Rockin' the Suburbs

As usual, I find myself stuck at work on Black Friday. Somehow I've never found myself that far up on the professional totem pole where I can actually take days around a holiday off. Not that I'm complaining at this point, mind you...I work at home now, so I'm safely ensconced in Spare Oom, listening to my music and letting the day pass.

I gave up the Fourth Quarter Madness back in 2005, when I quit Yankee Candle to move down to New Jersey to live with emmalyon. Since then, I've gotten stuck in the office (or in this case, at home) on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas. The stress isn't nearly as bad, considering I'm no longer lugging boxes or fielding customer questions. It's been replaced by the ennui of working in an office that's open while all its clients are out of office. We're that office that's open "just in case something happens". The upside is that more often than not, it's a quiet (if slow) day and I get to catch up on other things. The downside is that I'm sort-of chained to the chair until 4pm, as this current job doesn't have half-days.

I think the first time I actually worked on a holiday was in 1988 when I worked at the local radio station, WCAT, back when it was AM-only. The station had been run via satellite feed by then, so all I had to do was sit around and ensure the commercials kicked off. As I didn't have my license at the time, my Dad would drop me off and pick me up a few hours later. This wasn't too stressful, just the station manager watching over me like a hawk and calling if I was a half-second off on the cues I had to hit. Other than that, I used the time to get homework done, do some reading, or talk with my friends on the phone. That Christmas was pretty quiet, so I was able to kick back and play some music on the monitors, and even snuck in a play of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" over the air. I'd do pretty much the same when I worked there in 1995 into 1996.

I know I worked on the days surrounding the three holidays (T-Day, Christmas and New Years Eve) in the last few years I was in Boston. With few exceptions, I pretty much took the weekend off and headed home to be with family, but I'd work a day or so before and after the holiday. I remember on New Years Eve in 1993 and 1994 I had to work, and I'd try to get home as quickly as I could so I could catch the end-of-year countdown on WFNX (some traditions die hard).

The HMV years were of course my introduction to working high-volume retail in Q4. For four years straight I'd work on Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. I didn't really mind it here, even it did get crazy--part of it was because I'd be hiding up back, preparing the constant flow of product coming in, or I'd be one of the register jockeys (I was a fast ringer, so I'd get the lines cleared pretty quickly), or I'd be offering my music trivia nerdiness out on the floor. Like I've said before--despite the occasional frustrations, it was one of my favorite jobs, even on the major retail holidays.

I'd also work on those surrounding days at Yankee. Those days would get insane for various reasons--ten hour days starting at 4AM six days a week, lack of storage space, a huge volume coming down the delivery shutes, shortages of workers--but with the shipping department, you kind of get numb to the actual job itself. The mechanical side of your brain focuses solely on building safe pallets of product to be shrinkwrapped, stored, and put onto the trucks, but the social side of your brain would end up going elsewhere. Despite the stress, we'd all laugh and talk and joke. There were a few blowups and firings, but for the most part we got the job done the best we could.

So yeah...at 41, I'm not in the least bothered by the fact that I still have to work on Black Friday, or Christmas Eve, or New Years Eve. I kind of expect it, really. If I can manage to get the days off, I will of course try for it, but I don't expect that to happen.


That said, I don't mind shopping on those days either. Maybe it's that I have a high tolerance/patience level for it, but it's never completely bothered me to be in a crowded mall or a store like Target during the busiest time of the year. Sure, there's the usual idiot in the parking lot, or the clueless goober taking up the entire aisle, or the impatient lady in the checkout line repeatedly sighing quite audibly, but you know--it's a small price to pay. I think it might be that I like being surrounded by people even if I'm not connecting with them at all. Even the music doesn't bother me all that much (with very few exceptions).

It's part of the festive atmosphere, and I enjoy that.

