Kid and Caboodle

I am working from home this morning due to a paperwork error.

Yesterday morning, after a brief break, I discovered that my badge was no longer allowing me into my office. Upon inquiring at the guard desk, I was told that my building access had been revoked because I was no longer an employee (?!?), whereupon the guards confiscated my work ID.

A few frantic calls later, my supervisor learned that a certain administrator had filed an undated “separation notice” with my name on it. Security then deactivated my badge.

By the time we managed to convince security there had been a mistake and that I really should be allowed into the building — in all likelihood the notice was meant for an intern with the same name — they had sent in my badge for destruction. Now I need to get a piece of paper from the administration person who filed the separation notice saying that, no, I AM a valid employee so I can get a new ID. Oh, joy.

Since we have no idea when this certain administrator will be available — she has been out all week — my supervisor has told me to work from home until we can reach her. Hey, life isn’t all bad ….

Despite a number of aggravating events that happened today that I won’t detail, there are a number of things for which I am thankful this Thursday:

• I am thankful I didn’t have to go out in the cold most of the day since I worked from home.
• I am thankful for the opportunity to do some professional writing every week even though I frequently wrestle with writer’s block/self-censorship.
• I am thankful for the abundant food supply I have in the house. (I think I enjoyed too much of it today!)
• I am thankful I know a good handyman who can fix anything from stuck drawers to clogged gutters to leaky roofs. He’ll be coming over tomorrow to fix the gutters that broke during our recent snowstorm.
• I am thankful for good friends, old and new. I intend to get together with several of them in a few weeks.
• I am thankful the weekend is almost here!

Last night I read an essay by David Hochman in which he describes his efforts to stop his “reflexive complaining” and instead find something — no matter how small — for which to be thankful every day for a month. I tried a 30-day “Think Positive” experiment like this about a year and a half ago; perhaps it’s time to take up the habit again. Rather than trying to write every day, though, I think I will just write once a week.

On this first “Thankful Thursday,” I have many, many things that are going well in my life. I have a great family and fantastic friends. Everyone in my immediate family is in good health; my parents, who are in their 70s, are on a trip spanning East Asia and Latin America right now. I have a job I know how to do well that pays me a lot of money and provides great health insurance, gobs of vacation time and sick leave, and intellectual stimulation. Four days a week I work in a sunny corner of the office building that, due to its location, gives me a measure of privacy despite being a cubicle. On Thursdays I get to work from the comfort of my home.

Today, specifically, I am thankful that my sister-in-law has volunteered to host our family for Thanksgiving, thus providing us with a great meal without my having to clean the house or cook anything! (I am bringing homemade chocolate chip-banana bread, though.)

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009: white meat turkey, broccoli salad, green beans, corn pudding, carrot salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, dark meat turkey, ham, deviled eggs

I’m still waiting to receive my DHL package. Despite talking to DHL headquarters late Thursday night, they made another attempt to deliver in the early afternoon yesterday, when I wouldn’t be home.  Finally got hold of the number for the local DHL office and spoke to the manager yesterday.  The latest word is that it’s supposed to arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. today. Heh.

On a more positive note, A.J. has learned how to ride his bike! I had him put his bike facing downward on a hill and told him to start pedaling as quickly as he could once the bike started to move. Once he mastered that, I gradually had him start off on surfaces that were more and more level. Now he can start off at will; I no longer have to balance his bike for him so he can start riding! Yay! Next task: to teach him to stop his bike by using his brakes rather than dragging his shoes on the ground.

A.J. also served himself breakfast for the first time this morning! He dragged a chair over to the refrigerator and got down a box of his favorite cereal then opened a small carton of shelf-stable milk and poured both into a bowl. Yay! Maybe tomorrow morning he’ll let my husband and me sleep in now that he knows he can feed himself ….

I’ve been playing around on Facebook lately. It’s a useful tool to maintain social ties, especially with people who live far away, but it is a real time sink!

We’re supposed to go boating with some friends today. I want to socialize, but I’m not sure I want to go out in the 90-plus degree weather we’re supposed to have today. I’d better start making a lot of ice ….

Still no package from DHL.

Just called DHL to find out why the new computer that was supposed to be delivered today still hasn’t arrived.  At first the customer service person claimed they had tried to deliver it, but no one was home.  When I told them that I had been at home all day, she claimed they had left a voice mail message. When I told them that I had been working from home all day, sitting next to the phone, she then said she would call the local delivery office.  Theoretically I’m supposed to get my new computer between 7 and 8 p.m. tonight; some manager is supposed to make a special trip to my house.  I hope so.  I never want to deal with DHL again if I can help it.  I’ve called DHL every night this week trying to get through to them that they should not try to deliver the computer until Thursday, today, when I am home.  But they tried to deliver my computer Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and claimed they never got the messages that I wouldn’t be home.  If they want to ignore my messages and waste staff time and gas, that’s their business.  But it’s not a very efficient way of running a business.

