Well, the specter of a shutdown was discouraging for most Federal employees. For me it was a calamity. I didn't know this morning that they would approve another continuing resolution this evening, so, in anticipation of it being a long haul, this meant instead of just printing out the orders I had finished while I was teleworking, transferring files to the closeout team, and then waiting for my four hours to be up so I could come home, I also had to strip my cubicle. Thinking about this left me with only four hours sleep.

On the way to work I was tailgated twice on the freeway. I will not miss these mental morons who fasten themselves to the ass of my car when I'm over the speed limit already!

Due to weather, injury, and other factors, I still hadn't taken my Christmas decorations down in my cubicle. I was pulling them down as I struggled to log on to the computer. I just have little boxes and plastic figures and things, so it was all in the box by the time I got logged in. Then the frustrating problems started. When I came back from Christmas leave the printer was giving me fits. Well, it's still asking me to manually feed each document I send to it, rather than just auto-printing, and it won't duplex print even though it is set to duplex print and has always duplex printed before. Someone suggested that I use another printer, but the only other available one told me the printer drivers were not loaded, so it hasn't worked for me since autumn and still won't work. Finally, after over an hour, I managed to print out documents for two purchase orders, then the printer quit responding at all.

The solution for these thing is usually to reboot, and it works most of the time. Except the computer wouldn't recognize my smart card after I rebooted, and it took me four reboots before I got a response from the thing. And only then could I print, having to press the button each time to manually feed the sheets, the third order, and the modification. I put the orders in Puli's office for the remainder of the signatures and filed the modification.

On the positive side while I was pissed off at the printer I got the majority of boxes packed up and in my car, borrowing the cart from in the hoteling room (they said it wasn't theirs, but lent it to me anyway). I was royally ticked off when I arrived this morning to discover someone had swiped two of the Xerox paper boxes I had stored up on top of my cubicle cabinets after the last time we moved; after all, who knew when they were going to go crazy and make us move again? Luckily they had just ordered copier paper and I was able to empty a box near the printer.

I then printed out my latest pay statement, my W2, and my furlough papers. Last time they had to be signed and e-mailed, this time we could just acknowledge online and put a signed copy on our supervisor's desk. Then I got to work pulling files from my cabinet and transferring them in ICE to the appropriate closeout person. Turns out these two folks were in the hoteling room I'd borrowed the cart from.

Finally was done finding documents at my desk that had my name on them and packed the last box: the papers, the Hot Shot, my computer speakers (speakers are mine because the original computer they gave me had no speakers, so I've dragged these around with me from workstation to workstation), my desk lamp, the fan, etc.. I brought all that down to the car and sweltered through the last twenty minutes without the fan. Last of all I printed out duplicate copies of the two orders I hadn't finished yet and left them on Puli's desk so that if the furlough didn't end by the 31st, she could reassign them but work would not have to be repeated.

Then I took my things and the tray table I usually put my bag and lunchbag on and left. The only stop I made on the way home was at Vickery Hardware to get more Scotch clear mounting tape. I found a small wooden shelf in my craft closet which I matte varnished yesterday, and when I got home I used the tape to mount it on the wall next to the fireplace. Now it will hold the telephone and answering machine instead of it being on the bottom of the little table under the window.

All I did for the rest of the afternoon was make up for the sleep I lost during the night!

James made chicken stir fry for supper which we had with rice. Later on I went downstairs and got some cardio exercise putting all the Christmas boxes back in the closet. Sadly, this doesn't clear the library because for now I have to put the boxes I brought home from work there. But those need cleaning out; a lot of it will be thrown away.

Labels: chores, crafts, food, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:06:00 PM

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