Year 2- Day 132 - Back in the Office
Jul. 28th, 2021 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatLast week, this week, and next week - I'll only be in the office one day, and have 4 day work weeks. Also, I'm busy again - at least. I like being busy - it's when I'm not busy that I can drive myself nuts worrying about not having enough work. This fear comes from PTSD from previous jobs - where I got laid-off repeatedly due to lack of work. There were two in a row. Once, isn't a big deal, but multiple times kind of ingrains a certain terror of it happening again.
Unemployment can tear at a person's self-esteem and confidence. And I was unemployed through most of my twenties and thirties. Jumping from job to job. I think I did a little bit of everything. My tremor made certain jobs impractical - so, no, I never bused tables nor was I a waitress. And retail - well, I could never add and subtract quickly in my head.
I got fired once - actually make that twice - once from The Great Little Deli in a mall in Overland Park, Kansas, when I was 17. It was a horrible job - basically I was supposed to slice meat, make sandwiches, and work the cash register - also open and close. Which worked fine except when the place got a big lunch rush. Also the new manager was not a nice woman, and she fired me for not being fast enough on my feet. I remember being devastated at the time - but the two guys who worked it with me, who were in their forties, told me not to get upset about it. That I'd not done anything wrong. And there was little to no future in the food service industry. The other time that I got fired was from the American Business Women's Association - in Kansas City. I was doing a trial run as an Executive Assistant to the President of the ABWA. Who was a piece of work.
Demanding, and scattered. I can barely organize myself let alone someone else. And can't type more than thirty words per minute. This was also back in 1989, when we didn't have much in the way of computers. I had a MS DOS which was impossible to do anything on. I had to do a mail merge on an MS DOS word processor. With no direction. I wasn't cut out for the job.
There's more - but I doubt you want to read my about my work-history, much more than I want to write about it. The experiences were worthwhile - in that I have a great deal of empathy for folks who work in those types of jobs. I treat secretaries like queens, because I know first hand that I couldn't do it.
Thought about writing about work today, but not much to report. Outside of technical difficulties. I logged into the computer fine this morning, but when I got busy building a file, it kicked me out and would not let me back in. I rebooted three times, called IT, finally after about an hour's worth of tinkering with the thing - got back in, recreated my outlook data app - because it would not load, and finally after about an hour of everything taking forever to load - it worked. Which of course was when IT called me again to check on things.. My work computer is a pain in the ass - just saying. It's a Dell PC. So there's that.
BYT chose the last twenty minutes of her day to go through my change order with me. And it's the convoluted change order from hell, which I've been working on for well over a year now. Although she did make some excellent points - so I'm following them to the letter. Meditation has helped diminish my ego, thankfully. So I was able to hear her, without getting defensive. She may, ironically, be easier to work with than Boss and Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is miserable - and buried under paper work. I gave him a file I put together - because he prefers hard copies - and I had to do it anyway. But when I went to give it to him - I was a bit tenuous about it. The man did not have any space anywhere. He had a mountain of paper on every surface of his desk and office. He was literally buried behind a fortress of paper. I told BYT that I had given it to him, and was a tad worried about ever seeing it again. She said, not to worry - if it's in a red folder - we're fine.
COVID
How COVID has changed my working life and work place in five sentences or less?
1. Masks - "most" people are wearing masks at their cubicles, on the trains, in the bathroom, kitchen, elevator, and hallways.
2. I only come into the office once or twice a week or six times a month now, mostly it's working remotely.
3. There's hardly anyone in the office - I went from working with over 55-75 people, busy, lots of chatter, to working with possibly six people, possibly ten, if that.
4. The office is incredibly clean - and is constantly sprayed and sanitized with multiple air purifiers.
5. Don't see management as much as I did previously and there's a lot more virtual meetings, webinars, and virtual phone calls - all on my mobile device or computer.
That's five sentences.
The commute is similarly changed. But I'm not restricting myself to five sentences.
1. There's less people riding the trains (much to crazy org's chagrin - since crazy org needs the money from those passengers).
2. Not any homeless on the trains, or they leave quickly - and they aren't camped out in the stations or in front of Wallgreens in my neighborhood any long. No they all moved to Jamaica, Queens and are camped out there. I'm serious - it's gotten bad. We don't walk around Jamaica any more at lunch because of it. They are in the parks, streets, and the Air Train building - up stairs. The Port Authority (who owns the building I work in) managed to clear them out of most of the downstairs. They had to cordon off our entrance to employees only, because the homeless had taken residence in that vicinity. They also cordoned off the subway/train entrance from the mall in Atlantic Avenue Terminal because of issues with the homeless and security.
