Monthly Archives: December 2021

A $15 Rolex…

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There’s one web-based application that is an indispensable part of the job I was nominally doing today. The trouble is, that app went out of service at about noon yesterday and didn’t come back online until an hour before I punched out for the day today. I’m reasonably good, but cramming 12 hours of work into the last hour of a Friday afternoon isn’t going to happen.

As a tiny cog in our wealthy uncle’s great green machine, I’m no stranger to sitting around with my thumb up my ass. Life in the bureaucracy guarantees you’ll spend a not insignificant amount of time in that position.

I have to wonder, though, if we’re really as dependent on networks, and systems, and processes that are apt to create single points of failure repeatedly, why haven’t we come up with a way for these systems to be redundant or develop some method of continuing to get the job done when the computers don’t work. As it sits now, all it means is a 24 hour backlog waiting for someone (read: me) to clear it out on Monday. That’s assuming the great network administrators in the sky really finished whatever voodoo ceremony was necessary to fix things permanently. That doesn’t even begin to account for the inevitable bitching and complaining from echelons higher than reality wondering why everything is taking so long, suspenses were missed, and we’ve given the distinct impression of not having done a damned thing for almost two full days.

Thank God my terminal doesn’t launch the nukes or make sure a reactor gets shut down safely, because from where I’m sitting the whole creaking edifice feels about as reliable as a $15 Rolex.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Wet ink. Why, in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-one, do businesses still require wet ink on basic transactional paperwork. All I want to do is to make a pretty simple deposit into my retirement account. Maybe. If it were a withdrawal, I could see it. Maybe. Although I’m perfectly happy to let anyone in the world put funds in my IRA if the spirit moves them. In the time of instant transactions, waiting around for a few days until the mail arrives, waiting a few days until the return post reaches them, and then the action taking place. It really just feels like there has to be a better way.

2. Plastics. This week I got to enjoy the mandatory de-plasticizing of a new coffee maker pot. The entire house reeks of vinegar after brewing half a dozen pots of it in hopes that I’ll eventually be able to have coffee that doesn’t taste of plastic. At this point I’m not sure coffee tinged with plastic is actually worse than the hot vinegar stench permeating every inch of the house. 

3. One o’clock. For the last few weeks, I’ve struggled to get past 1 o’clock in the afternoon without my head slamming into my desk. I’ve always gotten a little groggy in the mid-afternoon, but this is something altogether different. It’s the kind of sleepy that demands I either get on my feet or go immediately to sleep. It’s not ideal if you’re making even the barest effort to be a responsible and responsive employee. This had better just be a passing thing, because otherwise I might need to talk to the boss about expanding my cube to allow room for a cot.

On just wanting a damned cup of coffee…

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About a week ago I noticed that my coffee maker was making a mess of itself occasionally when I brewed up a K-cup. You never knew exactly when you’d find the machine sitting in a puddle of its own water. It was annoying, but easy enough to clean up as needed. For the last two days, though, it’s transitioned from an occasional issue to an every time sort of thing. That’s a bridge too far for an appliance that’s supposed to be about convenience. 

My Hamilton Beach Flexbrew surely isn’t a style leader, but it made a consistent pot of coffee and didn’t choke on any of the various K-cup products I threw at it. I know coffee purists out there reading this will rage at the mere mention of “pod” coffee, but I’ve come to appreciate the convenience as well as the ability to run non-coffee hot beverages through the machine when the mood strikes me. No, it’s not a scientific, cold brew, chemistry lab looking set up and I don’t really care. Mornings are about getting scalding hot caffeine into my system as quickly as possible. I don’t care much how artfully it happens.

I was tempted this morning to order up one of the fancy new Ninja brewers or even some of the more exotic offerings… but I’m old enough to remember when just about any kitchen appliance you could want was available for $19.99 plus tax. The middle three figure price slapped on some of those models was a too eyewatering for me. Most of them also showed delivery times out near Christmas, and of course I just don’t have that level of patience.

So, I’ll be replacing a five- or six-year-old Flexbrew with the exact same model. Maryland’s 6% cut drove the price over $100, but Amazon seems to think they can have it here before sunup tomorrow. I’m sure I could have pulled the baseplate off my old model and found the line that was split or needed a clamp replaced, but I think I’ve mostly decided that when any kind of consumer electronic has been in service for at least five years, it’s reached the end of its useful life cycle. Some people have a propensity to tinker around and don’t mind a bit of periodic bodging to keep something running indefinitely. Me? Yeah. I just want things to work when I flip a switch or push a button. If that means my annualized cost of being able to brew coffee at home is $20 and change, it’s a tolerable price to pay.

Party in a plague year…

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Glancing through my Outlook calendar this morning, I noticed an appointment labeled “Holiday Gathering.” Based on past precedent that could mean anything from a non-denominational holiday afternoon of food and drink at a local watering hole, or more often a soulless pot luck served around a conference room table.  

In the (plague) year of our lord 2021 both options have at least one thing in common: The distinguished representative from Cecil County votes no.

In the last 21 months I’ve sat down in a restaurant exactly one time. It was in the middle of the afternoon with one other person at the table and maybe 10 people in the entire building. The idea of gaggling up elbow to asshole with 20 or 30 people to spread both holiday cheer and pathogen, feels like something I can avoid with absolutely no regrets. 

Plus, it looks like it happens to fall on a day I’m already scheduled to work from home, so there’s one more reason it doesn’t have any significant appeal. I’m sure if there’s something pressing, someone can dial me in on Teams.

I’ve never been on Team Office Holiday Party, but a party in a plague year feels even less enticing and like it’s missing a bit of the big picture. 

Pondering on an Egg McMuffin…

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Most mornings when I’m due in the office, I stop by McDonalds for an egg sandwich. I know, I know. Health implications aside, I’ve made a decision that I’d rather read a chapter or two before schlepping down Route 40 than spend that limited time making breakfast.

This morning I found the drive through inexplicably vacant. Pulling in to order, I wasn’t greeted with “May I help you,” but rather “Just so you know we can only do exact cash right now.” I’m assuming it meant I’d need exact change because their electronic payment systems (credit card, Apple Pay, etc.) were down. Networked payment systems go down, I totally get that, but as a matter of principle I wasn’t going to just round up the cost to the nearest dollar or worse, since the only paper money I had in my wallet was a $20 bill. Their prices are near piratical levels already and I can’t remember the last time they didn’t have a “We have no change” sign in the window.

I pulled away without my Egg McMuffin secure in the thought that there’s a Burger King not quite on my route, but close enough to not make a difference in the morning’s timing. Burger King, however, was closed this morning during what should have been about the peak of their breakfast rush. Lights off, drive through barricaded, and not a car to be seen in the parking lot. Looks like I wasn’t going to be getting a bacon, egg, and cheese Croissanwich, either.

After two strikes, the clock had run out on me, which meant heading directly to the office sans breakfast. It’s hardly the worst thing in the world, but it feels like part of the wider trend where everyone seems to be throwing up their hands, giving a shrug, and muttering “Eh, COVID.”

A year ago, I was pretty tolerant of stutter stepping and odd moments that went with figuring out how to live in a plague year. Here we are nearly two years in, though, and I’m not in any way convinced we’ve collectively learned anything. I mean how is there still a change shortage? How have nationally branded businesses not figured out how to, you know, do business… or at least keep the doors open during business hours?

The more gentle-minded among you will be tempted to tell me that everyone is “trying their best during this difficult time” or some other platitude. Based on my observation, I’m not in any way convinced that’s true… and even if it was, it just seems to me that after eighteen months of practice, everyone’s best should be a little better than it is currently.

So far…

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Out of the blue last night, an old friend sent me a message that resulted in a little walk down memory lane. We weren’t really a troublesome bunch. We mostly kept our noses clean, made the grades, and managed not to get into much (if any) trouble with local authority figures. That’s not saying we were angels, but our fun was mostly mild and between a mixture of luck and a few adults willing to look the other way occasionally, no harm ever befell us.

One of the memories whipped up last night was the music that soundtracked all the ripping and running we did along the crick. Most of it really belonged to the generation before us, but the one that stands out just now is Joe Walsh. Now, it’s probably fair that most people think of him as “one of those guys from The Eagles, but Joe has had a pretty storied career as a solo artist too. His albums were a regular feature coming from our car stereos back then.

One song we played damned near to death over the years was “Life’s Been Good.” It’s a catchy little tune released in 1978, making it more or less as old as I am. If the five of us guys who palled around back then had a theme song, that would probably have been the one. We were damn near inseparable. They were the brothers I picked for myself. Despite the time and distance and other life circumstances, I think of them as brothers still.

I got a little reflective last night. Between the time of the year and a little conversation about the old days, that’s probably to be expected. The fact is for as much as I relish bitching and complaining, like ol’ Joe, life’s been good to me (so far). I’d hate to give the impression that I don’t recognize and appreciate it every single day. I may not have gotten everything I ever wanted, but in so many ways it’s been a charmed life – with precious little I’d want to go back and do differently… and many, many things I’d pay real money to go back and do one more time.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Unless they pay a particularly obsessive level of attention to detail, no one would notice that the link to this post includes the path “what-annoys-jeff-this-week-500/.”

That “500” bit deserves a bit of a call out. It means this is the 500th weekly installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. Allowing for the occasional week where something else occupied this space on Thursday evening, that’s just about 10 years’ worth of annoyances electronically documented for posterity.

That’s a lot of being annoyed, though it’s 100% on brand. Believe me, no one knows that better than I do… but really, have you seen the world out there? How could anyone be expected to walk through it every day and not be filled with constant, low-level rage and general disaffection for their fellow man?

Maybe that’s what I find so annoying this week – that so many don’t seem to be disgusted or bothered by it in any way… as if profound mindlessness is the proper and inevitable deep background noise of the universe. The very idea of going through life with that kind of devil-may-care attitude and sunny disposition makes me want to bash skulls.

And that seems to guarantee a steady march to What Annoys Jeff this Week 1000 in due course. As long as I manage not to blow out a valve or succumb to a massive stroke in the meantime from the unescapable fuckery we’ll see in the next ten years.

On trumping festivity…

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Last year was the first time in 42 years that I wasn’t in western Maryland for Christmas. It was different and decidedly subdued, but I didn’t particularly hate it. Now, here we are in December again and I’m starting to put together the plan for this year… even though it feels like we just did Christmas about seven weeks ago. 

Barring any significant Great Plague related issues, I’m more comfortable with the idea of making the trip this year… even if I’m not thrilled with the idea of driving into an area where every other Facebook post seems to mention friends, friends of friends, or family members who are militantly anti-vax or who are being throttled by the bug. 

Assuming I do go home for Christmas this year, it’s going to be another different experience. Excursions to the local watering holes, the casino, or restaurants are probably right out. I’ve avoided those things for the last eighteen months and making a Christmas exception probably doesn’t exactly pass the common sense test in the current environment. That alone opens up expanses of time I’m not use to having during these flying trips. Historically they’re a mad dash to see everyone I’ve promised to drop in on while I’m in the area. I don’t expect to make many of those promises this time around.

In all reality, what Christmas could mean this year is a change in where I’ll be tucked in with a dog and a few good books… and the need to potentially recruit a cat and tortoise sitter for a few days. It doesn’t feel particularly festive, but for the time being prudence continues to trump festivity.