Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on June 19, 2014June 19, 2014 by Dusty Roads

About a month ago, right before I left for my Tennessee vacation I received a promotion at work. I applied with some hesitation because I was in pretty good place. I wasn’t working very hard and I was making an OK salary. I didn’t have to start work until noon and even then I didn’t have a whole lot to do.

I admit, I was a little bored and I wouldn’t mind the chance to earn a bit more money for those extra things but I was also very aware that I am willing to slow down a bit. I was getting quite a bit of subtle pressure to apply along with assurances that once I mastered the learning curve I’d only be working about 4 hours a day.

So I applied and I got it. Yay! It came with a raise and a chance to earn bonuses. It also came with a fast pace and tons more work. After the first week I really wondered if I’d made a mistake. I was really pushing to keep up and more work just kept coming. I never had a chance to learn the ropes. It was sink or swim and I was dog paddling like crazy.

Now, one month into it I’ve begun to see the pattern. I’ve almost got a hold of the crazy workload. None of it is rocket science. I don’t have to be an attorney to do this job. I just need to keep an eye on the calendar, a lot of what I do is time sensitive. But I am busy and that was one of the things I wanted. And yes, I’ve already made some of the bonuses.

The downside is that I’m really busy. I started out supporting 2 agents and have just added one more who is working in another state altogether. So I’m learning the ropes for a different state. Another learning curve.

I find I am mentally tired at the end of the day. My hobbies, which are cerebral, from photography to reading to writing this blog, have taken a back seat. I just can’t concentrate by the end of my shift. I usually end my day chatting with the senior agent and it turns into a giggle fest because we’re both so tired we’re punchy.

So I apologize if these pages suffer. I’m having a blast with the new job but I’m not sure I’ll be keeping up the every day pace of my posts. 🙁 That makes me sad because I really wanted to meet a goal of posting every day but I guess no post is better than a bad post.

I’ll keep trying but forgive me if I miss a day here and there.

Love/Hate in the Technology World

Posted on April 25, 2014April 25, 2014 by Dusty Roads

My love/hate relationship with technology continues. How am I supposed to clear my head so I can write enjoyable and entertaining entries here when I spend all my time at war with the very tools that make this pastime possible?!

We recently added a new State to the areas we cover. Yay! Growth and expansion are good.

There are 2 of us covering this additional area and we have to toggle back and forth between screens on our computers. Yesterday mid- toggle my computer went into a serious data loop. It just kept searching and searching and searching. Nothing that I tried would interrupted it’s single-minded searching.

I rebooted . I used different browsers I toggled to other screens and back…nothing. Finally I reached out to IT support. Their solution was to remove the browsing history, remove the cache. I’d tried that but I only removed the recent history. Their solution was to remove ALL THE HISTORY. I know now that this was a very BAD IDEA but I followed their instructions. They are the experts, certainly not me.

It worked. The endless search was over but all of my bookmarks had disappeared, my home page was gone, all of the company apps were scattered instead of neatly linked…it is/was just awful!

I struggled all afternoon and managed to get some recovered so I could maneuver around again. Each app has to be accessed separately and I haven’t been able to get my home page back, however I did get my bookmarks back on my tool bar, a minor miracle. That’s when the email came in about the Heartbleed Virus.

You have probably heard about it. We, here at work, were supposed to be unaffected but now it seems that some of our “partners” may have been infected therefore everyone had to change all of their passwords. Detailed instructions were included in the email. So that was my next project.

I had to do a few extra steps since my computer was already in shambles but I got through it. The instructions said following them exactly would automatically update the password on the phone because it is synced with the email account. Don’t trust IT. They lied.

When I got up in the morning I picked up my phone to see what had come in overnight for work. Nothing? I crossed to the lap top and logged in. There were at least 20 new emails there but none of it made it to my phone, my new super duper extra smart $400 phone.

So over my bowl of cereal I attempted to figure out how to change the password on the phone to match the new password on my laptop. The new phones don’t come with a manual. No you have to go online and search. Wasn’t that what started this whole mess?

Well I found the instructions online and I changed the password in the phone. That seems to have done the trick as my emails are once again syncing to my phone. I only wasted 8 or so hours dealing with all this aggravation.

What would we do without this time-saving technology?

Cat Prodigy

Posted on April 7, 2014April 7, 2014 by Dusty Roads

I live with a cat prodigy. It’s not easy. In the beginning it meant baby safe locks on all the cabinets unless I wanted to come home to find him sleeping on the dinner plates.

Then he learned to open the tri-fold closet doors. I couldn’t find a lock for those so a stool blocks the doors from opening now.

I come home to the TV flickering away when I know I turned it off before I went out and the ceiling fan…well, lets just say he even knows how to adjust the speed. I watched him with the remote just last night. After he got the fan up to medium he went back , nosed it around and with a very deliberate paw, pressed the button for the lights, switched his tail and walked away.

He’s been typing for years. It’s how he earned the title of “Editor -in- chief”.

Editor in Chief

Today he discovered a new trick. He took a selfie with my cell phone. I watched him do it!

Usually he hates my phone. He’s always trying to chew on it but this time he moved it around with his paw and managed to unlock the screen. Next thing I knew the flash went off. After that he lost interest.

I checked the camera function and there it was… his very own “selfie”.

He’s a scary cat… Sometimes I think he’s smarter than me. What will he figure out next?

The Sounds of Spring time

Posted on April 6, 2014April 6, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Birds tweeting comes to mind…but not in my neighborhood.

Today it was the revving of Harley engines on the side street by my window. At dawn…grrrr

That is my only complaint with motorcycles.. the noise…or maybe it’s not the bikes themselves but the inconsiderate riders who like revving the engines so early. When they actually pulled out the noise level wasn’t bad.