A few weeks ago, A.J. insisted that the training wheels on his bike come off.  My husband complied, and spent a somewhat frustrating evening trying to teach A.J. to balance and ride.  He wanted A.J. to practice on the grass so he wouldn’t be hurt if he fell.  I think riding on the grass might have contributed to the difficulty, though, because the surface wasn’t very smooth.  The next day my neighbor Kevin and I took turns pushing A.J. around in the street.  Soon he was zooming around the cul-de-sac.  My husband was astonished when he came home.  He commented that he didn’t learn to ride a bike without training wheels until he was 7; A.J. is 5.  A.J. now has learned to stop his bike without having to run into a curb first or simply falling over, and he can almost start riding if he first positions his bike on a downward slope.  He’s still trying to figure out how to start from a standstill.  I look forward to the day he can really ride properly; perhaps I’ll get out my own bike, then, and we can have a family activity.  I need more exercise anyway ….

Today I’m hoping to finally receive my new laptop.  I ordered one from Dell, which produces a few under the (PRODUCT) RED line.  DHL left an attempted delivery notice on my front door Monday night.  I called them as soon as I saw it, and asked them to deliver the machine today, Thursday, when I would be home.  The customer service representative said she would make a note in my file.  The very next evening, though, I came home to find another attempted delivery note.  I called DHL again, and once again explained the situation.  Again, the customer service representative said he would tell the courier.  Yesterday at work, I received a call from the DHL courier department complaining that they had been trying to deliver my package all week.  I told them that I had been calling them all week to tell them to deliver on Thursday.  She said she had not received any such notice.

I’m sorry the DHL courier has made three wasted trips because her company has bad internal communications.  I don’t see what else I could have done, though.  Since the package is a computer, I absolutely refuse to allow DHL to just leave it on my porch.  I really hope it gets here today!

Due to some sort of inventory overhaul, my office has asked that when I return to work on Tuesday I turn in the government laptop I’ve been using for the past few years. This means I am now shopping for a new laptop so I can continue telecommuting on Thursdays. Arrgghhh!

We do have another machine in the house, but I don’t like using it because it takes a very long time to boot up and is starting to fall apart. The touch pad and one of the USB ports don’t work properly, for example. The machine also is configured to my husband’s preferences since he is one who uses it the most. This means that even when I go into “my” profile, the browser tries to load all kinds of bookmarks I don’t want and the virtual desktop is cluttered with all kinds of software I don’t use. I think it would be cleaner for us to have separate machines altogether; we can transfer files between machines as emergency backups, but in general each one of us should be able to set things up as we like on our machines. Having two machines in the house also will enable both of us to telecommute at the same time, or let our son play on one machine while we do some work or play something else on the other.

I glanced at a few Web sites selling computers this evening and was fairly bewildered by the wide array of choices at my disposal. I know three things I absolutely need: wireless Internet capability, video-playing capability and the longest-lasting battery power available. I know I don’t want to spend more than a certain amount of money, and I assume a speedy processor and a lot of hard drive space are important. Pretty much everything looks the same after that point, though.

While I was shopping, one thing did catch my eye: Dell is selling a number of machines under the (PRODUCT) RED campaign, in which companies donate a percentage of the sales of specified products to help fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa. I had read about this campaign from an article one of my co-workers wrote recently, but had not realized computers were one of the things one could buy. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of going with a (PRODUCT) RED laptop. As I have written before, I regularly shop at places like The Hunger Site or Ten Thousand Villages so I can contribute to good causes while shopping. Since I’m going to buy something anyway, why not buy it at a place that also is helping the less fortunate?

It is getting close to summer, according to the calendar, but one would never think so to look at the weather today.  Right now my thermometer says it is less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  I had to get out my winter coat  this afternoon before I could go pick up my son from school.  It has been raining for the last three days; I think my plants are starting to drown.

I’ve been working from home for several days now due to illness Friday and a transportation problem today.  Got to the Metro this morning to discover that the tracks were flooded between two stations between my home and work.  There was a train at the station, but it was absolutely packed.  I got on, but after 10 minutes it still hadn’t moved, so I got off.  Because of the flooding situation, the trains were sharing a single track and thus coming and going less frequently than usual.  If I had stayed, I would have had to wait at least 20 minutes more to get on a Blue Line train to go one stop before getting off to wait for a shuttle that would take me to a Yellow Line station, where I would have had to get off and join the crowds waiting for the next train into town.  I decided my time would be better spent working from home today.  I got home just as my husband and son were leaving.  My husband reported no problems at all during his commute.  Humph.

I think I’ll go to bed early today.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day than today was.

As I was taking a lunch break at home yesterday, I heard a “boom,” like thunder, then felt the house … bounce. At first I thought something largehad fallen on the roof. I went outside to look, but could not see any tree branches or other large pieces of debris. I decided that perhaps a military plane had flown overhead, generating a sonic boom, and dismissed the incident from my mind.

This morning I scanned the local headlines and learned that yesterday a 1.8 magnitude earthquake hit Annandale, Virginia, which is a few miles away. Wow!