WWW - not just the World Wide Web

Wee Willie Winkie
Walla Walla Washington
What Women Want
Wild Wild West
Wicked Witch of the West
Which one Will i Write about? None of the above.

It's the Worst Work Week. Definitely. And I'll bet you want to know What Went Wrong. Let me bring you up to speed.

Mondays stink in general. You all know my feelings about Mondays. I usually get depressed on Sunday night, because Monday is looming. Yes, it is cliche, but who really wants to go back to work after a weekend to yourself? My Mondays are especially stinky nowadays, because I have meetings. Well, yeah, I have meetings everyday, but on Mondays, I have team calls from 11-1 and 2-4. Often, folks will want to talk to me at 10 or -gag- 4. The 1:00 break is spent picking Aly up from school. This Monday was particularly busy because my Director is out of town (biking through the French countryside) and that means I'm in charge. On this particular Monday, I was looking forward to getting some things done before my meetings started when my computer screen froze. Then it worked. Then it froze. Then I got the Blue Screen o' Death. Eh, I've gotten those before. Actually, I've been getting it about once per week. We'll just reboot. This is where the trouble starts. Operating system not found. Crunchy noises coming from the hard drive. Its not going to be a good day.

Mike agreed to pick up Aly, so I got dressed, slapped on some makeup and hit the road for work. I finished my conference call from the road and my extreme irritation leaked out on the call. It wasn't pretty and definitely cemented my status as "harsh and threatening." Let's just say apologizies were issued. On an encouraging note, US IT was impressed by my description of the sounds coming from my machine. And then they said it ... "I'm afraid we have bad news. Really bad news." Yes, my hard drive was shot. Now, the firm keeps backups of everyone's computer with two caveats.
1. You have to actually allow the backup software to run. Since it slows down your reponse time, lots of people cancel it out. Luckily, I let mine run, on Thursday. Yes. All documents created Friday were gone.
2. Only documents are backed up. Any software you had installed is gone. This meant that all of the client software would need to be reinstalled. At the client site. Ugh.
The rest of the bad news? To completely reimage my computer, it would take at least overnight (and by now it was 3:00 pm). I would be without a computer for a while.

In fact, on Tuesday I was scheduled to be downtown for a couple of meetings. The kinda cool part was that I could log on to a computer there and get to my client mail. I set up an away message that said "My computer crashed. Don't bet I'm going to read this any time soon." Actually it didn't say that. I just thought of that. I should change it to that now. But I was being optimistic way back there on Tuesday. So I spent Tuesday in the client office. I haven't sat in a cubicle and worked at a real computer in years. Now I remember why I like working from home (you know, besides wearing my jammies all day and having a little black doggie on my lap) ... people in the office think they can interrupt you at any time, because they can see you. I am going to appreciate my invisibility more now. I spent a grueling hour briefing the client on a presentation she was to make the following morning. Not my project. Not my area of expertise. But remember, I was in charge this week. I had a list of 5 other things to talk to her about but we got to none of them. I was downtown till almost 6 pm and had to stand on the Metro almost all of the way home. Oh, and US IT called at 3 pm to let me know my computer was ready. I got home in time to shove food in the kids, drop Zak off at volleyball practice, and then go pick him back up.

That meant another trip to the Tyson's office on Wednesday. I had actually scheduled a conference room for the day, so this was no big deal. Of course, it took 30 minutes to get my computer back, and I spent the rest of the day getting popups that said "BLAHBLAH is being installed on your computer. Don't touch anything!" and "Do you want to restart now?" Oh, and that backup? It tried to run for hours and couldn't get past my 3,000,000 byte mail archive. At 4:00 the client called and asked for a deliverable by the next day. And the partner emailed me and wanted an updated monthly hours spreadsheet. Traffic was so backed up from the interstate, I couldn't get out of the parking garage. It took an hour to get home. I watched Kid Nation with the kids while I did more work. And drank. I was up till 1:00 am.

I really should have gone back downtown on Thursday, but I was exhausted. My 10:00 meeting went well, even though no one had gotten me their material on time before the call. There were a few crises - Compliance was freaking out over one of our projects so I had to dial into a "calm me down" call. Oh and speaking of compliance, my new hire coachee was about to be suspended for not completing the required training and other administrative duties. D'oh! Way to go Coach Tonya! Ah, and the deliverable I sent wasn't what the client wanted, so I had to re-do it at 4 pm. We didn't have time to go to Burrito Brothers for dinner, so we had hotdog-potato chip combo at the football game. And isn't $5 a head for admission to a high school freshman football game a little high??

Now you would think I'd be happy for Friday, right? Not so much. Friday was my day trip to Charlotte, NC. My flight left at 7:30 am so I was leaving the house at 5:45. Hey, there was definitely less traffic on the parkway; I got to park by the exit at the Metro station; and, I had a seat to myself on the train. My iPod had been left on and my battery was dead. I charged it in my laptop at the airport though. I had selected the exit row window seat the day before and -what a great treat- the seat in front of me had been removed. Talk about leg room! I bought a book at the airport, which I never do, but I was planning on finishing my current book, "The Cat Who Wasn't There" on the trip and I was in no mood to work. The flight was uneventful, the cab ride bearable, and I had time for coffee and email before the interview. Oh, but the guy who was supposed to meet me in Charlotte to tag-team on the interview? Forgot his wallet and didn't have enough gas in the car to make it. He had to dial in. Had a great lunch in Charlotte, Cajun Fish and Red Beans n Rice. The cab ride back to the airport was hair-raising, but I made it in one piece. I had the same seat on the plane for the return trip, but this one was bumpy. Tickle your belly on a roller coaster bumpy. It's been a while since I've flown.

Once again, I got home just in time for volleyball. I'd arranged for someone to pick Zak up for his game so I got to down some dinner before going to catch the last half of the match. We were home by 8:15 and I was in bed by 8:17. Really.

Mike and the kids went to King's Dominion today and I've been working. Yes, I know. Ugh! Anyway, now it is time to relax. I have been eating sushi most of the day and now I'm going to finish that book I bought. And maybe have a little power nap. Heck, if you've read all this, you probably need one too.

PS, No, we still haven't closed on the house. Maybe Tuesday.