Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Various Complaints
The following are just complaints of the day. None of it is important. I am just annoyed and writing about it makes me feel better.
Public Transport
The bus drivers are striking for 6 days!!! It is so inconvenient. Fortunately I am within walking distance of work but still.
The most direct route from home to work is about 45 mins walk. It is up and down two very steep hills and through two very large and not-safe-to-walk-through-in-the-dark parks. The unsafe parks and short days means that I will have to take a less direct route at least once a day, and probably twice a day. I have no idea how long it will take me to walk the less direct but safer routes. I expect it will be more than an hour each way.
In addition, the bus strike coincides with two major deadlines at work. This means that a) I can't just stay at home, b) I will be wasting valuable work time walking, and c) I may have to walk to work in the weekend as well.
I also expect the Auckland weather to cooperate by providing rain, hail, thunder, wind and a dramatic drop in temperature while the bus drivers are on strike.
And I have organised a phd meeting next week. I don't know when I am going to fit in phd work amongst all this working and walking.
Webmail
We are not allowed to use webmail at work. My whole life revolves around my webmail account. It is a major inconvenience not to be able to use it. Now I have to set up my gmail to forward to my work email address, which will work, but is certainly not efficient. I don't like having to handle the same email more than once.
I hate to think about whether they have a policy about using a particular webbrowser. Being forced to use IE would be a straw for quitting I think.
Long Lunches
Today we had a department lunch, which is a very nice idea but I didn't want to go. I didn't feel like being sociable and I didn't want to spend two hours at lunch when I have deadlines looming.
This particular lunch was stressful for two completely separate reasons. First because I didn't feel like being sociable. I always find socialising draining to some extent, and if I don't feel like it, I also find it extremely stressful. Second, I didn't have time to sit at lunch for two hours. Usually it wouldn't be a big deal, but today it was. It means I will have to make up the two hours I spent at lunch either tonight or very early tomorrow morning because the deadline is tomorrow.
Public Transport
The bus drivers are striking for 6 days!!! It is so inconvenient. Fortunately I am within walking distance of work but still.
The most direct route from home to work is about 45 mins walk. It is up and down two very steep hills and through two very large and not-safe-to-walk-through-in-the-dark parks. The unsafe parks and short days means that I will have to take a less direct route at least once a day, and probably twice a day. I have no idea how long it will take me to walk the less direct but safer routes. I expect it will be more than an hour each way.
In addition, the bus strike coincides with two major deadlines at work. This means that a) I can't just stay at home, b) I will be wasting valuable work time walking, and c) I may have to walk to work in the weekend as well.
I also expect the Auckland weather to cooperate by providing rain, hail, thunder, wind and a dramatic drop in temperature while the bus drivers are on strike.
And I have organised a phd meeting next week. I don't know when I am going to fit in phd work amongst all this working and walking.
Webmail
We are not allowed to use webmail at work. My whole life revolves around my webmail account. It is a major inconvenience not to be able to use it. Now I have to set up my gmail to forward to my work email address, which will work, but is certainly not efficient. I don't like having to handle the same email more than once.
I hate to think about whether they have a policy about using a particular webbrowser. Being forced to use IE would be a straw for quitting I think.
Long Lunches
Today we had a department lunch, which is a very nice idea but I didn't want to go. I didn't feel like being sociable and I didn't want to spend two hours at lunch when I have deadlines looming.
This particular lunch was stressful for two completely separate reasons. First because I didn't feel like being sociable. I always find socialising draining to some extent, and if I don't feel like it, I also find it extremely stressful. Second, I didn't have time to sit at lunch for two hours. Usually it wouldn't be a big deal, but today it was. It means I will have to make up the two hours I spent at lunch either tonight or very early tomorrow morning because the deadline is tomorrow.
// posted by suze @ 7:41 PM 
