~Thursday~ I caught the 8:15 city bus. On board, the air was stagnant. The driver was the same one as yesterday, who mustn’t get hot herself, nor think beyond herself of the potential comfort, or discomfort as it were, of her customers. It was uncomfortable enough that I wondered if it wasn’t worth trying to start catching the 7:45 bus in hopes of getting a more “tuned in” driver.
At the Gorman and Conifer stop, I may have witnessed one of the last true gentlemen—one who still sees his girl off in the morning. He made sure she was on the bus and seated before he walked away.
For most of the ride on Gorman Street, the driver was on the two-way radio with a dispatcher who was drilling her about not leaving a sync stop on time. She kept saying, “But I’m not at Cameron Village. I’m over on Gorman passing Western now.” She said that at least three times.
When the conversation finally ended, someone in the back said, “It’s hot up in here.”
I had two work meetings today, the first being from 10:45-12:00 and the second from 2:00-3:30. I like meetings that start at 10:30 or later in the morning, as it’s not unusual to have either procrastinated getting to work needing done before the meeting, or not having been able to prioritize it up until then.
Our afternoon meeting was our weekly working department meeting, and my boss and my officemate and I worked on the job description for the job that will be advertised when my manager retires on September 1st or October 1st. Right now, it looks like she’ll be leaving on September 1st, but she won’t officially retire until October 1st.
It’s going to be interesting to see how things get reorganized upon her departure and how her position gets filled.
Robert and I finished one of our highest-scoring game of Scrabble today; that is, the game in which I’m quite sure we both had such a high score in the same game.
As I predicted I’d have to do on Tuesday, I called the CAT bus folks today to see if anything has been done about my e-mail sent on Tuesday, or if anyone has even seen it. When the person on the customer service line answered, I asked to speak to a manager or supervisor, but he wanted to know “the nature of my call” before he would transfer me.
When I told him I’d sent e-mail to catinfo@raleighnc.gov on Tuesday and I’ve not had any response so I’m calling to follow-up on it, he put me on hold long enough to, what I imagine was, verify that there was such an e-mail sitting in the inbox of the account I noted.
“I’m going to transfer you to a supervisor now, Mr. Martin.”
After way too many rings, Stanley Grant’s voice mail picked up and my message said something to the effect of, “Well, I thought I was being transferred to someone to talk to, but I guess I’ll talk to a machine instead.” I explained that I’d sent a complaint e-mail on Tuesday, hadn’t had any response yet, and I was wondering when that might happen. Before I hung up, I left my name and work phone number.
About two hours later, I returned to my office to find a voice mail from him saying that he couldn’t hear any of what I’d said except my name and number, which he hoped he’d gotten right. “I even played it three times, with the volume turned all the way up, and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t hear what you were saying.” He left me his phone number again and his personal e-mail address either with which he said I could be back in touch.
I forwarded my original note to him at the e-mail address he gave me, and I called back to tell him that he had reached the right person and that I’d sent him e-mail. I never heard back from him the rest of the day.
As I was rushing to catch the bus home, our intern, Kaitlin, was leaving and she offered me a ride home. We waited outside and were talking with Jen Riehle and Tim Lowman on the sidewalk when Kaitlin’s boyfriend, Alex, drove up.
I took a 2.5-hour nap before heading down to Flex for Trailer Park Prize Night, but more importantly for Alex’s birthday. For most of the time I was there, I hung out with Steve Price, Alex Torres, and Steven Chapman—who knew I’d still know who these people are a year later after the comment I made in this blog entry in July of 2009, which some people can’t seem to let go of. 🙂