Friday, December 19, 2014

Finding words

My frustration level over the last 2 hours has skyrocketed, and I don't want to rant on Facebook.

This morning, I knew I wanted to do a little shopping. Just got paid, and we haven't been able to do any holiday shopping up until now. Jumped online to see if I could knock out any sites before the stores opened. The kitten was kind enough to wake my ass at 630 this morning. If I need help getting up with the chickens once we have them, I swear all I'll need to do is get another kitten. Little furry alarm clock, that one...

The tool I work with is web-based, but was down, so I made sure it wasn't just me - emailed my supervisors - and was told that IT was on it. So I figured I'd take the morning and get the shopping done. Hubs was awake and came with, and we meandered here and there all over East AVL, getting most of our holiday shopping taken care of, as well as doing a decent grocery shop for the first time in 3 weeks. Didn't get home til 3ish, and by the time I got back online, it was 4PM....where I was greeted with the inability to get into the tool still.

Further investigation revealed they had JUST come up with a remedy, which involved downloading a fresh app to my smartphone (wha?) in order to acquire a security code that I would then tell IT, so they could catalog it with my name before I can move forward to trying to get into the highly secure program that might lead me to the tool (although they mention a prerequisite of being in a program that I haven't accessed in 2 years, because independent contractors get tossed out of such things)....and you get the idea.


And by the time I've figured out how to get the information they need, it's freakin' 4:45PM on the Friday before Christmas and every conceivable Monster-drinking IT geek burned hell out of there at approximately 4:44PM.

I exchanged a couple emails with my manager-to-be, and she's aware of my predicament, but her hands are tied. IT may or may not be working the problem this weekend; as far as I know, only Tech Support runs 24 hours there still. I'm not privy to nearly the scuttlebutt, being up in NC, but I don't think this is an accident, this latest outage, more like an upgrade that went horribly wrong.

Why is this so lousy? Several reasons...the main one being that the timing just blows donkey butt. Thank the gods I wasn't behind by much; I try to knock out 100 sites a week and I was in the 70s when this went down, and we're on the first week of the pay period, so normally, I'd say oh well and make up the difference the next week. 

But this means I can't work until Monday.....on Christmas-damn-week. We're traveling Thursday to visit family and staying over....in a house that is so chaotic, so full of negative energy, that I won't even bring my laptop probably...it would be pointless to attempt to focus. Besides, we'll be celebrating the holiday as much as possible, making a nice dinner, playing with our 8-year-old niece, and trying our best not to rock a very shaky boat. Les's side of the family, unfortunately, has become painfully fractured since his dad passed.

It's all doable, but man, it's going to be hard. I was hoping to knock out holiday baking Tuesday or Wednesday. I normally do it earlier, but our freezer is packed to the gills lately and there isn't any room for half a dozen pound cakes or whatever. My mom and Lil Sis are visiting one day next weekend for gift exchanging, and I know Saturday would be better for them. But if I'm unable to plow through a significant chunk of sites Monday through Wednesday.....

I am fit to be tied, and there's no remedy except patience. 



No comments: