Episode 52: Still Yet Another Day In The Life

Wowzers! Three posts in the month of April! I must be some kind of active blogger in order to write this many posts.

Anywho, I was feeling kind of inspired to blog this past week, much like I was pretty much inspired to write {yay!}, so I said to myself, "Why not?"

We're still working at home {sort of}, in the proverbial basement at my mother's house {insert lame meme here} and so days are starting to blend with another.  Work has been pretty much the normal aggravation this week, but while working some unpaid overtime this past Saturday, we got hit with a super blinding case of the incredibly obvious/oblivious {take your pick, they're interchangeable todsay}.

And what was that Captain Obvious moment you may ask?

Well, I was performing said unpaid overtime, I suddenly remembered that instead of listening to more podcasts {pretty much spent the past month getting all caught up with the 19+ that I normally listen to on a bi-weekly basis}, I could dip into the vast LP collection {3000+} and listen to those. Considering I'm sitting in the same room with them, this should've been a serious no-brainer back in mid-March, instead of a semi-brainer in late April.

Anywho, since there was no time like the here and now, we dove into our ultra large collection for schtuff to listen to.

For this bout of unpaid overtime, we listened to the following 3 1/2 albums:

1. The Go-Go's "Beauty And The Beat"
2. The Go-Go's "Vacation"

Both of which were pretty good samples of the power pop phase that music went through in the early 80's (e.g. The Knack), but I give the edge to their debut album, as the seconds felt like they were phoning it in just a tad.

1. Billy Crystal "Mahvelous!"

A very good comedy album that put me in stitches.

1. The Dead Boys "Young, Loud and Snotty" {side one}

Yeah, late 70's punk, a genre that I completely missed while growing up. Plus I was curious about their late singer Stiv Bators.

And not to forget, I started writing this week. I got inspired by the circumstance/severe dullness of the day and actually wrote a paragraph of a short story called, What A Day....

Not sure what direction it's gonna go in, but considering that whenever inspiration strikes lately, I tend to wander down the path of the horror genre that I don't spend that much time reading these days.

But, there you go, another day in the life of G.B. Miller, slave to the business word and occasional escapee to the fictional word.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode 51: A Day In The Life

Boy howdy and howdy to one and all, and welcome to my little corner of the world, where Spring is just around the corner {just like that pic to the left} and the new norm cannot be sustainable.

A rare Sunday post for me, as this CODVID-19 quarantine has finally gotten me to make an attempt of doing some kind of writing {while listening to music!}. Since I'm about a month into this thing called teleworking, I thought I might give you a look at what a typical work day in the life of G.B. Miller {which is a smidgen like the song}.

Firstly, I changed my work hours back to a normal 8a to 4:30p schedule. I figure since I was now home, there is no reason to go in late and stay late. Secondly, I strove to maintain a small semblance of routine while working at home.

So my typical work day goes something like this.

After doing my morning schtuff, I get dressed in my usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt, with at least one or two days being dressed in my normal work clothes of business casual shirt and jeans. I turn on my computer promptly at 8a, and send off my mandatory attendance e-mail to the usual supervisors, letting them know where I'm at {home or in the office, which I go to up to three days a week for anywhere from 1/2 to 2 hours at a clip}, then I'm off to my usual two hours of work.

Those two hours consist of answering e-mail and other assorted odds and ends, depending if it's a payroll week or a non-payroll week. I selectively use my printer for printing, since basically, it's my toner and there's only a 15% change of getting reimbursed should I have another cartridge {Epson ain't cheap}. At 10ish, I go on break and shut down my computer. By 10:30a, I'm back online.

Until lunch, it's usually more of the same, then lunch kicks in. During my lunch time, I'll take a .7 to .75 mile walk. This is something that I would do at the office in the parking lot and my route was usually about that length of distance. One of the first things that I did when I's first started teleworking was to map out a similar route to walk.

The afternoon was/is pretty much the same as the morning, then promptly at 4:30p, we send out an e-mail to my supervisors letting them know I was checking out for the night.

Now, there are some variations to this routine, depending if it was a pay week or non-pay week. The main reason why I, and my co-workers, could have this variation, is that we were given a classification that allowed us to visit our main building when needed to do our job.

For example, during the pay week, I would go the office on Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to collect/print timesheets. Considering the fact that I deal with the equivalent of one and a third reams of paper (that's roughly 700 pages) per pay period, you can understand why i would go to the office and print all of this out.

On a non-pay week, I would go into the office on either Monday or Tuesday to do my usual grunt clerical work: filing, printing, scanning, etc. This would take up to about two hours of my day or so. On the way home, I would hit my credit union, since the only the main branch has a drive thru, or my local bank, which again, only has the drive thru open with limited hours.

Then once at home, we wash, rinse, repeat, before checking out promptly at 4:30p.

And that,. my friends, is my now typical work day. Exciting? I think not. Actually, I stand corrected. The only exciting part is making sure that I completely squash the snarkiness that bubbles to the surface during my off hours.

How's your typical work day now? The same, or have you drastically modified it?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Episode 14-Pandemic

IWSG

What day is it?

Prince Spaghetti day!

No, try again.

Hump day!

Nope.

IWSG day!

Yes indeedie-doodie, it's that time of the month (no dear, I do not have a headache) where the entire writing community gets together and gets mellow.

If remember my e-mail correctly, today's optional question was asking how things are going on in your world during this pandemic.

Well, for starters, I've been working at home since mid-March. Granted, it's an office job (for a guv'ment agency) but it's been incredibly difficult to do payroll from home when you don't quite have everything you need at your fingertips. And judging by the latest going-ons, it looks like i'll be spending the majority of April at home as well.

So far, the pandemic has not hit my home state (Connecticut) very hard, but the screws are slowly turning with the various quarantine measures (haven't hit a total ban yet) being implemented. The new normal at my house is pretty much a pain in the buttocks at varying degrees: daughter has been doing the online school thing since early March as her school is in lockdown mode (which means for the present she's unable to return to the campus to get the rest of her stuff; yours truly has been working at home and is definitely not feeling it; and my mother's doctor has basically decreed she should be housebound for the foreseeable future.

I still try to keep some of work routine going, mostly by taking a late lunch (.7 to .75 mile distance) walk, but other than that, I mostly stay to myself. I did move a step closer in starting up my writing again, as I started reviewing the printed version of my story, but since my den has turned into my work office, no writing is to be had, especially since I've now become very anti-computer after spending 8-9 hours each day on it. Now my evenings are spent decompressing by watching YouTube on my phone (yah, I know).

So this is the new normal for me for the foreseeable future. What's yours?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved