Year End

Today is my last work day of the year, and appropriately, I’ll spend it on several planes traveling home. Here’s my stats for the year.

Days (working) on the road: 186
Days (Holiday) on the road: 15
Miles Flown: 100,000’ish
Flights: 110’ish
Sick: Twice (both while on the road)
Forgetting name of grandchild: Once
Forgetting own name: Once
Where I’ve been: MN, NY, TX, IL, IH, HI, MO, OR, MA, CA, Japan

Here’s a link for a location I visited from each location that was interesting to me.

MN: http://www.mallofamerica.com/
NY: http://www.sensuousbean.com/ The owners were more interesting than the coffee.
TX: http://www.gruenetexas.com/ Who knew so many shops could sell the exact same product?
IL: I’m drawing a blank here.
HI: http://www.honolulu.gov/parks/facility/hanaumabay/welcome.htm Park opens at 6AM. Suck it up and do it at 6. Take your own flippers if you go early. Rental units no open until 7:30AM.
MO: http://www.gatewayarch.com/Arch/index.aspx# The arch was closed the day I visited. I’m not kidding either. CLOSED.
OR: http://www.ci.garibaldi.or.us/ Can you see me waving?
WA: http://www.fishintimeguides.com/ I broke the curse.
MA: http://www.essexseafood.com/ Good, local dining
CA: http://www.beachboardwalk.com/ (shh…I kept a ring from the carousel
Japan: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/a231600 Who knew that some bars are open until 5AM?

Revisiting preivous post

This week I’m working on site with the customers I mentioned in my April 7th post. Fade eight months and here we are, the full disservice of the “bulk training” forced upon my customers by their own management now in full blossom.

The customer doesn’t have clue how to use the equipment his company bought from my company. This is not good. The customer’s internal customers are upset that the tool isn’t performing the way they think it should. This is bad. The customer won’t admit that he doesn’t remember anything I taught him. This is very bad. The customer requested that I come here to work with him and now he took a day off. I’m sitting here in a cubicle doing absolutely nothing productive to assist this customer and help dig him out of the hole he’s in. This is very, very bad. I’m drinking coffee, working on reports, and generally being unproductive. The clock is ticking away and the customer is paying serious cash for me to sit here and do nothing.

My other customers are rather annoyed that I’m not working with them at this exact moment, and I’m already booking my travel for January. I can’t believe I’m sitting here…doing nothing....

Flush

I’m in NYC this weekend with Grace and our friends. It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting all alone in my hotel room trying to take an economics final exam while they’re off in China town have a good time without me.

Am I doing the right thing in going back to school? Sitting in a hotel room on a “holiday” weekend and doing homework each morning and now a final this morning make me wonder what return I’ll actually see on this investment of our time.

I’ve sat here for three hours and I’ve been unable to access my final on-line. An entire morning flushed down the toilet.

No time to smell the roses

I have a live customer demo this week on a toolset that doesn’t work.
I have a final this week.
I have a trip to NY this week.
I have a boss who wants me to cancel my Christmas vacation this week to compensate for him dumping too much work on me.

Stenglish

I have just completed my 165th on the road. I am officially now holding on to the rim of the toilet bowl to avoid being flushed during the home stretch. Vacation is just a few blessed weeks away, I just need to hang on just a little bit more and I can make it into a new year.

I have a new co-worker! If my group was previously dysfunctional, now it’s much more so. I now work with:

1-Japanese
1-Chinese
1-British
1-Vietnamese
1-Amerian

That leaves us trying to communicate with each other while mixing, Jenglish, Chinglish, Vienglish, Benglish and Stenglish.

It’s generally more of a game of trying to figure out what someone means than exactly what they’re saying.