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Welcome Back. . Where’s My Report?

June 7, 2018

Vacations are great. I took one over the weekend to the Grand Canyon. (I’m still not ready to write about it. It was beyond my ability to describe. But, I’m working on it.)

I got back on Wednesday. I’d arrange for backups to cover while I was out. Sure enough we have two outages that my backups had to cover.

170/218

That was the number of unread and total messages I had waiting in my inbox. It wasn’t too bad, actually. But, most of them required some amount of attention.

Rodney, we are still waiting on the list of network hardware for your client sites. Please send it as quickly as possible.

– Signed Client

It was almost the first thing my boss asked me after “Welcome back.”

Are you going to get that report to them? It’s been almost three weeks.

Yeah, but we had a meeting on Thursday right before I left. I had all our network architects on it. We answered all their questions.

Apparently not all of them.

Yeah, I’ll get it done.

There’s an old joke about a guy who went to the afterlife and was offered his choice of which level of hell he wanted. Room #1 was sweltering hot and the people there had to work constantly shoveling coal into a huge blast furnace that kept hell heated. It was brutal work with massive shovels.

Room 2 was a full of people pushing huge heavy turnstiles that were connected to fans that spread the heat around. The people had worn grooves in the stone floor they were walking so long.

Room 3 was a massive cesspool. The people here were standing wastedeep in raw sewage.

“I guess I’ll take this one,” the newest sinner offered.

“Are you absolutely sure? You cannot later change.”

“Yes, I’ll accept this as my eternal punishment. It’s smelly, but otherwise doesn’t seem too bad.”

He waded in and joined the other victims. Just then a voice range out, “Okay, break’s over. Everyone back on your heads”

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my job. I didn’t actually miss it while I was gone. I was out of cell phone range and there was little I could have done about it anyway. But, the thing about coming back from vacation is that stuff builds up. You have a massive pile waiting for.

Fortunately, I only have 90 more messages until I’ve drained the room.

Okay, maybe less metaphors tomorrow.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

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(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

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