3. It's clean. Yes, occasionally, I will see spills here and there, or a piece of garbage. Let's face people are slobs. But it is close to pristine. So are the stations. It's amazing. They also rarely smell of urine. I smelled a little this morning in one - but I'm not positive it was urine.
4. Most everyone wears masks - there are a few who don't - even though it is federally mandated. We've given up on confronting them. I mean why bother. I just move or ignore. There's no real pattern to it - though. I've seen people of all ages, races, creeds, etc without them. I don't know why they can't be bothered to wear a mask. It's actually less people than this time last year - so progress? Ironically, progress - it's safer to be without a mask this year than last year at this time.
***
According to the news - New York City is still considered a high risk area, and masks therefore are required indoors. Me and my little group of co-workers took this to heart. We're all vaccinated, but still wearing masks.
Delta variant is the reason why.
College buddy resurfaced after I sent her a photo from London - she's worrying about the Delta Variant as well - also fully vaccinated.
BYT told me that the vaccine gave her a bout of vertigo that lasted three days, along with severe exhaustion. She also still has a few lingering symptoms of COVID. But thankfully, not the tinnitius. Just the heart palpitations and the shortness of breath.
At least three of my co-workers are driving to work now - and avoiding the commute altogether - like many others, I suspect.
**
New York has 75% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose. Which is rather ambitious. We're still trying to get the pesky 3.4 million nitwits to do it. And the 75% is annoyed - actually that may not be the right word - fed up with the 3.4 million or 25%. They were talking about it on the news this morning - about the "party poopers".
The Governor has now mandated that all health care workers must be vaccinated. If they aren't - they can't work. Not just tests, actually vaccine.
Apparently the vaccine is still emergency use authorization - and that limits what States can do in regards to mandates, etc. They can inform, they can bribe, they can threaten, but are limited. We only have 47% vaccinated at our agency at the moment. The stupid FDA is still dragging its feet on this. Employers can mandate it for employees. The State can't mandate it for citizens, but can for employees.
Radio City and Bruce Springsteen - only allow vaccinated, along with some of the sports venues. [Source: Governor's live briefing via FB.]
Oh and per the Times Evening Briefing - "The governor of New York took a similar step, saying tens of thousands of state employees would be required to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing, and “patient-facing” health care workers at state-run hospitals must be vaccinated as a condition of their employment.
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control now say fully vaccinated people should get tested after exposure even if they don’t show symptoms."
Oh, shoot, idiotic Governor wants us all back in the office by fall. He wants people going to shops, restaurants, etc. He wants to go back to normal. And our infection rate has gone up, we've gone from 172 cases back up to 2,300 today.
***
Family
Anyone know how to get a Student Visa for Britain? My brother is having a tough time getting one for his daughter - and we're afraid she won't be able to go. The kid is wicked bright - and she's excited about this program and the classes, and kind of bored of the school she's currently in. I don't want her to lose this opportunity. I'm praying she gets to go, and it goes well.
I'm praying for a lot of things right now. I'm praying for my mother's hip replacement surgery to go well. It has to. It just has to.
Mother: If anything should happen to me - I do not want you to blame yourself or tear yourself apart.
Me: Well, it's hardly my fault - if anything happens. I have no control over your surgery. And my being there isn't going to change anything. All I'll do is make you more anxious.
I'm too much like my father - I'm not a health care provider or nurturer.
I get a deer in the headlights look in regards to hospitals. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be.
Meditation does help. It provides a kind of zen mentality. I'm getting better at listening.
*******
Television
I tried Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation tonight, and was rather surprised by it. I'd heard that Sarah Michelle Gellar was voicing Tela, but I thought - oh supporting character or He-Man's friend or side-kick.
But, nooo...she's the lead. There's this huge twist in the first episode and by the second, the whole series is turned completely upside down. In short, Smith does to Masters of the Universe, what they recently did with She-Rah. He subverts it.
Tela is a tough as nails mercenary with a black woman partner, who is a techie. They travel about doing jobs, finding former magical objects, etc.
He-Man is killed off in the first episode along with Skeletor, He-Man's sword which holds the magic in balance is split in two, and all magic is removed from Eterna, with only a spark left. Evilnor - Skeletor's female sidekick joins forces with Tela and her friends to bring magic back to Eterna, with the Sorceress's guidance. And their task it to recover the two sides of He-Man's sword.
I was surprised by what he did with it. I didn't like the original 1980s/1990s cartoon, but this is interesting, and Gellar delivers fighting quips well.
Leaving you with a deer's rear-end.
Unemployment can tear at a person's self-esteem and confidence. And I was unemployed through most of my twenties and thirties. Jumping from job to job. I think I did a little bit of everything. My tremor made certain jobs impractical - so, no, I never bused tables nor was I a waitress. And retail - well, I could never add and subtract quickly in my head.
