January 11, 1996
Dear Everyone:
(Don’t know how well
I’m going to like the year 1996.
The “6” key on my keyboard is on the wrong side of the center
divider.)
Santa was
very generous this Christmas.
In addition to the vacuum cleaner he got me the week before
Christmas, he went out the Saturday after Christmas and picked up a new
TV for the living room.
Please note that Santa’s credit cards were all paid up right before the
Holidays, so we haven’t gone too far overboard.
In fact,
American Express owed me money.
This is because,
whenever I did an expense report at work, I would direct all the money
to the Card, even when I’d paid cash for some items.
Then I’d buy something else, like computer books for the office,
charge it to Amex, and report it on the on-line expense reporting
system. So it took a while
to realize that I’d over-paid somewhat.
Not to worry. Amex
has some personal charges coming down the pipe that will make everything
come out even.
I realized a few
months ago that the living room TV was getting on in years, eleven to be
exact. It was one of the
first to come out with stereo sound.
I decided that, rather than waiting for it to die on me, I’d
replace it now, while it’s still running fairly well, and give it to the
Salvation Army.
I waited until after Christmas in hopes of hitting a sale.
Of course, this means I can’t take the donation off on last
year’s taxes; but, rest assured, I’ll be paying taxes next year, too.
With “Jeannie’s”
help, I got the new TV set up and shoved the old one into the closet
until I could arrange for the Salvation Army to come and get it.
When I called, they asked for my Zip Code.
“The truck will be in your area between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm on
Wednesday.” (So organized!)
Now the problem was having someone there to let the movers in.
Options:
1.
“Jeannie”
can stay at my place on Wednesday.
No, “Jeannie” has to work.
Even if there might not be any work on Wednesday.
2.
“Jeannie”
can come over to my place Tuesday night and help me wrestle it out onto
the front porch. No,
“Jeannie” has her knitting class on Tuesdays and besides, if I leave it
out all night, someone might steal it.
Or my neighbor, The Slammer, will knock it over as he comes
barreling out of his front door.
3.
I can take
a vacation day. I just
had two weeks of vacation!!!
4.
I can work
at home.
I decided to take
this opportunity to experiment with “telecommuting”.
The question was, could I find enough work to keep me busy for
eight hours? And did I have
the self-discipline to actually
work when there’s no one to know if I didn’t?
The answer, of
course, was “yes” to both.
Telecommuting has some definite advantages and disadvantages.
One advantage is the time that you save.
You save an hour not driving to get to work and another hour not
driving to get home. (This
doesn’t even address the time you save not having to put on any make
up.) And you save money by
not buying lunch, just find something in the freezer.
Of course, there are
people who might ask, “Why don’t you save money all the time by taking
your lunch to work?” The
answer is, I’ve tried it and it just doesn’t work.
Sandwiches are invariably stale on one side and soggy on the
other. What you brought
isn’t what you feel like eating.
Someone suggests going out to lunch and you have to decide if
you’re going to “save this lunch for tomorrow” when the sandwich will
really be stale.
And, in my case, I probably won’t be where the sandwich is
tomorrow.
And besides, the
refrigerator in “Livermore” looks like it contains science experiments
from the late ‘70’s.
There are also
disadvantages to telecommuting.
First of all, it’s boring.
There’s no one to talk to.
I called my
Voice Mail at work every hour on the chance that someone needed to
talk with me, but no one left any messages.
When I’m at the office, I’m constantly being “interrupted” and
moan about not getting any work done.
Yesterday I worked non-stop (except for lunch, when I watched
Perry Mason while eating
spaghetti from the freezer) for eight hours without a single person
walking in on me with a question, or comment, or “did you catch
Hercules
last night?”
On the other hand, I
now have four new
Versatile
report formats, some of which the RACS people have been clamoring for
these past few months. And
the Salvation Army has a “new” TV, along with two giant yard bags filled
with clothes, sheets, pillow cases, towels, board games, vacuum cleaner
bags for the cleaner that died, old jigsaw puzzles and a bag of
potpourri. And some large
cushions that didn’t work out as well as I’d thought they would a few
years ago.
I’ve been meaning to
get rid of a lot of old stuff for quite some time.
It started with the TV, moved on to the under-the-bed boxes of
old clothes, then quickly escalated to the linen closet.
Now, I actually have some room for new stuff.
As for
telecommuting, I think it will work for the odd day when you have to be
home to let the plumber in, but not as a steady diet.
Love, as always,
Pete
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