work

Monday

I had to go into the office today, rather than work from home, but that’s only because I’ll be taking Friday off. I’ll actually be taking every Friday off in November, and a good number of them next month as well, as we wind down toward the end of the year.

Next year I think I need to better manage my vacation time…and actually take a vacation, not just a handful of days or a week when I do nothing much but sit at home and — this is what I did last month, anyway — become addicted to the TV show Scandal. I’m determined that next year will be the year I finally get my own apartment again — I moved back home just shy of ten years ago now — and that will eat into my disposable income. But I still think I need to go somewhere, and use up my vacation time in more creative ways than looking at the calendar and thinking, “Oh, I guess I could take those Fridays off…”

I mean, I like a good three-day weekend as much as the next guy, but there’s only so much you can do with them.

But anyway, going into the office today wasn’t so bad, its being a Monday notwithstanding. I’m moving to a nicer cubicle at the office, though IT has yet to switch my computer and phone over, so I’m kind of spread across the two workstations right now, my computer and phone (and me) in one, and all my books and files and whatnots in the other. Hopefully it’ll be sorted out before the end of the week.

One good thing about not working from home on Monday: I don’t have to carry my laptop home with me each weekend. (Or nearly miss my train every Friday because of ill-timed Windows updates.)

And finally, one of the textbooks I put into production this year, the first one I’ve worked on since joining the larger development group, has finally published, or at least arrived from the printer. That’s a great feeling, actually seeing this thing you worked on (and hopefully helped make better) and hold it in yours hands. I think it looks great, both with the content and how it looks, and I’m really hoping the author’s pleased and that the book sells really well. I’ve got two more books due before the end of the year, and another in late January, but this has been the first book I’ve developed that’s published in a while.

So, anyway, that’s pretty much Monday. I’ll just leave you with this. You can decide how accurate it actually is:

ageanalyzer

Tuesday

Today didn’t start very auspiciously.

I bought an iced tea before work, like I often do, only the bottle top didn’t pop when I opened it. So, rather than risk any possible contamination — have I mentioned that I’ve been taking this online course? — I poured it out in the pantry sink.

As I was leaving the place where I bought the iced tea, I snagged my headphones on the door and they broke. These were the ear-bud variety, which is what I prefer — I hope I combat potential hearing loss by, you know, not listening to my iPod at a ridiculously loud volume — so it doesn’t take much of a break to make them totally useless. I tossed them in the trash on my way into the office.

Is it weird that I was almost hoping the yogurt I also bought would be expired or moldy or something, thus completing some kind of bizarre trifecta or hat trick of lousiness and setting the stage perfectly for the day? I mean, obviously I didn’t want or expect that, and was glad when it turned out not to be the case. I paid good money for that peach yogurt and enjoyed eating it for breakfast. But I have to admit, I probably would have taken some kind of satisfaction from its being spoiled along with the tea and the headphones, felt strangely justified in feeling grumpy and tired, the way the first morning commute of the week can sometimes make you feel. Well of course, I’d think, like all these little annoyances added up to something, proved something. It’s maybe a smug of kind of cynicism, and I’m not exactly proud of it, but… Well, I mean, if the universe is out to get you, at least it means the universe is taking an active interest, right?

Which is way beyond what I thought this morning when I opened my yogurt, and almost certainly way over-thinking it now.

Because, anyway, the rest of the day went pretty well — surprisingly well, in fact. I had three phone calls lined up for the afternoon, at least one of which I didn’t have any expectation of going especially well at all. But each of them turned out to be pretty decent conversations. Sometimes, when you ask instructors to talk about their courses, they actually surprise you by being willing to do so.

I don’t know if it makes up for the lost iced tea or headphones, but it’ll do.

Oh, and I also finished reading Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel, which I think is actually the first Asimov I’ve ever read, with the possible exception of a short story here or there. It was okay, I guess. I think I enjoyed it more that I did Rendezvous With Rama, another classic science fiction novel I read earlier this year, but I also found this one a bit disappointing.

Wednesday

I’ve been back to work, after taking last week off, although I haven’t yet returned to the office.

Yesterday, I was back in the city, but I spent the day downtown, meeting with instructors (and the bookstore, and a librarian) at Pace University. It went okay, and if nothing else I feel like I’m back in the swing of things asking these kinds of questions. I still don’t love it, particularly walking in somewhere I don’t have an earlier appointment (like the bookstore) and trying to explain the research I’m doing and convincing them to help me with it, but I’m not as nervous about the whole thing as I was at the start of this semester.

I may be again in the spring, or next fall, when I’ve had another several months off from it. But for now, I don’t mind.

Talking with the librarian was interesting, partly because she’s the first who has agreed to meet with me at any school. (It’s often hard just to find the person in charge of a school’s digital collections, which is who we’ve been asked to talk with.) And I had a really constructive meeting with an author who’s book I’m technically not working on anymore, but for whom I did a good chunk of market research.