I got fired once - actually make that twice - once from The Great Little Deli in a mall in Overland Park, Kansas, when I was 17. It was a horrible job - basically I was supposed to slice meat, make sandwiches, and work the cash register - also open and close. Which worked fine except when the place got a big lunch rush. Also the new manager was not a nice woman, and she fired me for not being fast enough on my feet. I remember being devastated at the time - but the two guys who worked it with me, who were in their forties, told me not to get upset about it. That I'd not done anything wrong. And there was little to no future in the food service industry. The other time that I got fired was from the American Business Women's Association - in Kansas City. I was doing a trial run as an Executive Assistant to the President of the ABWA. Who was a piece of work.
Demanding, and scattered. I can barely organize myself let alone someone else. And can't type more than thirty words per minute. This was also back in 1989, when we didn't have much in the way of computers. I had a MS DOS which was impossible to do anything on. I had to do a mail merge on an MS DOS word processor. With no direction. I wasn't cut out for the job.
There's more - but I doubt you want to read my about my work-history, much more than I want to write about it. The experiences were worthwhile - in that I have a great deal of empathy for folks who work in those types of jobs. I treat secretaries like queens, because I know first hand that I couldn't do it.
Thought about writing about work today, but not much to report. Outside of technical difficulties. I logged into the computer fine this morning, but when I got busy building a file, it kicked me out and would not let me back in. I rebooted three times, called IT, finally after about an hour's worth of tinkering with the thing - got back in, recreated my outlook data app - because it would not load, and finally after about an hour of everything taking forever to load - it worked. Which of course was when IT called me again to check on things.. My work computer is a pain in the ass - just saying. It's a Dell PC. So there's that.
BYT chose the last twenty minutes of her day to go through my change order with me. And it's the convoluted change order from hell, which I've been working on for well over a year now. Although she did make some excellent points - so I'm following them to the letter. Meditation has helped diminish my ego, thankfully. So I was able to hear her, without getting defensive. She may, ironically, be easier to work with than Boss and Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is miserable - and buried under paper work. I gave him a file I put together - because he prefers hard copies - and I had to do it anyway. But when I went to give it to him - I was a bit tenuous about it. The man did not have any space anywhere. He had a mountain of paper on every surface of his desk and office. He was literally buried behind a fortress of paper. I told BYT that I had given it to him, and was a tad worried about ever seeing it again. She said, not to worry - if it's in a red folder - we're fine.
COVID
How COVID has changed my working life and work place in five sentences or less?
1. Masks - "most" people are wearing masks at their cubicles, on the trains, in the bathroom, kitchen, elevator, and hallways.
2. I only come into the office once or twice a week or six times a month now, mostly it's working remotely.
3. There's hardly anyone in the office - I went from working with over 55-75 people, busy, lots of chatter, to working with possibly six people, possibly ten, if that.
4. The office is incredibly clean - and is constantly sprayed and sanitized with multiple air purifiers.
5. Don't see management as much as I did previously and there's a lot more virtual meetings, webinars, and virtual phone calls - all on my mobile device or computer.
That's five sentences.
The commute is similarly changed. But I'm not restricting myself to five sentences.
1. There's less people riding the trains (much to crazy org's chagrin - since crazy org needs the money from those passengers).
2. Not any homeless on the trains, or they leave quickly - and they aren't camped out in the stations or in front of Wallgreens in my neighborhood any long. No they all moved to Jamaica, Queens and are camped out there. I'm serious - it's gotten bad. We don't walk around Jamaica any more at lunch because of it. They are in the parks, streets, and the Air Train building - up stairs. The Port Authority (who owns the building I work in) managed to clear them out of most of the downstairs. They had to cordon off our entrance to employees only, because the homeless had taken residence in that vicinity. They also cordoned off the subway/train entrance from the mall in Atlantic Avenue Terminal because of issues with the homeless and security.
3. It's clean. Yes, occasionally, I will see spills here and there, or a piece of garbage. Let's face people are slobs. But it is close to pristine. So are the stations. It's amazing. They also rarely smell of urine. I smelled a little this morning in one - but I'm not positive it was urine.
4. Most everyone wears masks - there are a few who don't - even though it is federally mandated. We've given up on confronting them. I mean why bother. I just move or ignore. There's no real pattern to it - though. I've seen people of all ages, races, creeds, etc without them. I don't know why they can't be bothered to wear a mask. It's actually less people than this time last year - so progress? Ironically, progress - it's safer to be without a mask this year than last year at this time.
***
According to the news - New York City is still considered a high risk area, and masks therefore are required indoors. Me and my little group of co-workers took this to heart. We're all vaccinated, but still wearing masks.
Delta variant is the reason why.
