The String Cheese Fire Drill Hotline from Hell

Yesterday was an utterly crappy day in the orifice.  It was, unquestionably, the busiest day I've had in two and a half years here.  Three conference calls, during which I got to take the notes.  Joy.  And a few bigger projects, all of which were given to me in the morning, and needed to be finished by 4:30.  I got them done, but I literally didn't have a minute to spare, all day.  Nor did I take my afternoon break.

 

Tomorrow will be an off-site meeting all day.  The actual meeting will be five hours, during which I will (you guessed it) take the meeting minutes.  I hate taking minutes... even more than I hate the other pissy little crap that's part of my job. 

 

I'm not whining, exactly.  I'm just putting all this down as a formal reminder to myself of why I really, really need to make this career shift happen.

 

 

To that end, last night I had my interview for the suicide hotline gig.  It went well.  Training is this weekend, plus the last weekend of the month, both days, from 9 - 5.  However, I already have plans this Saturday.  Much needed downtime after this nasty-ass week in the office.

 

I will, of course, be playing D&D.  Yeah, one could say that the training is more important... even though it's largely an orientation and policy/procedure day.  But I'm bringing two new folks to the game, neither of whom know the others.  The weekend in the middle isn't an option, so if I were to cancel, it would push things back by a month.  And considering that one of the current players is moving away in August...  Well, this is taking precedence.

 

I did, however, get the materials for the training, and will study the chapters in question before going in on Sunday.  And my interviewer apparently considered this perfectly acceptable.

 

 

A co-worker today brought in a case of individually wrapped string cheese, and started doling it out to us.  She plopped about 15 of them down on my desk.

 

I echo ladyluck's sentiment. 

 

 

About once a year, we have a fire drill here in our building.  I'm one of the lucky ones designated as a "searcher."  This means that, when the fire alarm sounds,  I have a region for which I have to check all rooms to make sure they're empty. 

 

Because I guess you never know when one of your co-workers is going to be napping at their desk or something.  I dunno.  It seems rather pointless to me.  If it's not a drill, you're going to know.  And you're going to get the hell out of the building.  And if you think your work is more important than your life, then you pretty much deserve to die of smoke inhalation.

 

 

Teaching tonight, and according to the roster, the majority of the class will be male.  That's really unusual.  Typically, females outnumber males 3-to1, at least.

 

 

My friends Opal and Noah have completed their relocation.  They've ended up in the panhandle of West Virginia, about 20 miles outside of Wheeling.  Interestingly, I've spent some time in that area.  My older sister used to live there, back in the 70s.  I'd sometimes visit her for a month during the summer when I wasn't in school.  She was a school teacher, then, and so also had summers free.

 

Another friend, whom I'll just call "K," just moved to Oakland.  K is, in case you're keeping track, the one mentioned in the third-to-last paragraph of this entry.  In an email to her this morning, I suggested that she come up to Sacramento on one of the weekends I'm appearing at the State Fair.  I doubt she'll take me up on the offer, but you never know.  Weirder things have happened.