Up at my usual early time here, as somehow I still need to work today. The good thing is that one of the managers has decided that working from home until the end of the year will somewhat alleviate our stress, so I'm sitting here in Spare Oom, reading the internets and waiting for my shift to start. I'm hoping that today's dead (read: hoping we won't have any emails/calls from clients who have left things until the absolute last minute and are having a meltdown because of it). This is not only so I can have a slow, relaxing day, but that I can actually get somewhat caught up. What with most of my team out sick or on vacation this week, it's been one hell of a screwy couple of days. I'm hoping we can sign off early and I can use the rest of this day for winding down and not doing much of anything except relaxing.

Also thankfully, as noted yesterday, my family's package has finally arrived at our door after being in limbo Narnia for just over a week, which means that aside from the DELIVERY FAIL of one of my Aunt-in-Law's presents, we have everything. You know, in retrospect even the delivery of the fam's package was weird--the US Mail guy buzzed our door repeatedly and animatedly, and when I answered he let me know a package was downstairs in an almost creepily happy sort of voice. I never saw the driver, so now I'm wondering if that was Tumnus dropping it off or something...

All that said...things are good here out in the Richmond. Emm's got the day off and will be doing some last-minute food shopping up in Laurel Village. All the presents are wrapped and technically under the tree (our tiny tree's on top of a desk and the presents are on the floor underneath). It would not surprise me if my boss let us out a little early, just to spread the holiday cheer. Despite my backed-up workload, I wouldn't say no.


Hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve...stay warm, have fun, and enjoy yourselves! :)

Sometimes a frustrating morning at work gets evened out by having a handful of outstanding issues completed successfully. :)

[A brief break from the musical decade overview posts...I will be finishing off with 2009 later today.]

Hoo. Weird decade, this. Lots of good, a good wallop of AWESOME, and a lot of GEH! to even it out. And a bit of sheer pissed-offery for seasoning. As I know I've posted most of this before, I'll just dispense with the highlights like maps_or_guitars did.


2000: Unceremoniously not-fired-but-talked-into-quitting from HMV after four years of working there. Ironically the US chains would close two years later due to bad business sense. Luckily found a job soon after at Yankee Candle, whose products would make my clothes stink for the next few years. Finished The Phoenix Effect around this time, I believe, and its rewrite A Division of Souls started. Met good friend and eventual jamming partner Bruce.

2001: Bruce and I the first people to test the new equipment when we moved to the newer and much larger YC warehouse. Start jamming with Bruce and Eric in jeb!. The continuation of roadtrips to Showcase Comics on a weekly basis, the start of roadtrips to Newbury Comics in Amherst on a weekly basis. Savings don't quite suffer, but much space taken up in the process. Freaked out by 9/11 terrorist attacks...and had the sinking feeling that the state of US politics was going to get uglier from here on in. ADoS finished. The start of going down to the Belfry almost every single night and writing for two hours.

2002: The Year Jon Bought WAY TOO MANY CDs. Great year for music, though. My department at work wins MVP of the Year for kicking ass during a major chain rollout. Probably the last year where working at YC was actually a lot of fun. The start of finally taking politics a little more seriously when I start having conversations with one of my managers about it. More writing done...The Persistence of Memories started and finished in exactly one year and a few hours' change.

2003: Kind of a blur...work frustration, not as many (but still too many) CDs bought. More jamming with jeb!, and started in on The Process of Belief soon after TPoM is done.

2004: Had a very strange dream about having a female vampire as a girlfriend, and Love Like Blood was born, which would go through various versions and finally get finished 3 years later. Cursed very loudly out the window of my car when NPR states that Kerry lost. head58 and lynxreign play matchmakers and introduce me to emmalyon, and the rest is history. :)

2005: The Year Jonc's Life Changes. Quit YC, moved down to NJ to be with Emm, Lynx and inochinoakari, went to WorldCon in Glasgow, got married, moved to San Francisco. And during all of this, made the insane choice of getting rid of most of my music collection that I'd amassed over the last two-plus decades. Successive temp jobs give me ample time to follow politics even more closely, and realize I'm more frustrated at GWB and his team than I thought I was. Work on TPoB falls by the wayside due to way too many life changes going on as well as frustration with the story. Plusses DEFINITELY outweigh the minuses this year, though.

