This morning I did something I think I’ve only done once before—I caught the 7:15 bus. Today’s observations:
- Upon boarding, thoughts at first glance for an open seat: “This is the service crowd.” I remember thinking that the last time I rode an earlier bus. Folks in various types of uniforms: fast food workers, grounds keeping workers, and health care workers.
- The adorable little girl and her adoring mother (who usually get off at my work stop where the mother goes to work or classes—with her “Genetics” notebook—and the little girl goes I know not where) surprised me in two ways this morning:
- By being on this early bus, and
- By getting off the bus at the stop after I got on. They get on the bus at the stop before mine, which I only know because they get off at that stop on the way home at night. Surely they didn’t get on at the stop before mine and off at the stop after mine, as that would easily be a walkable distance. Perplexing. For easier reference, I think I’ll refer to this duo as “Madonna and child” in future postings.
- Pink Backpack Lady got on at her usual stop, but lo and behold, today she carried a black purse. I’ve never seen her without that pink backpack on and at least one other pink article of clothing or accessory to match it.
- The lady sitting in front of me, who works in the health care industry (at least I’m guessing so from her nurse’s smock) had a small, rolling, black suitcase with her and a face that seemed to say, “I’m heading back in time, to simpler place in time,” and by reflex I thought, “Oh yes she is.”
- At a subsequent stop, a somewhat unkempt man took the seat behind me and began talking to no one in particular, saying out loud, “It’s damn cold in here. It’s warmer outside.” For some reason, I thought of this short (relatively, at 12 minutes, but has been viewed over a million times) film on communications.
I had three meetings today, the first being our weekly staff meeting, which ended early as the agenda for this meeting generally contains items from a meeting of the managers that happens on Mondays. But, yesterday was a holiday, so no such meeting occurred to generate agenda items.
My second meeting was a “Lunch & Learn” on the topic of Identity Management and Access Management. It was an overview of that kind of work that’s currently going on for our university and being led out of our organization.
My third meeting was an Education & Training meeting, where one of the most relieving things I learned was that WolfWise is simply NC State’s customized configuration of GroupWise. Believe it or not, that little tidbit cleared up a lot of things for me. I also learned a few productivity tips with regards to GroupWise functionality that I got excited enough about to affirm my geek status.
The trainer, Twanda Baker, and who works in my area, is just an exceptional instructor and I told her as much afterwards.
Thank goodness I had my umbrella with me, as I encountered a downpour walking back to my building halfway across north campus.
In spite of getting in early, I stayed at work until 9:00, catching the 9:15 bus home. My friend, and colleague, Jen, came into my office around 5:00 and asked me if I’d be able to start on an edit of a publication we’re putting together whose due date is imminent. I worked on that for a couple of hours.
I like it when I leave work late enough to leave both my laptop bag and my soft-sided briefcase at work. No fuss. No muss.
Once home, in spite of the hour, I drove over to Food Lion for a quick grocery run, where at 10:15 at night, I got behind a woman who had a rather large order, but which was almost done being rung up. Mistake.
She plopped a huge stack of coupons down on the counter. The cashier had to stop after every third one or so as the scanner beeped. “Did you get two boxes of Ritz?” “Brown mustard’s not working. Did you get that?” And so it went.
Finally, scanning several coupons two or three times and pressing various ignore and override buttons (I presume), and thinking the fat lady had finally sung, said fat lady said, “Oh yeah, and I need two pack of Merits—in the box,” which of course the cashier had to walk around the corner to get. “Are these the right kind?” she checked before ringing them up.
It was time to swipe the credit card. Line behind me now has grown long. Manager has asked our cashier to stay a little late until “the line dies down.” Kathy Koupon has her credit card out, about to scan. Cell phone rings. Missy takes the call. Collective groan.
Talking, while trying to push buttons to answer questions on the card reader, she finally says, “Just a minute,” actually to the caller as opposed to the machine, and finishes her transaction.
At home, I pretended that the package of hot dogs I was putting in the freezer was her head.