Friday, January 24, 2014

Bedsticks and broomknobs

Been a quiet time in my little dusty dark corner of the internet.  Mighty quiet.

Lazy, too.

Wonder how it’s been for you?


OMG a real door!
In the cube farm at work there are many wonderful and varied ring tones from many a cell phone and work phone and ‘soft phone’ by which to be distracted throughout the day.  Why, one that sounds like a chime just went off, as it does approximately 60 times a day!

Used to hear the soft ‘hoo hoo’ of a loon when a former cube neighbor’s phone rang with a call from her Dad – the loon has left the building, unfortunately because he has since passed on, but the horse whinny and cry of the cardinal are still there and reverberant whenever members of her family call.

Some folks have rock tunes that start up, some have a simple buzz.

As for me, my phone is on ‘vibrate’ 90% of the time.  I do not contribute much to the noise problem here at Grand Central Station.  It is enough to have the chorus of other people’s electronics, the stomp-clomp of their feet in the hallways, the whirr of the coffee machine, the spitspitspit of the water dispenser, the rumble of supply and janitorial carts, the giddy laughter and deep conversations of people both near and far reverberating through my personal workspace.  I don’t need to contribute to that with random outbursts of cell-phonery.

Which, of course, is why I miss a lot of phone calls.

Hey – I’m an introvert.  I don’t mind missing calls.


It’s nearly 3 p.m.  Our building has about warmed up enough to not freeze my nose hairs when I inhale.

Seriously – this building is an icebox in the winter, generally.  It’s a necessity to grip a paper cup full of bad coffee throughout the morning just to keep fingers limber enough to type.  A steady stream of warm decaf keeps the ol’ core temp hot enough to stay awake, at least through lunchtime, when there’s a slight but perceptible shift in the temps toward ‘tepid,’ which is a great change from the ‘downright chilly’ of the morning.

It’s understandable when the outside temps are in the teens, that heating a large building such as ours can be a challenge.  I get the notion of not wanting to introduce to much of a temp swing during the daily cycle, and to simply let the body heat of your employees (and contingent workers, and third-party ‘guests’) do most of the heavy thermometer lifting, but dang.  If I have to wear gloves and a parka just to keep from drifting off into a hypothermic sleep, isn’t that a little MUCH?

Good thing I’ve scoped out the ‘warm rooms’ in the building.  There are 2.  Once of them is reservable on our meeting manager system, the other is our dedicated team room that only ‘key personnel’ such as myself can use.  They’re good for a nice dip in the near-70-degree pool of air for a while, and sometimes, if nobody’s taken the team room, I’ll just sit in there and back for as long as possible.

It also has a door.  That shuts.  And shuts out noises.  It is, truly, a happy place.


Well, I’m planning on having a weekend.  How about you?  Do let’s catch up in the comments area – it’s been too long.


Tiff out.

10 comments:

kenju said...

I can't hear my cell phone half the time and I can't feel it vibrate in my pocket either. So if you call me, leave a message!!

I think if I were forced to work in a building that cold, I'd wear more than one heat wrap around my waistline. And long johns, and socks, and a scarf and maybe a hat and a nose warmer and fingerless mittens, so I could type.

Hope you stay warm this weekend - tell Biff I said to warm you up!

LL said...

So... you want to trade? Lately... it's not been bad, but when it hits the negatives... I've still got to do the same thing...

Right now I'm helping first timers calve... two today. Cow walked away from the first one, the second I had to pull...

Shaping up to be a nice one...

tiff said...

Once again, LL, you win.

tiff said...

Once again, LL, you win.

carmilevy said...

I prefer vibrate, too: even before the Internet rewrote the rules of modern communication, I had issues with the way an incoming phone call shifts control to the person who calls. I don't much enjoy being interrupted, and the rise of email and other asynchronous, online forms of messaging have given me hope that the recipient is once again in control.

I try to encourage people to email me instead. Then I can decide how and when to respond. Call me antisocial, but spontaneously received phone calls - with a ring tone or not - just don't do it for me anymore.

As far as the weekend is concerned, we're hunkering down amid serious blizzard and wind activity. It looks like the Apocalypse out there, and the tea's just getting warmed up in here. I love days like this.

Middle Girl said...

Like you, my phone is on vibrate 95% of the time. I receive more text messages than phone calls--but those vibrate as well. Like Carmi, I prefer emails over phone calls (or text messages).

My weekend includes chores, dialing back in to my mandala journey, correspondence, and getting prepped for the week ahead.

Oh, and steeling myself for the deeper freeze headed this way.

LL said...

By win you mean I lost... right? You don't want to trade anymore?

Because... I'm still willing! ;)

rennratt said...

As always, I'm a skosh late to the party...

My phone isn't even given the option of "vibrate" these days. It's on SILENT 99% of the time. The other 1% it's on FULL RINGER, and is reserve for commute time, and I only answer it if it's family or really close friends.

I spent my weekend serving as chauffeur Mom and purchasing queen, while silently praying that my ear drum would either fully seal or just burst already. I hate this time of year.

LL said...

You get to stay home today and play in the snow Tiffy?

tiff said...

For DAYS, LL.