Golly...I'm human
Apr. 18th, 2001 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI've forgotten to mention that I got up today without a care in the world, ready to put paid to a bunch of things that needed to get done before starting my assignment. That ended at about 11:40 am, when I noticed my pager (which was still inside my suitcase) was beeping intermittently.
It was the office. I called, only to find out I had been expected in the MCC at 9:00 am this morning.
Yikes! I thought that - like last time - I would have a day off before starting work associated with the flight. I was mortified when I heard the news.
I have never missed a work assignment before in my life. At least not like this.
Ah, well. First time for everything. And better today than during the mission, which starts tomorrow. And I managed to minimize the damage to being "only" 3 hours late.
Collateral issue: I have to go now to the 24-hour K-Mart and buy an alarm clock, because now that I think about it (and look around) I notice that I didn't bring one with me.
This morning, when I switched on my cell (to call the office), there were two messages from Galina waiting for me. The messages indicated there was some problem with the fax at the store. When I tried to call, though, I got an "all circuits are busy" message. Several times. Over a couple of hours.
It turns out the phone lines to and from Pagosa (at least) were severely limited for a large part of the day. I suspect it was this glitch, which prevented me from returning her calls, that was the cause of the "fax problem."
I spent about an hour and 40 minutes walking Lee through a daily report cycle. She then did another spreadsheet and got it to me via AIM. It looks good. Kid is sharp. We'll get together again tomorrow and walk though the mechanical parts.
Galina told me we lost a customer today. This was an outfit that came in quite often and racked up monthly bills of about $1,500. She made it sound as if he was taking his business elsewhere.
Since I'd absorbed this company's phone number by osmosis while processing their packages, I decided to give the boss a call and find out the straight skinny. He told me that his operation had gotten so big, they'd opened their own UPS account.
In the final analysis, it makes sense for him to do this (in fact, I mused about exactly this scenario a couple of weeks ago and wondered what it was that kept him coming to us).
When I get back to Pagosa, I think I'll buy the fellow a cup of coffee and ask a few questions. Who knows? Maybe he can direct some other business my way...or maybe I can do something else for him.
Gotta go get that alarm clock and get a night's rest. As it turned out, the Russians didn't send over their "radiograms" until after I'd gotten to the MCC, so it was a pretty tiring 4-hour stint.
Cheers...
It was the office. I called, only to find out I had been expected in the MCC at 9:00 am this morning.
Yikes! I thought that - like last time - I would have a day off before starting work associated with the flight. I was mortified when I heard the news.
I have never missed a work assignment before in my life. At least not like this.
Ah, well. First time for everything. And better today than during the mission, which starts tomorrow. And I managed to minimize the damage to being "only" 3 hours late.
Collateral issue: I have to go now to the 24-hour K-Mart and buy an alarm clock, because now that I think about it (and look around) I notice that I didn't bring one with me.
This morning, when I switched on my cell (to call the office), there were two messages from Galina waiting for me. The messages indicated there was some problem with the fax at the store. When I tried to call, though, I got an "all circuits are busy" message. Several times. Over a couple of hours.
It turns out the phone lines to and from Pagosa (at least) were severely limited for a large part of the day. I suspect it was this glitch, which prevented me from returning her calls, that was the cause of the "fax problem."
I spent about an hour and 40 minutes walking Lee through a daily report cycle. She then did another spreadsheet and got it to me via AIM. It looks good. Kid is sharp. We'll get together again tomorrow and walk though the mechanical parts.
Galina told me we lost a customer today. This was an outfit that came in quite often and racked up monthly bills of about $1,500. She made it sound as if he was taking his business elsewhere.
Since I'd absorbed this company's phone number by osmosis while processing their packages, I decided to give the boss a call and find out the straight skinny. He told me that his operation had gotten so big, they'd opened their own UPS account.
In the final analysis, it makes sense for him to do this (in fact, I mused about exactly this scenario a couple of weeks ago and wondered what it was that kept him coming to us).
When I get back to Pagosa, I think I'll buy the fellow a cup of coffee and ask a few questions. Who knows? Maybe he can direct some other business my way...or maybe I can do something else for him.
Gotta go get that alarm clock and get a night's rest. As it turned out, the Russians didn't send over their "radiograms" until after I'd gotten to the MCC, so it was a pretty tiring 4-hour stint.
Cheers...
