Spinning Wheel

Yup, that Blood, Sweat and Tears title pretty much describes my Thursday. And actually, the story of Thursday starts in the waning moments of Wednesday night....

So there I was, finishing the last job that I needed to get done. My mind was already set on packing up when a coworker asked if I could do one more. "Of course," I replied, instantly adding two hours to my evening/night/morning- I think an advanced degree of some sort is required to explain when I work. In any event, I ended up being the guy that turned the lights out. At 0300.

Thursday morning, I got up sans alarm around 1115, and was more or less awake. I finished my lemon juice, and then made a nice cup of tea. My idea of a nice cup is a bit on the dark side- there are areas on the ocean floor of the Marianas Trench that are lighter, I think. Thusly fortified, I checked messages on the cell phone, checked email, and over lunch had some stress relief on a few Facebook games that I like. Lunch was a couple glasses of milk with some boneless skinless chicken breast, followed by a bowl of ramen. I attempted to return a phone call to an employment agency, but ended up with voice mail. After that, a phone call to a financial institution about a document I had faxed a month earlier, and then refaxed because some information was missing.

And this is where the wheels really started losing traction....

Someone at the financial institution had made a very nice Microsoft Word form. Back in May, I had filled out the form and faxed it back. I waited a few weeks, and then called them. It turned out that they had never received the form, so I refaxed it a few weeks later, and this time I called and confirmed that they had indeed received it. Fast-forward to Thursday, and I get a call from the institution saying that a piece of information is missing- I say, "Hold on, let me pull up the form." And I do. I say to the person that all of the fields are filled out, to which she replies, "All but the social security number." We talk a bit more, and as we chat I try to put the number into the field.

However, the field does not exist. So, I write it in the small box, and fax it off. I call back in an hour, and yes, they have received it, but no, they cannot read it. Arrrrrgh! So, I write it in VERY LARGE NUMERALS in the field immediately to the right, and refax. I call, and they say they cannot use this because it has to be in the box... the really small box. Jennifer suggests making a label with our P-Touch labeler; I fax this off, call, and we are now in business.

I have done more unpleasant things, but its been a while. Adding insult to injury, during that time, I was unable to do anything noteworthy to HTML, the spreadsheet or the database. Hopefully I can get something done tomorrow- Sunday. If it rains, the grass won't get cut; if it doesn't- some yardwork will get done first, followed by some good tekkie stuff. Until then...

My timehack today is 2210CST.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.