Dearest viewer, allow me to bring back a classic among this here Blog. We are going to play the hit song “Blockade wants to punt his laptop into the street”. Why? Because I really want to punt my laptop into the street after the way this week has gone so far. Not my desktop, I treasure that far too much. My work laptop? Weapons free. Monday, the usual suspects, “my printer no print”, “I can’t log in”, things I’ve heard a million times. Except along the way, I get a call for a printer someone else dispatched last week. Field Service has not shown up, has not called, has pushed this guy back for a week straight. He wants management, not Field Service management, my manager. My manager is a time zone behind me, I spend a half hour trying to get a hold of him. By Teams chat, by text message, I can’t call him because well, I’m already on the phone. Eventually the guy jumps off the line, then my manager responds. Great, I’ve taken the screaming fit for someone else’s mistake. Again. Enter Tuesday, and I don’t remember much about Tuesday, Sim to end of game. Behold, Wednesday! The reckoning comes! You want calls!? You want chats!? You want audio issues from the piece of garbage VOIP software we use!? You get it all! I spent my day dual wielding chats, working multiple issues at once, calls coming in back to back to back while I’m still trying to write up my notes from the last call, and battling people who have been at The Company long enough to know better than to send cases to me with no notes. If volume today was up because of people cycling out for yearly Compliance training, then hell yes I’ll take that whole hour and 45 minutes Friday to “work” on mine (I did it last week). So, this evening I will watch my silly little guys doing their silly little flips. I will not think about work, and I will enjoy my Big Water while I do so. The week that is has been a train wreck, one that I don’t see letting up any time soon either. I am constantly reminded of why I was ecstatic when we stopped letting clients chat in, and exasperated when we started letting them again. It should not take someone ten minutes to type two words, it was and is so much easier to talk to them over the phone and get the information I need. Especially when I just need something to track down a printer with. It can and should be so much easier than this! If there is any consolation to my unending frustration, I am well ahead of pace to hit my personal goal for calls and chats per week. I aim for 100 minimum each week, and after three days I’m at 73 if I added my numbers right. I would have aimed lower this week with meetings and training on my schedule, but my meeting Monday afternoon was canceled, and the email that it was didn’t go out until a half hour after it was supposed to happen. Fingers crossed that I have it soon, even though it’s just the monthly team meeting. If I can keep my mouth shut and not call another group “a bunch of douchebags” again, I should be okay. Got my hand slapped for that last summer, and yeah, I did deserve it, but they are actually pretty useless over there. But, again, I’m going to do things that don’t stress me out and put more grey hairs on my head for the rest of the evening. Work will be what it’s going to be, and I can’t do much to change that. Most days, I like what I do, and don’t get too frustrated, but today it was in fact, too much to not vent about. The laptop won’t get punted into the street, those things are too expensive to do something that drastic, and I’d be on the hook for the cost to replace anyhow. And it’s not like I need yet another huge expense right now either.