Dealing with a decades-long friend who has an avoidant attachment style which has been the worse it’s been since I’ve known them. I don’t really get the purpose of saying you’re available at some time, only to then be suddenly unavailable. I don’t mind giving space and can take a hard no. Mind games are exhausting. Well, I had a great day anyway. They just won’t get to share it.
Sigh. I just had a Workday From Hell(TM). I thought things would look up for me today at work. But as soon as I hit the ground running, it became obvious that the volume of work would be overwhelming. (Yes, again). On top of that, though, I had a doctor's appointment to go to, and I was determined to get MOST of the work done before that. So determined that I missed lunch. (That's fine - I'm used to missing lunch). So, I got the work done, drove like crazy to the doctor's, walked in the door ... and was told that my appointment was cancelled, and moved to August. But no-one told me, because -- apparently -- the doctor assumed reception would do it, and vice-versa. Agghh!!! So, I got in my car and drove home to continue working. One quirk of working from home: I have to use a virtual machine called Citrix. This thing, if it doesn't detect any activity in 30 minutes, automatically logs me off. (Agghh!!! But I knew about that, so I saved all my work before going to the doctor's). So, I walked in the door, logged back in ... and was greeted by an avalanche of missed calls, missed emails, etc. By now, it was 2:20pm and I was dying for something to eat. So, I ran the program I prepared earlier, made some lunch, had it at my desk, and continued working on the missed stuff. While I'm working on the missed stuff, the program I ran earlier finished ... and gave me errors. That's fine, I'm used to that. I walked through it once ... twice ... three times ... and couldn't find the error. By now, 4pm was approaching and I was quietly panicking. (Agghh!!! ) I went over the program again, line-by-line. Where do you think the error was? Right -- the absolutely final line. *headdesk* So, I fixed and posted it. Yay. It was time to write a smaller (but also complex) program. All this time, I'm being pestered on email and bloody bloody Microsoft Teams. (Agghh!!! ) I set my status to "Busy - DO NOT DISTURB", but coworkers were still pestering me. I finally had to tell them to leave me alone. It was approaching 5pm and I still had a mountain to climb. Finally, they left me alone. Wonderful peace, blissful serenity. Mountain climbed by 5:30pm, logged off. Thank Gawd. So how was your day?
If we can't irritate the working minions, which minions can we irritate? I've retired multiple times at this point. It's great fun. I intend to retire again in May. Maybe this time it'll take.
5 for me hopefully. Retiring at 50! (Not really... "retirement" for me means working 3 days with no responsibility... possibly doable)
Citrix is garbage. It crashes at least once a day for somebody in my office. I offer you a beverage of your choice in solidarity of the misery that is Citrix.
I hate all those Zoom, Teams, and whatever the hell Citrix thing is. So clunky and impersonal. Easy for me to say as a restaurant guy, but anyone in driving distance who wants to do business over Zoom can meet me in person or pound sand. And for the things I need to use Zoom for, turn on your fucking camera on please. I'm turning mine one so you can see my face, warts and all, read my expressions, and at least pretend that we're normal humans with common goals and interests. Basic courtesy in my opinion.
The winter of 2022-23 was unbelievably bad, and being able to teach via Zoom was a boon for both me and my students. No one had to miss class and no one had to go out into a blizzard with a wind chill of negative 55. I sat in my favorite chair and offered PowerPoint programs about bobcats and the Texas City Disaster of 1947 and the art of Mariska Karasz (among other things) without the least bit of discomfort.
Thanks, Dogberry's Watch. Mine's crème de menthe on ice, please. If not available -- lemon, lime and bitters on ice, or if I want to have a good night's sleep, a shot of Smirnoff on ice. Homer, Citrix is simply a way for me to access my workstation remotely (I work in accounts). I agree with you about Zoom and Teams. My computer has no camera, so the only way for me to access these with a camera is to use my mobile phone. However, thanks to my workplace's over-restrictive IT security policies, I can't even use Teams on my mobile (since I need a password that -- guess what -- only my mobile can provide). So if someone wants to meet me on Teams on my phone, I don't bother with the camera and just call it in. That way, I can talk to them and listen to them, rather than messing about with something that's never gonna work. By the way, why does it look like "Nelson" is pointing at Rad Scribbler and saying "Ha-ha"? I know that's not Homer intended, but it's so much like Nelson
Been there. Odds are, it's not as bad as you think, but when you're not feeling it, you're not feeling it. Give yourself a break and try again another day.