2006: Start the year workin' for the Man at BofA, first as a temp in one department but switch to full-time by being Your Friendly Customer Service Rep in the CD/IRA area...where I come up with the mantra "'Yes' is NOT an account number." Bought an eMachine to replace the Dell that was slowly crapping out on me, and Belfry 3000 was born. Some writing done, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped. Finished LLB on New Year's Eve, and celebrated with a bottle of Vampire wine.

2007: Transitional year, I suppose. Started rewrite of LLB, and tried writing some other stuff, but didn't get too far. Finally made myself purchase Fluff online after jonesin' for it for a few years. Not a terribly exciting year, but ended on a good note when I got hired to my present position and ran away from the phones for good and avoided another year of working IRAs during tax season.

2008: Very interesting year, much more exciting/weird/frustrating than '07. Another dream, this one of me and one of my sisters visiting our parents' house years after everyone's moved out and meeting the new owner...and Can't Find My Way Home was born, and completed a full outline for it. Was working at home the day McCain named Palin as running mate and immediately felt it was more of a chessboard move than a political plan. Stared in wonder and excitement when Obama won. Got pissed off when Prop 8 lost. Looked forward to seeing what '09 would be like.

2009: Personal? Great year, things went well. Moved to a new apartment across town, competely on a whim. Work? Frustrating, but made peace with it. Music? Not bad, actually. Writing? Picked up The Process of Belief after posting the entire trilogy on an extremely friends-locked LJ, and feel right at home with it again. Political? Well...'09 was the Year of You Can't Make This Shit Up, and the year I really started to wonder just what the hell some of these people are thinking, if at all. Still, I refused to let the year/decade end on a sour note and promised myself that I wouldn't let the bastards keep me down. Ended the year by buying a Gateway when my eMachine started crapping out.


All in all...very strange decade. A lot of great, a lot of YAY!, a lot of anger, a lot of WTF?!??, and a lot of good ol' fashioned creativity. Although there was a lot in it that I wish had turned out differently (and most of that was world events), there were enough plusses in my life that kept it all sane and worth going. I'm looking forward to the next year and decade, no matter what it throws at us. And if I can be a part of it in some significant way, either by writing or other way, so much the better.

Despite my sore throat and leftover sniffles from yesterday, I'm here in the office getting ready to crunch some numbers. FUN! I've got a pack of Halls in my pocket ready to be used when need be, my box of Kleenex is full-ish, and the workload doesn't look too terrifying. I think I can manage. I was sorely tempted to work from home today but felt I could survive here if need be.

Also--catching the #1 bus up the street from our new place at 6:05 drops me off at Clay and Van Ness at about 6:20, where I would catch the 47 or the 49 down to Market Street and to work. Of course, today was one of those off-days where one bus had the next one coming in 17 minutes and the next one was in 45, so I walked about five blocks (all downhill, thankfully) and by the time I got to the second bus stop down the 47 pulled up. So yeah, looks like that connecting bus may be a pain in the butt. On the plus side, the #1 bus is plentiful so I can get off at California and walk up one block to that on the way home without having to wait too long. That said, I got to work at about 6:40ish, WELL before I need to sign in. So all in all, despite the connecting bus hiccup to work, looks like the commute won't be all that bad.

For some reason I'm feeling very tired. I could use a nap right now...*YAWN*

I'm thinking it might be a caffeine crash...the coffee I had this morning was pretty damn strong! Guess that's what I get for having the low-grade stuff at the convenience store rather than at Happy Donut...

Work (WAH)
So far so good. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing's fallen apart (yet), and no client has come rushing in with twenty emails yelling 'OMG I NEED FILES FROM 2005 STAT' all in caps (yet). Can't complain. I'm taking my first break right now.

