Category: Office/Day Job

Last week, the day job sent me across the country for a meeting with my counterparts. The bad news was that because of how long it took to make the arrangements, The Wife could not accompany me. This was the first time we’ve really been apart for more than a day. I was not happy, but we all must soldier on.

Monday’s travels weren’t too bad. This was my first trip with my TSA Precheck. It was much like traveling before the days of the smurfhands. Just drop your bags on the belt and step through the metal detector. Almost no time compared to the normal line. I despise having to pay for the privilege, but damn if it wasn’t helpful. The trip from Tampa to Denver wasn’t completely full, so I got to have a seat between me and my row mate. Going to the next gate was easy. The flight down to LAX was full, but not too bad. I pretty much spent the entire trip catching up on podcasts. It took me a bit to get my bag and figure out how LAX runs their rideshare pickup, but not too bad.

The hotel was nice. Nothing exorbitant, but it was across the street from the office building we were meeting in. Which meant I would just walk. Excellent. It also had this neat fountain/sculpture/thing for rubber duckies. Two of those followed me home for The Wife. The only issue was the thermostat. The silver lining to the massive dark cloud of The Wife not coming was that I finally had control of the thermostat. Which was in Celsius. So, I used my phone to do the calculations, started adjusting, and then found the small button to switch to Fahrenheit. Oh well. Later, I had dinner with my colleagues. The good news was this was the first time I actually met these folks in person after knowing them for years. The bad was dinner was already putting me way past my bedtime. Even before taking the time shift into account. I’m already an “early to bed, early to rise” kind of person. Shift that three hours? Feck.

The organizer of this little shindig went to a lot of trouble getting us all together. I thought she needed some kind of “reward”. Since she has many similar tastes to myself, I asked The Wife if she would do another crocheted Cthulhu. Let’s just say when our organizer received her new stuffed octo-god-monster, she let out a literal squee of delight. And she showed it off to everyone.

Meeting was good. Lots done, even if it wasn’t the lot we were expecting to get done. Went out with my counterparts for meals and did a lot of chatting. This was me being more social than I normally am by almost exponential amounts. I even managed to surprise one of my mentees who was showing up for a later meeting.

Then came the trip back. First, getting to LAX at oh-dark-early means getting through ticketing, bag check, and security pretty easily. Plus, I needed to get me back to normal time. The flight back was a non-stop from LAX to Tampa. I was happy when the pilot announced that due to tailwinds, we were going to be landing approximately 45 minutes early. Unfortunately, I had to share this four hour flight with a young man who didn’t understand common courtesy, not sprawling into others’ space, and that maybe it wasn’t pleasant for others to be smelling of weed. Yeah. Not fun.

I was so glad to see The Wife when she came and picked me up. It was so nice being able to sleep in my own bed. It was so nice getting back into my routines. I love being home.

Lessons learned? Try to get my travel arranged earlier so The Wife can come. Remember to bring some over the ear headphones as they last longer than my airpods. Bring my Stetson, because I sorely missed having my hat.

Hopefully, I won’t have to do air travel again for a while.

Monday, my brain just couldn’t come up with the passcode to the work cell. I could not fucking remember. No, I didn’t have it written down. The Wife was a bit shocked. I had gone through enough failed attempts that I was worried about the phone erasing itself. So, I called IT, hoping they could fix the phone remotely. Because otherwise, I have to drive fifty miles to work for the IT folks there to do “hands-on remediation”.

The nice lady asked me to be patient. My response was “If you keep me from having to go into the office, I can be as patient as possible.” It helps that almost all of the time, I do work communication through MS Teams. My work phone rarely gets used to actually make phone calls. After about an hour, and multiple attempts by multiple staff at the national help desk, I was informed it was going to be escalated. But I probably won’t have to go into the office.

I’m at home yesterday – which I will explain why next week – and my personal phone rings. Nope, don’t recognize the number. Probably spam. Phone rings again. Same number. I’ve been burned before and most of the folks that would call like that will leave a VM or text to call back. Phone rings again. Same number. Three times is either an emergency or a very persistent spammer. I was willing to take the change it was the former.

It was local IT. Yeah, we think we got your passcode issue fixed. Would you open your phone and check? Sure enough, my work phone is prompting me to enter a new passcode. Much thanks to the IT guy who was persistent enough to call me three times.

This happened during our weekly staff meeting.

Boss You should like hiking Derek. You get to avoid people and carry weapons.

Me You say that like I’m not doing that already.

For those who aren’t aware, my day job is with the .gov. This means a lot of my EDC is not allowed. That being said, most people ignore/don’t notice my Leatherman clipped to my pocket. My colleague and I went to do training at another office, and the security officer politely asked me to put my Leatherman back in my car, since it’s not allowed. Of course, I complied with a polite request.

Colleague I can’t believe he made you take that back out to the car.

Me First, he’s right and it’s a prohibited item. Second, at least he let me put it out in the car and didn’t confiscate my $80 pocket knife. Third, it’s not like that’s the only knife I have on me.

My boss moved the end of week staff meeting and the following conversation occurred:

Me: We’re meeting in that conference room, right?

Boss: Yeah. In about ten minutes. If you want to go in now, then it should be unlocked.

Me: Oh good. Then I don’t have to use my lock picking skills.

Boss: Do you have lock picking skills?

Me: Not good ones.

Co-worker: I’m never surprised at what skills Derek says he has.

Truth to be told, my lock picking skills are limited to what I can open via sledgehammer or explosives. I don’t guarantee opening something without damage to what is inside.