It seems a little odd that in a day that was just about wall-to-wall at work, I’d have very little to write about, but that’s where I am again.
I didn’t have too many out-of-the-ordinary calls, just the usual collection: an overanxious admin who needed to print her badly formatted document to a printer that couldn’t handle it; an overanxious engineer who was trying to be “proactive” in cleaning up his computer and actually managed to delete some system files he needed; and an overanxious director who has a presentation next week, and his computer won’t display right on a projector. My guess is this last guy is up for a promotion.
And yes, they were all overanxious. Announcements of layoffs do that company-wide: people suddenly feel the need to prove themselves by doing too much. Others, like me, firmly believe there isn’t much that can be done one way or the other: the people who will decide my fate know what I do, and know just how valuable it is. I can’t stop any decision, so I’ll just keep doing what I do every day there.
I did have to explain the mathematics of scale to someone who pointed out how far behind my group is, and I hope he got it, but I fear that he either wasn’t paying attention or he doesn’t fully care. But it’s pretty simple: we’ve designed the group to use four people, and it’s been that way for two-and-a-half years. We’ve been one person short since having that position taken away from us six months ago, and things have finally caught up with us: moves, being overly shorthanded due to moves, printers and the like means we’re very behind. And the choice is to work old issues and let the new ones get old, or work new issues and let the already old ones get older. I tend to work new issues so they won’t join the old ones.
The co-worker just stared at me and blinked when I told him there was absolutely no way we’d close sixty tickets in six work days. There are two of us working them…That means five tickets per day per person, plus closing new tickets that come in so that nothing ages…It was somewhere in there that I realized he didn’t get it.
Oh well. At least he understands the part where I reemphasized that one team member is on vacation for three weeks, the second team member has a sick kid at home, and most likely will be out again tomorrow, and I’m out Thursday afternoon for the appointment to get my polyp out.
“Your what?”
“Polyp. In my nasal cavity. Right side. Can’t breathe much through that side of my nose.”
“Like a brain tumor?”
“Kind of. But not, really. It’s just a mass that isn’t in my brain. It’s in my nose.”
Long pause. Sipping of coffee.
“Hmm. Okay. Well, see if you can knock those down, eh?”
On Friday, we had 80 tickets that were past the magical aging threshold, and today, we had sixty. We’re supposed to have less than 15, but…Progress is an imperfect thing.
There’s a little part of me that hopes the snow comes with a vengeance overnight and the entire city is impassible. I could do with a day to just sit and ponder my navel.
See you tomorrow.