“Remoted” – Workday 43 / Day 56 (Monday)

Another Monday. I did not wake up and bound out of bed full of excitement for a new day. Instead, I dragged myself from the bed inspired only by Moose’s shrill and nagging bark and the knowledge that he slept through the night and my delay could mean an indoor pee puddle/splash pad. At least Moose felt better today and ate his food and as a bonus, it stayed in his stomach where it belongs.

Calendar says "May" but
it's still winter soup weather.

It’s nearly mid-May and the winter fleece pajamas are still in heavy rotation along with fleece pullovers for daywear, the winter comforter is still on the bed, and the heat is still on, so I’m feeling a bit bitchy. Yes, the weather will be what it is whether I approve of it or not, but c’mon. At least my elevated aggravation helps keep me warm-ish. Being winter-spring or tenth winter or whatever we are “enjoying” now, it was a good day for hot soup. Thank goodness all the soup didn’t fit into the container brought to Mom’s yesterday and there was some left. 

The workday featured multiple cups of hot peach tea and stuff like webinars, revising plans, and reviewing and revising media lists. It was a full day in my “regular” Marketing role and it hung in the balance somewhere between less stressful than the special project and dull. There is a bright, shining beacon to the week in the form of Friday, which is booked off as a vacation day. Right now the only plan is to not visit the home-office. This is easy to accomplish now that the workspace isn’t in the dining room, which functions like one of those major airport connecting hubs.

This stupid box!! 

In the ongoing war with technology, the new laptop that arrived April 29 has been less than impressive. There is a quirk where 95% of the time when using the mouse touch pad, a stupid menu box pops up on the screen. I don’t even know how to find that stupid box on purpose with any other computer. The webcam and screen resolution are not great. Every time I pick the thing up my hands get a bunch of tiny static shocks. Every single time. This makes putting it safely on its dedicated bookcase shelf each night a bit more exciting. Is it all the fleece wearing and lingering winter dryness, or is Lenovo testing to see what level of shock is needed to kill? Maybe it knows that I compared it unfavorably to the laptop with the cracked screen and is just enacting jealous revenge. I didn’t even say it out loud, because there is nobody here to tell, but technology keeps getting smarter. Heck, Google knows what I’m thinking before I can finish typing a question into the search bar. 

The cell phone, also a Lenovo product, started acting up just before Remoted Day 1 and has recently gotten worse with suddenly drained battery power and turning itself off, especially after each use of the camera. Yesterday, when calling Mom, the call dropped immediately after it was answered— three times – twice on her landline and again her cell. Texting worked, so I could at least tell her why I was calling, but we couldn’t figure out if the problem was at her end or mine. There was a successfully completed call when I tried it again after parking in front of her house to tell her I was there.

So there we have it. To recap: Monday blahs + chilly weather + ongoing tech war = me bitchy. At least today we know why.