The causes are varied.
#1 - My trusty thumb drive, the one with a ton of invaluable whatnot about my freelance work on it, died on me last week. Since I hadn't copied over the data since the end of April, I'm missing 60 days worth of information--some of it pretty significant. Sigh.
That's the aggravation that's really been preying on my mind the for the last week.
#2 - Due to circumstances beyond my control (sometimes you have to just be at peace with the idea of interruptions) (disinterest and disinclination were also factors) I haven't done much to manage the 'Nut campaigns in the last couple of weeks. I ran one reports this morning and there are red flags all over the place. Fortunately, it's the busy season right now, so I'm not getting enraged phone calls, but I'm determined to spend the next three days getting caught up. Sigh.
Only three days, though, because after that I have to do month-end reporting.
#3 - I've been in the middle of a project of trying to get my bedroom actually organized and tidy. (I believe I droned on about the dumping of that last plastic bookcase a few months ago.) What I need now are two more of the more expensive wood bookcases, but having just spent $900 on a new mattress, I'm having trouble giving myself permission to go ahead and buy them, so I can move ahead with the project.
- #3a - But there's a different bookcase that I saw this weekend that attracted me and I'm thinking of getting it instead. The shelves fold up when they're empty. That would be very useful on the bottom--it would make cleaning under it much easier, no need to completely unload the thing and try to move it--just empty the one shelf. I really like that idea. Sadly, I don't like the look of that bookcase nearly as much, and I'm not at all convinced it won't look cheap and nasty next to my other one.
I'll probably stick with my original selection and keep using a long-handled gizmo to get under them, but the image of myself just flipping the shelf up and swizzing the vacuum cleaner into the space lingers on.
- #3b - Part of the Great Room Reorganization is the Great Closet Clear-out. I'm shocked and astonished to have to report that I actually found another giant garbage bag full of "stuff" to throw out this past weekend. I'm long past understanding where it's all coming from.
#4 - Bernie still refuses to be fired. I billed him a week or so ago for the first few weeks of the work with the Funhouse gang and he paid me - I got a check on Friday. Since I used to work for him, I know that he normally pays invoices only on the 10th! His promptness this time was very suspicious.
I did almost no freelance work this weekend. I had intended to do a number of things, but Residual Aggro over the behavior of the Funhouse gang left me largely disinclined. (Also, yes, I got all distracted by cleaning, laundry, and throwing out trash, all of which I did in a big way. I think I can now officially declare Spring Cleaning as done. I can honestly say that that apartment--at least, the parts of it I'm responsible for cleaning--has not been this clean in a couple of years. Clearing out some clutter so I could get to various nooks and crannies to clean them was very satisfying.)
#5 - I bought some new jeans a while back--maybe six weeks ago. I may have to throw them away. In spite of repeated washings, they smell. They're fine in the washer and when they come out of the dryer, but then a few hours later there's a weird smell--the R.C. thinks it's like gasoline, but it smells like fireworks (gunpowder) to me. I searched around online--a number of people have posted about this in the last five years and the general consensus is that it gets less obnoxious in a few years, but never really goes away.*
Last night I got my PJs out of the closet where they'd been hanging next to the jeans and I realized that the PJs had picked up Smell from the jeans.
I'm really not comfortable going around smelling.
#6 - When I arrived at the office this morning, I immediately noticed that all the doors have fancy new deadbolts on them. (Must remember to get a key.) Clearly that conversation I overhead a week or so ago, between two people from a different office suite, about breaking in to offices was not just random chat. If that's what happened, it's the second break-in this building has had in the last two or three months.
It's sort of peculiar--there are no retail or cash-based businesses in the building and no pharmaceutical offices of any kind. I can't figure out what someone would break into this building for. If there had been wholesale removal of, for instance, computer equipment, I'm sure word would have gotten around, but I haven't head anything like that. (In fact, I've heard nothing--I hate it when there are Unusual Happenings and I'm left in the dark.)
It's possible, of course, that this is related to the previous d-e-a-t-h threat event.
4:00 p.m. update
For anyone who cares? #2, above? I got through 3 campaigns today.
What prevented me from working today, you ask?
30 minutes lost to a follow-up project from last week's issue of the 'Nut News.
