what a sucky day looks like.
Jul. 19th, 2013 05:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crschmidtWake up at 5am. Pack up and leave the house at 5:30 to begin a 450 mile round trip to pick up your daughter, while still being able to spend some time with out of town coworkers.
30 minutes into your trip: realize you forgot your cell phone. And you have a conference call at 10 that you were going to dial in to.
2 hours into your trip: get a speeding ticket. (82 in a 65 -- in other words 'the same speed as everyone else around me'.) $282.
Somehow miss the first two exits in VT (both within about 3 miles -- only 10 minutes after the ticket, which is probably why I was distracted), and realize shortly after that you've gone too far... but not have another opportunity to correct for another 15. Get off, double check that you have, indeed, gone 15 miles out of your way, turn around.
While driving across US-4 in VT driving through one of the small towns at low speed, have the soccer mom in front of you suddenly slow to almost a stop to make a turn. Successfully stop... and get smacked into by the 18 year old kid behind you who wasn't paying enough attention. (No vehicle damage; minor whiplash after the event, but nothing worse than riding roller coasters all day at a theme park would be.)
Get to your destination (picking up daughter from camp), get her picked up. Use her cell phone to dial into your conference call; have her set up your laptop with your slides so you can follow along -- only to realize your laptop battery is ~dead, and have it die before it can get to the part of the presentation where your slides are. Briefly memorize what's on the slides, but not the order -- try to ask people on the call to read slide titles to you so you can talk through slides you can't see.
Have the cell phone die (for no obvious reason -- signal strength was reasonable) in the middle of the call.
Come back to the office -- have several hours of contentious and difficult meetings.
Minor upsides:
- Work paid for dinner. Pizza, beer, ice cream, and brandy -- an upside no matter what.
- Come to a better understanding with visiting coworkers over dinner about how personality interacts with reality and has an impact on emotional states; positive overall interactions.
But yeah. My day yesterday *sucked*.
30 minutes into your trip: realize you forgot your cell phone. And you have a conference call at 10 that you were going to dial in to.
2 hours into your trip: get a speeding ticket. (82 in a 65 -- in other words 'the same speed as everyone else around me'.) $282.
Somehow miss the first two exits in VT (both within about 3 miles -- only 10 minutes after the ticket, which is probably why I was distracted), and realize shortly after that you've gone too far... but not have another opportunity to correct for another 15. Get off, double check that you have, indeed, gone 15 miles out of your way, turn around.
While driving across US-4 in VT driving through one of the small towns at low speed, have the soccer mom in front of you suddenly slow to almost a stop to make a turn. Successfully stop... and get smacked into by the 18 year old kid behind you who wasn't paying enough attention. (No vehicle damage; minor whiplash after the event, but nothing worse than riding roller coasters all day at a theme park would be.)
Get to your destination (picking up daughter from camp), get her picked up. Use her cell phone to dial into your conference call; have her set up your laptop with your slides so you can follow along -- only to realize your laptop battery is ~dead, and have it die before it can get to the part of the presentation where your slides are. Briefly memorize what's on the slides, but not the order -- try to ask people on the call to read slide titles to you so you can talk through slides you can't see.
Have the cell phone die (for no obvious reason -- signal strength was reasonable) in the middle of the call.
Come back to the office -- have several hours of contentious and difficult meetings.
Minor upsides:
- Work paid for dinner. Pizza, beer, ice cream, and brandy -- an upside no matter what.
- Come to a better understanding with visiting coworkers over dinner about how personality interacts with reality and has an impact on emotional states; positive overall interactions.
But yeah. My day yesterday *sucked*.