Month: July 2015

Livin’ on Pensacola Time

I’ve worked with team members who worked in a different time zone before. Half of my coworkers on one [extended] team worked in Central Time while my portion of the team worked on Eastern Time. That really wasn’t all that bad, because “headquarters” was on Central Time and many of our team couldn’t make it in until 9am, anyway.

I’ve also worked with a team that spanned Eastern, Central, and Pacific times. That was a bit awkward, because after you overlaid 9-5 for each time zone and excluded lunch times, there were only 2 time slots that worked for meetings for everyone.

In both cases, people in time zones “behind” mine drove the schedule somewhat, so while I occasionally felt like I was being “held up” by the “slower” time zones, I never felt like I was playing catch up.

Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been working around a life schedule that mostly adhered to Central Time…  “Oh, it’s only 8 P.M…” (Which gets really bad once you substitute in 11 P.M.) However, all work events still run on Eastern Time, because all but two of us are on Eastern Time.

Lately, I’ve found that I’m barely coherent when everyone else is ready to go. I start taking off as everyone disappears for lunch (I get hungry as they return). Then, I turn around and start getting my second wind in the work day once everyone is GONE. Being out of sync is productive in many ways, but in other ways I feel like like regularly “catching up” because I’m an hour behind.

I’m hoping that the kids’ school schedule will improve my alignment with everyone else. Until then, I’m going to have to scoop more coffee in the coffee maker in the morning. Hopefully, I can also learn use my calendar to better help communicate my availability and presence.

Moved In

The trailer at the new house
The trailer at the new house

The day started off well, with the trailer finally arrived at the new house.

The initial survey of things was that a few pieces of our belongings were banged up a bit from being packed in there, but for the most part the damage was cosmetic.

Once the movers started at about noon, we started realizing how much stuff we had, and we had gotten rid of belongings (including a sectional) in a house only about 300 ft in space larger than our current house. We *did* have a 2 1/2 car garage, but we used that for our cars vs this house’s 2 car garage that current is full of boxes and things.

It took about 3 hours and 45 minutes to unload the 26 linear feet of trailer space, about half as much time as it took to load it.

One thing that I wish we had done better? Tracked smaller parts such as bookshelf parts and inserts in bags in a large plastic bag and wrapped with plastic to the item or in a sealed shut drawer associated with the item (such as a TV). We’re missing a few parts, including one remote, because it wasn’t securely packed with the item itself or a piece of furniture associated with it.

We’re also missing a chair back to a recliner, which makes the purchase of a replacement couch a bit more urgent.

Damaged piano. That bottom piece should be near the bottom.
Damaged piano. That bottom piece should be near the bottom.

However, the biggest disappointment of the day was the my electronic piano took a major beating, after being packed resting on its pedal board that was never meant to bear the weight of the entire instrument, much less any heavy objects packed on top of it. The good news is that the pedals still connect to the rest of the console (electronically) and that the main console functions either way. The body is also actual wood due to my interest spending the extra [too much money] at the time to upgrade from “rosewood finish” plastic. I’m hoping this means that the board can be repaired/reinforced enough to be completely functional. I was pondering a replacement keyboard instrument, but wasn’t planning on replacing it so soon.