An 11:30 lunch I forgot I promised to attend (Obligatory Coworker Bonding) that I got free from at 1:15.
Then a 2:00 conference call--I appeared on time and waited 15 minutes, only to be told it was being rescheduled to 2:30. At 2:30 it was rescheduled to 3:30. At 3:30 one guy dialed in and chatted about his personal life until 4:00 when he and NewBoss Anais decided the remaining participant wasn't going to appear and we' d have to reschedule it for tomorrow.
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* No one knew the cause, although the obvious culprit is the particular dye being used. Personally, I suspect some sekrit government project to experiment on us all. Or, you know. some kind of border fumigation/extermination process.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:02 PM | Comments (6)Today, I am not wigging out. Not. I am determined to be a calm person.
By and large, I had a calm weekend. As if to prove that I actually had been under stress, I slept in until 10:00 Saturday morning. Later, I went to Target (laundry soap, Kleenex, etc.) and Michaels ($5 on sewing stuff) and that's pretty much it. I did some laundry and a little cleaning. I barely worked at all--a couple of hours.
You'd think I'd be better rested today but we're at the time of year when it doesn't really start cooling off outside until 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. and since I can't fall asleep until it cools off, I'm starting this week already down 2-3 hours on sleep.
Still. Not wigging out, which is good.
We believed we were now living in an infestation-free zone. As I believe I've already whined about at length, we have scrubbed, sprayed, vacuumed, brushed, and laundered--over and over and over. We have not seen any vermin since that first twelve-hour period, and certainly not since sprayer man sprayed us last Wednesday.
I am bug, bite, and freak out-free, but the R.C. has been bitten twice, so I called the apartment people today and asked for a follow-up this Wednesday.
Which does mean, yes, that tomorrow evening I have to unload all of the bottom shelves on all the bookcases again so the sprayer man can get behind them, empty the floor of the hall closet and the floor of my closet for the same reason, pile it all on the one available surface (this is not an apartment that abounds in empty table-tops--or even an abundance of table-tops) and then on Wednesday morning the beds have to be stripped so we can heave the mattresses up to lean against the walls and I have to pull the living room furniture out to the middle of the floor.*
On the plus side, no one can claim the blasted apartment is not clean.
I don't know what kind of vermin we're talking about. It can't be the B-bug because the R.C. got bit once while stretched out in the middle of the brightly lit living room floor, reading a book.
It can't be the Carpet Ones I had them spray for last week because the R.C. says she didn't feel the bite happen. One of those Carpet Ones bit me that first night--trust me, you couldn't miss that, especially if you were awake. (Think of being stuck carelessly with a large, dull needle.)
Also, Bernie refuses to be fired, even though I sent him an email last week saying to find someone else. Instead, he called today to offer me three more crazies clients and also to offer to come down to Denver so I can lecture him on setting client expectations. (He remains very eager to have me freelancing full-time. How do you tell someone who prides themselves on being a "marketer" that their skill-set and knowledge are inadequate to provide the necessary support to enable you to work for them?)
Tonight, I have (rescheduled) plans to get together with friends. I need a night out so badly.
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* I am not going to start on the project this evening. We did all of this three days in advance the last time and I'm still tired just thinking about what a PitA it was trying to live around the furniture instead of with it.
I am having far too much life these days.
'Nutwise, we continue to suspect serious problems with data collection for the new websites. Unfortunately, the guy primarily responsible for the code is off on his honeymoon, so all we can do is to collect questions until he returns. Things are going to the wrong place, winding up in the home office because the system can't figure out where else to send them, or seeming to disappear into thin air before magically reappearing hours later.
I'm helpless without the reporting tools I need. Things might look wrong, but if I can't get the data I need, I have no way of figuring out if they are wrong. This is a very seasonal business. Are the performance changes we're seeing related to seasonality or are we a disaster ticking toward total meltdown?
I really don't want to think about it.
Also 'Nutwise, me taking on the Ontarians campaign has proven to be a problematic suggestion, involving political and financial complications I was previously unaware of.
Because the 'corporate' office for our northernmost neighbors found it easier to pay for the advertising themselves than to convince the Ontarians 'Nuts to kick in, the individual Ontarians have come to view lead generation as SEP. They expect a magic flow of free and constant leads.