Weather
Rain. Not a lot of it, but it's consistent, and it looks like it'll be staying for the next few days. After a fluke of a few weeks where not only was it sunny but warm as well, looks like we're swinging back to the typical San Francisco weather, which is lots of rain. Which is actually a good thing, as that means more snow up near Tahoe and a lot less flammable dry grass later in the year. ;)

Health
I did good and worked for a full half-hour on the Wii Fit yesterday, go me! Yeah, I know, this isn't nearly as good as doing the actual exercise of running, doing weights and whatnot, but every little bit helps. Being that I haven't done squat in terms of exercise in years, it's a start, and a good one for me.

Neighborhood
Ooh, excitement galore! Diagonally across from us, they've got a ginormous crane and they're taking down old ventilation boxes and putting up shiny new ones. All while it rains! Also in other news, our apartment building is slowly but surely getting an overhaul. Our building is one that has wooden slat siding, and it looks a bit faded and worn. They just finished the other building in our complex and will eventually do ours, but at the moment they're working on the walkways and stairs. Our main stairway might be diverted at some point, too. Fun!

Other
I have my coffee, emmalyon gave me a rather quirky birthday present (an antique map of southern New England circa somewheres around mid 1800's, I believe), and I've got my tunage going.



Sure, it's been a mundane birthday so far, but I have no problem with that. :)

Morning all...another cold morning here in San Francisco...yeah, I know, 45 degrees isn't exactly cold in New England terms, so I can't complain too much, but when it's normally a good twenty degrees warmer on any given day, that's a cold morning! :p

Our sleeping in this weekend actually worked for the most part, unlike a few weekends ago when neither of us got much of a wink. We were both happy to get up closer to 7 or 8am rather than 5-ish. The only problem was last night at 3:30am when some obviously-drunk woman with some serious issues got in a catfight with some other person who, by the time the drunk woman shut up, was all the way up the other end of the block, ignoring her. Yeah, that was special...

Also: Christmas shopping nearly done for the most part! :) I just need to pick up a few things online and we're good. We tempted fate and went to the mall yesterday and it wasn't nearly as insane as I'd expected. We got some sweet deals at Kohl's and spent way much more money than we'd expected at Target, but at least we've got a good headstart on the holiday shopping. I think the fact we ordered everything online--and early at that--is the reason I keep getting this feeling we're forgetting to order something. :p

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[Writing]

Geh. Now I understand why Connie Willis went on about how frustrating writing a time travel novel is, when we saw her at WorldCon. Over the course of the last few weeks I've been questioning my sanity for wanting to come up with a storyline like this. Trying to come up with an interesting time-travel storyline while keeping logic in mind is one of the most mindbreaking, aggravating things I've ever done writingwise. It's a hell of a lot tougher than one thinks. But on the plus side, the outline is nearing its end--hopefully I'll get it finished by the end of the year--and with some tweaking and cleaning up, I think it will work.

In other news...I've been bad and not doing anything big with Love Like Blood lately. Well, not entirely bad...I've heard from many editors and agents that sending right at the end of the year isn't always the best of ideas, since most of them consider this their weeks off and, honestly, a good time to clean off the desk. So as much as it pains me, I'm going to wait until early-to-mid January to send it off. I should have sent it off earlier, but I won't go into that...still, I have a few places in mind that it will get sent to.

More writing news...it's still early in the game for the Eden Cycle website, but I need to get started on that as well. I'm up to Chapter 9 in the edit/once-over, partly to fix up a few things but also partly to refamiliarize myself with the story itself...that's going pretty well, and I'm still happy with most of it. What I need to be doing is coming up with some introductory passages and/or reference posts to start with, and take a weekend (or week) where I'm not doing much else and work on the layout of the site. I'd like the site to "officially" go live in January, with some sneak-peeks this month, so I'd better get cracking on this.

