Areas of Unrest

3 January 2006 - Back to Work

I didn't make a formal resolution to get to work earlier, but I did intend to. Of course, I dawdled over my coffee, so I ended up leaving the house about 10 minutes later than I planned to. And then the machines at the metro weren't working right so I couldn't add my transit benefit to my card. That was sort of okay, since I still had plenty left from last month. But, when I got down to the platform, I saw there was a problem. The train was pulling out of the Vienna station was completely full. Sometimes there are a few people standing, mostly in the first car or two, but this train was as packed as ones leaving Rosslyn at 5 p.m.. And the platform was crowded. Of course, the PA system at the metro has special sound manglers built in, so I was completely unable to figure out any part of the announcement they made beyond the inevitable "We apologize for any inconvenience."

Fortunately, a colleague happened to be on that same platform and, after we waited about five minutes with no sign of another train, he said, "come on, I'll drive." We picked up another person (an Air Force officer) and headed in. So, thanks to Gerry, I got to work more or less on time despite everything. I did kick in towards his parking fee, by the way. And, since he wanted to be able to drive on I-66 coming home, he gave me a ride back. I later found out, by the way, that they had a problem with a disabled train and were single-tracking trains between East Falls Church and Virginia Square. What a mess.

Work was somewhat frustrating since: a) we had a problem with incoming email, b) I learned that there's no real shortcut in the process of my indexing files (my organizational nirvana problem), and c) other people don't make the New Year's resolutions I want them to. (In one case, a particular weekly meeting was even less efficient than usual, accomplishing 15 minutes worth of work in nearly 2 hours. The other offender appeared to have resolved to be even bitchier, something I didn't think was possible.) I also learned that a job I had been interested in applying for is, apparently, not going to get funded.

Finally, I had an amusing email exchange. We have an all-hands meeting the first Friday of every month, followed by a social hour. It's our division's turn to put on the social hour and we're doing a football themed event. We're supposed to wear college sweatshirts or the like and one guy, who's an academy grad, sent everyone the lyrics of the Air Force song. I countered by sending the words of the MIT cheer:
e to the u du dx
e to the x dx
cosine secant tangent sine
3.14159
Square root, integral, u dv
Slipstick, slide rule
MIT.

When the first guy asked "yeah, but how did their team do?" I replied that "we beat Caltech by a score of pi to e."

Now, if I can only dig out an old IHTFP shirt to wear on Friday, I'll be the office ubergeek.