College buddy resurfaced after I sent her a photo from London - she's worrying about the Delta Variant as well - also fully vaccinated.
BYT told me that the vaccine gave her a bout of vertigo that lasted three days, along with severe exhaustion. She also still has a few lingering symptoms of COVID. But thankfully, not the tinnitius. Just the heart palpitations and the shortness of breath.
At least three of my co-workers are driving to work now - and avoiding the commute altogether - like many others, I suspect.
**
New York has 75% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose. Which is rather ambitious. We're still trying to get the pesky 3.4 million nitwits to do it. And the 75% is annoyed - actually that may not be the right word - fed up with the 3.4 million or 25%. They were talking about it on the news this morning - about the "party poopers".
The Governor has now mandated that all health care workers must be vaccinated. If they aren't - they can't work. Not just tests, actually vaccine.
Apparently the vaccine is still emergency use authorization - and that limits what States can do in regards to mandates, etc. They can inform, they can bribe, they can threaten, but are limited. We only have 47% vaccinated at our agency at the moment. The stupid FDA is still dragging its feet on this. Employers can mandate it for employees. The State can't mandate it for citizens, but can for employees.
Radio City and Bruce Springsteen - only allow vaccinated, along with some of the sports venues. [Source: Governor's live briefing via FB.]
Oh and per the Times Evening Briefing - "The governor of New York took a similar step, saying tens of thousands of state employees would be required to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing, and “patient-facing” health care workers at state-run hospitals must be vaccinated as a condition of their employment.
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control now say fully vaccinated people should get tested after exposure even if they don’t show symptoms."
Oh, shoot, idiotic Governor wants us all back in the office by fall. He wants people going to shops, restaurants, etc. He wants to go back to normal. And our infection rate has gone up, we've gone from 172 cases back up to 2,300 today.
***
Family
Anyone know how to get a Student Visa for Britain? My brother is having a tough time getting one for his daughter - and we're afraid she won't be able to go. The kid is wicked bright - and she's excited about this program and the classes, and kind of bored of the school she's currently in. I don't want her to lose this opportunity. I'm praying she gets to go, and it goes well.
I'm praying for a lot of things right now. I'm praying for my mother's hip replacement surgery to go well. It has to. It just has to.
Mother: If anything should happen to me - I do not want you to blame yourself or tear yourself apart.
Me: Well, it's hardly my fault - if anything happens. I have no control over your surgery. And my being there isn't going to change anything. All I'll do is make you more anxious.
I'm too much like my father - I'm not a health care provider or nurturer.
I get a deer in the headlights look in regards to hospitals. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be.
Meditation does help. It provides a kind of zen mentality. I'm getting better at listening.
*******
Television
I tried Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation tonight, and was rather surprised by it. I'd heard that Sarah Michelle Gellar was voicing Tela, but I thought - oh supporting character or He-Man's friend or side-kick.
But, nooo...she's the lead. There's this huge twist in the first episode and by the second, the whole series is turned completely upside down. In short, Smith does to Masters of the Universe, what they recently did with She-Rah. He subverts it.
Tela is a tough as nails mercenary with a black woman partner, who is a techie. They travel about doing jobs, finding former magical objects, etc.
He-Man is killed off in the first episode along with Skeletor, He-Man's sword which holds the magic in balance is split in two, and all magic is removed from Eterna, with only a spark left. Evilnor - Skeletor's female sidekick joins forces with Tela and her friends to bring magic back to Eterna, with the Sorceress's guidance. And their task it to recover the two sides of He-Man's sword.
I was surprised by what he did with it. I didn't like the original 1980s/1990s cartoon, but this is interesting, and Gellar delivers fighting quips well.
Leaving you with a deer's rear-end.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 08:23 am (UTC)I'm guessing you've already read everything on the government site?
https://www.gov.uk/student-visa
The main thing is to have an offer from a college/university and they can also help sort the Visa, being 'the experts on the ground' as it were. (I kinda deal with this at work. Not directly, but I'm aware of some of it.)
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 09:57 am (UTC)Am trying to think of it from my own POV and how we deal with this stuff. The best thing would be to call the switchboard & talk to someone, but that's not going to be feasible from the US I don't think. :)
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 12:06 pm (UTC)The good news is the quarantine restrictions are being lifted next Monday for vaccinated travelers.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 05:57 pm (UTC)Frigging LSE.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 12:01 pm (UTC)I'd be surprised if she hadn't. They do have the offer - but it's become ridiculously difficult to get the visa (according to mother) - lots of bureaucracy. [But I'm getting the watered down version through mother - not directly from them.]
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 06:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, they REALLY don't like letting people in the country. Wishing your family good luck!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-30 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-30 01:20 am (UTC)