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[Writing: Online]

As said in the past few weeks, because of all these projects I'm working on, I'm planning on backing away from LJ and other online things for a bit to get stuff done. I'm not going to completely disappear, and I will occasionally pop onto LJ to make a few comments, but for the most part I need to get more serious about my work here. So this will probably mean a few things--some quick flyby LJ posts during work hours, and long, drawn-out posts both here and at jonchaisson written on the weekend. I won't x-post to both, since most people who read this LJ read the other, and I won't subject you to twice the boringness. ;)

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[The World We Live In...]

I need to back away from the Kos for awhile...maybe not cold turkey, but I've definitely been spending more time on it than I should. Sure, I like being on top of things political and whatnot, but it's eating into my writing time. In fact, now that the election season is over, I need to back away from the news for awhile. I'm getting all worked up again about everything, and I don't need that. I'll keep on top of things, of course, but not to such an extent as I have over the last few months.

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[...and Life in General]

Yes, head58, I used those headers on purpose. My apologies ahead of time. :p

Seriously, folks...things are going well. Health is good, work is okay, I'm keeping busy...there's always room for improvement, of course, but I can't complain.

Next year I'm hoping to get more serious about health. I'm not exactly ailing badly, but I can stand to lose some weight and get more exercise, and cut out or down on a lot of bad things I've been eating/drinking lately. Kind of funny how the worst and toughest habits to break are the ones that affect the body... Anyhoo, I want to get more walking in, focus more on keeping good eating habits at work, and not being as lazy as I have.

Of course, this also includes mental health. I don't have many worries, but I need to rethink how my thought processes work. I'm thinking about my plans for 2008 that I posted back in January, and while my list may have been wishful thinking (let's admit, there was a lot in there), I'd like to think I got at least some of it done. That makes me happy that I got more done that I'd expected, but I need to do more. I have a bad habit of being passive, and while that's not exactly a bad thing, it can lead to a lot of frustration. I need to ramp up my determination to get things done.

In short...while I thought 2008 was a vast improvement over 2007, I'm hoping that 2009 becomes more of a banner year. We'll see....

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[Music]

You were warned: I'm most likely going to be doing a very large music post in the next few days/weeks as the year ends. I have a few ideas that I'm working with, including working on yet another end-of-year best-of list. This being another year ending in 8, there were a lot of good albums...although I'm surprising myself by realizing it didn't stand out nearly as much as 1988 and 1998 did. Then again, my connection with music isn't nearly as intense as it was over the last few decades (sad but true), so I wasn't as involved.

That said, though, there were some great albums that came out, and I'll be going over them in a later post. :)

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Okay, time to make most of my day and get stuff done! How was your weekend? :)

That is, Working At Home!

--Yes, I made a pot of coffee.
--Yes, I am listening to music. Best of Radiohead to be exact (to be more exact, the track listing was culled from all the Radiohead I already have, so don't need to buy it :p )
--No, I am not in my jammies. I was good and showered and dressed.
--Yes, I am being sidetracked by LJ. This is not a good thing.
--Yes, I am thrilled that it's a GORGEOUS day out today.
--No, I am not thrilled that I'll be inside through most of it. But what can ya do...?

Fun fun!

ATTENTION:

As of today, I am officially NO LONGER WORKING ON THE PHONES. I am now officially part of the email team, which means two good things: A)No need to worry about the OMGMUSTHAVEANANSWERNOW feeling that creeps up in my subconscious every time I get a call (shades of downstairs...it's hard to shake off), and B)that wonderful detached feeling where I don't have to deal with people directly anymore (yes, as a matter of fact I am too old to deal with customer service-type calls, what of it?? :p ).

Of course, this means that I'd better get more training soon, because there are a good and constant number of emails and I don't know how to do half of them yet. The positive side of this is the number of people I work with who DO know how to do the stuff and can point me in the right direction. And my trainer will be starting us up with Round III of training next week. :)

*breathes BIG sigh of relief* :D