors by giving us what we need to prevent those scenarios…

If we don’t detail the consequences of their failure to help us keep the systems reliable, IT IS OUR FAULT – not theirs.

– Someone sent this to me a few years ago — I can’t take credit for it, but I don’t remember who sent it so I can’t fully give them credit.