disinvited
Well. I nearly forgot, not only to post today's DLU, but to write it to begin with. I was too busy running "scenarios" in the PriceStrat program (this would be pointless even to try and explain what that is, it's so esoteric to my job) during the usual time I take my lunch break. I am actually writing this at 5 p.m., at home. But, still on my work computer. This is really more of a Daily Dinner Update. Except I'm not eating yet.
I have been officially disinvited from the office. I suppose it's just as well, given that Dr. Brandon had recommended it to me yesterday morning anyway. But the thing is, Scott showed me how to sign into the VPN on my laptop yesterday afternoon, and the prospect of doing work on the tiny screen for the laptop (which is usually docked so I can view my work on two large monitor screens) felt like such a pain in the ass, I circled back around to staying with working at the office until I was told to go home.
And then, that happened today. I was coughing a little more today than yesterday, and clearly someone was concerned about it and brought their concerns to Darrell, the VP of Merchandising. He came over to my desk this morning around 10:30ish and said, "You got a minute?" And he then led me into a nearby small conference room.
The first thing he asked was, "How are you feeling?" I knew immediately where this was going. I told him I felt fine, that I was just getting over a cold, and that I had even just seen a doctor yesterday. At first he seemed satisfied with that, admitted he thinks he might have a cold as well, and he let me go back to my desk.
What felt like all of two minutes later, he was back at my desk again—I don't know if he conferred with someone else real quick-like or what—and he asked me, "Are you able to work from home?"
And I said, "See, I've really gone back and forth about this." And I mentioned that my doctor had indeed recommended it, whether I was sick or not. For how long, I have no idea. And Darrell asked that I do indeed do that, and he didn't know for how long either. We'll have to touch base again about whether I should come into the office on Monday. In the meantime, I did have PriceStrat to work on, to generate the retails for the second and last round of May promotions. With our promotion schedule, today is the day that had to happen, and I had already gotten an email from Steven asking if I could run his Heath and Body Care department scenarios in PriceStrat for him at the office, as he was having difficulty getting it done in a timely manner remotely. I had already told him I would, and this meant it really made little sense for me to go home and try to do it remotely myself. Darrell asked how long that would take, I told him "a couple of hours," and he said I could stay long enough to do that—but still asked that I take myself into a conference room to do it. I went into the nearest meeting room to my desk and shut the door with my phone, my tea, and my laptop.
I had initially planned to wait to work on PriceStrat until this afternoon, but now had to prioritize it, and put finishing up the May ads (the first round of May promotions) on hold until later this afternoon. I normally take my lunch break between noon and 12:30, and I worked on PriceStrat clear through just past 12:30.
In the middle of that, I got a visit from Andrew in IT, a very cool guy who walked into the meeting room with me and shut the door behind him, in a slightly openly defiant manner—he wasn't afraid of getting "tainted" by me. I had emailed him about things I might need; they don't have a 10-key attachment as Scott had suggested, but my regular keyboard is remote anyway, so I could just bring that home as well. He brought me a power cord so I would not have to fish the one out of the docking station that goes through a hole in my desk to be plugged in. And he reminded me to take my headset and my remote mouse as well, all of which turned out to be essential components of making working at home a lot easier than I feared.
Under normal circumstances I would have walked home even then, except I had a tote bag full of all this work equipment as well as a big stack of receiver reports I also need to work through (and never got to today). I wish now I'd had the wherewithall to put another bag over the top of it, as the keyboard in particular stuck out a ways, and it was raining lightly when I left this afternoon and so it got a little wet. It was fine in the end since I went to catch a #8 bus up Denny Way to 15th Avenue and then only walked the five blocks home from there, but it would not at all have been fine had I tried to walk all the way home carrying the bag, which was also kind of heavy.
Once I was done in the meeting room, had used the bathroom one last time (where reception staff is wiping surfaces down with disinfectant on an hourly basis now), and rinsed out my tea tumbler, I gathered my stuff at my desk and told Scott, "Well, I don't know when I'll see you next." He hadn't yet heard I was being sent home. "I've been disinvited from the office," I said. When I earlier mentioned this in email to Noah (who has already been working from home as his kids are out of school due to the school closures), he replied with, Are we officially hitting a state of mass hysteria now? Kind of! I suppose it depends on where you are and who you're talking to.
Mary Ann even messaged me yesterday to check out Shobhit and I are feeling. I asked her the same, and according to her they are doing fine, although Uncle David apparently slipped and fell at the front door due to misjudging distance as he opened it, thanks to his bad eye after surgery giving him good vision in only one eye. They're working in the garden a lot, she says. If Shobhit or I do wind up getting sick, I don't think it will have been something we had when we were in Australia with Uncle David and Mary Ann, and that much is a relief at least. (I do often think about Shobhit's job working retail, which strikes me as much more exposing. In all likelihood, if I do get infected, it will be transferred from him. But what can I do? Quarantine myself in the guest room, I guess, although that's not the most practical or realistic scenario.)
Anyway, I then spent the rest of the afternoon working from home. I even took a couple of phone calls using my work headset, which required no extra setup for it to work. This is all connected through my home WiFi network (but then through PCC's VPN), and the connection seems to be plenty strong enough for my needs. I haven't even tested PriceStrat, come to think of it. Perhaps I should; it's possible Steven just had a shitty Internet connection. He recently moved to an island, after all. That literally occurred to me only just now.
I'm not going to do it now, though. I want to close up this work computer and just be done with work for the day, and for the week. This was just a three-day work week for me and it still feels like it was overlong. There's sure been an upside for the cats, at least, who are clearly delighted in having me home with them. Shanti expressed her appreciation by barfing like four times. What a sweetheart! I think I want to call my dad now.
[posted 5:27 pm]