Please stand by

We're in the latter half of winter and starting to feel its stir crazy effects in the office. I haven't been out in the field in weeks. Field work is slow so everyone is mostly in the office. Sickness also abounds in the office, but I've successfully avoided it so far. You know it's boring in the office when a simple thing like a uncommon swan sighting becomes the excitement. We all started making random bird and frog calls to see who's is the best and to test our identification skills.

Humans are not extraneous

This past week has been a bit of a snore at work. We just got a preview of a proposal for revisions to regulations we use every day. It's almost 300 pages long. Granted it's big font and doublespaced with crazy margins so it's not super dense. I've been nominated to read them and let the rest of the group know the highlights. Reading legal language is not a real page turner. You have to read paragraphs over and over just to understand what they really mean. A few people from my group are on vacation so I get to cover them by checking their desk for important mail and answering calls from random people on projects I know nothing about. And to top it off work has slowed down probably because it's the big summer vacation time for everyone. So it's been a struggle to find real work to do. I do get a reprieve from all that. Tomorrow I'm outside all day so hopefully I'll see some cool things.

On the home front, I got word that my dishwasher was recalled for potential fire. I have the option of having a technician come and fix it. I booked the appointment on the web and the parts for some reason were to be mailed to me. Day before the appointment I get an automated call asking if I recieved the parts. I say "no" since I'm not home and was then supposed to be directed to an operator to reschedule. I hear dead silence for over five minutes (I'm on my cell so the call may have been dropped but my screen goes dark after a few seconds of no activity). I end up hanging up thinking that they would call back. I get home and the parts are there. I'm thinking the appointment is still on and call the automated line and reconfirm it via pressing buttons. Sure enough the technician never comes. I call the automated line and by pressing more buttons I request that they call me within the first 2 hours the next day to reschedule. I don't get any calls so I call them but the wait is over 15 minutes to get an operator so they direct me to the web and hang up. When I check the website, it says that my service was performed last saturday! Liars! Impossible! So I started over and sure enough I now have two sets of parts. The million dollar question is whether or not the technician will come tomorrow.