|
|
|
working in a Google-based office
Wednesday, April 27 2016
Q & N came over this morning with their dog Coach Eric Taylor for a walk with our dogs. It was Coach's first meeting with Neville, and though it went well, Coach still seems more excited by Ramona.
On my third day of remote work, there was less distraction from that other job (though not zero distraction, and I got a little snippy at one point with Marc), so I was able to better focus on the tasks(s) at hand. Still, it was hard getting the information I needed when I needed it, particularly when there was always a risk that in asking a question I was going to have what little that still matters of my professional pride ground into hamburger.
I've been a little slow to get with the program of how my colleagues interact with each other. Ours is a Google-based office, and though I'm familiar with a number of Google office tools individually, I've never had to use them all as a coordinated work environment. I was having particular trouble with hangouts, which, it seems, doesn't really work unless one keeps open the respective chat windows with each individual one normally interacts with. I also needed to remember to use Google calendar as a way of going to video meetings, since that was the only place where the link for how to get to those meetings could be found. By noon today, though, I had these things mostly figured out and my colleagues had stopped sending me emails patiently urging me to "turn on hangouts."
This afternoon, the chimney expert Gretchen had called came out and had a look at our chimney. As expected, the problem was in the chimney cap, where so much creosote had accumulated that smoke could now barely escape. Aside from that, though, the chimney guy reported that our chimney was in good shape, and that there wasn't much creosote clogging the long vertical run of pipe. This was great, because it provided Gretchen the reassurance that in general my chimney-cleaning protocol is an effective one. The chimney guy could've easily been dismissive of my dilettantish chimney maintenance efforts (and, had he been so, he might well have convinced Gretchen to schedule his services regularly), but no, he respected my DIY attitude and even admitted I could have easily done what he'd done had I just climbed up on the roof myself.
Later a couple Gretchen knows (and whom I had probably met) came over with their three rescue dogs for a social call that I largely avoided (since I was, remember, at work). Later, though, I took a brief break to give a tour of the brownhouse/greenhouse area. The couple really seemed to love all my crazy environmentalist projects, even my brownhouse and urinal system. While I was trying to show off the greenhouse basement, Ramona started making menacing grimaces at one of the couple's dogs and it soon erupted into a fight. It took Gretchen and the male half of the couple to pull the dogs apart. And then out on the east deck Neville climbed up on the table and ate a bunch of crackers, dip, and Asian noodles before anyone noticed what was happening. Neville is generally a good dog and no trouble at all, but we can't just leave food on a table like we used to with him around.
This evening when I started a fire in the woodstove, it lit right up immediately without all the blowing and retries that starting a fire had required when the chimney cap had been clogged. Like a frog in a frying pan, I'd slowly adjusted to the increasingly-intolerable situation as the creosote accumulated.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?160427 feedback
previous | next |