Today, I was back on Long Island, but out at Dowling College, in Oakdale. It’s maybe not the prettiest campus — not that Pace, necessarily, is either — but it’s right on the Connetquot River and built on the site of one of the Vanderbilts’ former estates. I had some good meetings — they were particularly friendly at the bookstore and in psychology — and while lunch was perfectly terrible and a couple of instructors stood me up, it was not an unproductive day.

I have several more phone calls lined up, including some tomorrow, and I’m still hoping to connect with some of the people who weren’t where they said they’d be today. (Honestly, I understand the people who say no, and the ones who never respond, but the ones who say yes, they’d be happy to meet and then never respond to your follow-ups? What’s that about?)

Thursday

I spent yesterday on campus — that’s a photo of, I think, the school’s mascot up above — talking with instructors and bookstore employees. I tried talking with someone at the library as well, but I was only able to leave my card thanks to the (quite noisy) renovation that was happening.

This is the first of three campus visits I’ll make this month — we’re tasked with about six meetings each at three different schools a semester — and this one went reasonably well. I still have to pull together my notes, and follow up with a couple of people by phone, but the heightened nervousness I was feeling at the start of it kind of went away. To be replaced only by ordinary nervousness, but at least that’s a step up. I think I was just so out of practice, since we don’t have to do this over the summer, and had such a difficult time actually scheduling these appointments, that I was fearing the worst.

I wouldn’t say yesterday was the best, but the weather was nice, the campus was small and easy to get around — it’s ten minutes from my door and I’d never been there before — and I think I walked away with some interesting feedback. And my hat’s off to the one professor at the end of the afternoon who still agreed to meet despite having her young ear-infected son and nowhere for him to be except for underfoot.

Anyway, today was a pretty good day as well. I had three phone calls with instructors planned, which turned into one. (The first wasn’t there but called me back; the second apologized for giving me the wrong day; and the third was apparently on the phone with someone else when I called…and, in all fairness, hadn’t confirmed the time with me anyway.) But, more important, I finished the large report I wasn’t expecting to finish until at least tomorrow afternoon. It’s been delayed a lot longer than I wanted it to be, and I’m glad to finally have it off my plate.

Not least of all because I won’t be in the office at all next week.

Sunday

It’s been a few days, or maybe even a few days more than that. Last week was a little strange, and I don’t know that I’ve quite adjusted to the regular schedule, whatever that means, just yet.

On Thursday afternoon, there was a memorial service for my uncle in Connecticut. My sister, who lives in Maryland, arrived here the night before, so on Thursday morning we all drove out to Mystic. Under different circumstances, it would have been a lovely day, gorgeous weather along the river and good food at both lunch and dinner. But it was good that the family could be there, even just for the few hours of the service. His death was not a shock, but I don’t know that that makes it any easier, particularly for my aunt and their two (grown) sons. So, while sad, it was sort of a lovely day after all.

On Friday, I shook hands with my company’s new CEO-designate.

This is not something I expected, although I had expected to go see him speak, as he was addressing all of our New York offices. This is our global parent company, not just the publishing part of it that I work for day to day, and the event wasn’t even in our building. (Though we were all required to be there.) I somehow managed to be near the front of the line, having caught a lucky break with one of the elevators down to the street, and before I could even get my ID out — you needed photo ID to get in — who should sneak past and try to cut the line but the future CEO himself. (Perhaps I should add that this is obviously a joke, to any investors trolling for even the most ridiculously un-scandalous of scandalous news. He didn’t cut; I was glad to let him go ahead of me. There, good?) But I was still right behind him when it was time to take the elevators upstairs, and while we rode up he introduced himself and shook my hand.

I’m sorry if I made it sound like this was some kind of story, of how I was plucked from obscurity thanks to a chance meeting with the head of the company and hand-picked for greatness. I mean, I did point him in the direction of the men’s room when he visited our offices later in the day, but that’s about the extent of our interaction. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I’m cautiously optimistic about what he shared of his business philosophy and future plans, but that’s about it.

That was…right, Friday. That night we went out to dinner. It was okay, although I think my scallops were a little gritty. That’s neither here nor there, but if you came here for there or here, you likely came to the wrong place.

Last night I watched Rear Window, which I’d never seen before. It’s good, although maybe a little strange and gimmicky even by Hitchcock standards. It’s surprisingly entertaining, given how slow the real suspense is to arrive, but it’s quite entertaining nevertheless.

And today, I had no writing group, just the crossword puzzle. I grumbled a little on Twitter about how surprisingly difficult that turned out to be, and I can’t say it was a particularly thrilling puzzle all on its own.

But, anyway, that’s been the past few days.