Because said corporate office is now tired of funding the advertising, they're reluctant to keep paying.* They want us to take it on (and, not incidentally, make the Ontarians pay for their own advertising from now on).
Because the whole northern set-up is quasi-independent, we don't make as much revenue from the Ontarians as we do from the Stateside 'Nuts, under the best of circumstances. That means we will need to charge a slightly higher campaign management fee for the Ontarians than we charge the Stateside 'Nuts. This is a problematic suggestion to a group of people who aren't even paying for their own leads, much less for campaign management.
But--and this is where the migraines start--the new website structure means the Ontarians campaign is now driving traffic to the Café's .com website, instead of the original .ca website. That means that their poor quality scores and poor campaign performance are, for the first time, having an impact on what I do. A very unsavory one. The campaign cannot be left as it is. Someone has to start actually managing it.
I've had little or no time for routine campaign management for my own 35 campaigns in the last 30 days. Website issues and other 'Nut-related projects are taking up almost all my time. I logged in and glanced at a few campaigns yesterday and found my own quality scores in the basement, headed toward the sewer. (The affect of the Ontarian campaign now sharing our domain name, yes.)
I really don't want to think about it.
In the land o'Bernie, I haven't heard from him in two days. That's fine. I spent all weekend trying to explain to him that this account was doomed before we started, because of the client's "I don't know what I'm doing but do it my way anyhow" approach and I'm still not sure I got through to him. Now that the entire account is garbage, he's convinced the client to stand back and let me manage it--with the unexpressed but clearly implicit assumption that any failure from here on out can be blamed on me.
I haven't touched his campaigns since Sunday--just didn't need to be depressed that badly--but I do plan to glance at them today. I have my fingers crossed that some of Sunday's massive changes are producing performance improvement--no matter how minor. The campaign was pretty much in the sewer, so any change in performance would almost have to be an improvement.
I really don't want to think about it.
I had little time to manage Gidget's campaigns this past weekend. Haven't really heard from her this week (or last) that much, either. A few requests for data that I pulled and emailed. Must find time to see/chat with her this week. She wanted me to set up a lunch date with DiamondGirl, but neither my work day nor my brain are leaving me the freedom to do that at the moment.
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* Also, their campaign is appalling. The first commandment of campaign management is, "Thou shalt not leave a campaign unmanaged." As far back as I bothered to check the data, they've been breaking that one almost daily.
Life on the home front remains--eventful.
I spent two hours on research Sunday night and have determined that the b-u-g issue is not what we suspected--it's a beetle, instead, of the "carpet" variety. (Clearly I have been slacking off on cleaning the baseboards next to the carpet, since that's where they tend to come from. In my own defense, I doubt that anyone could keep that 20 year-old carpet really clean, but the truth is that I have not really focused on that part of the floor. I am now unlikely to forget it ever again.)
I've been frantically cleaning around and next to baseboards for several days. We haven't seen a bug in four or five days*, but I am Deeply Suspicious of any surface--especially any close to the floor--that hasn't been swept, vacuumed, cleaned, and then disinfected.
Even after last Wednesday's cleaning frenzy, I (and the R.C.) found it possible to spend most of the weekend cleaning. Laundry (bedding and clothes, over and over), floors (including spot-cleaning a couple of stains) over and over, bathroom (no bugs there, but it has to be done every week anyhow), kitchen (no bugs, but ditto), hauling out yet more trash, taking donations to the charity drop-off, moving a few things to storage, etc.
The hall closet is now clean and tidy--a project the R.C. and I have been meaning to get around to for six months.
My bedroom closet is both cleaner and neater. Not exactly tidy, but there were things I wanted to do that I can't do until after tomorrow.
I've managed to get to 75% of the baseboards in my bedroom (must unload that last bookcase's bottom shelf tonight and finish the job) and about 50% of the living room (there are only so many hours in a day) and the ex-ter-mina-tor comes tomorrow so that should help finish getting us cleaned up.
I was supposed to meet friends for dinner this evening but I've had to cancel. I have too much left to do this evening and I just can't think about anything but that my living environment is Unclean! and that I am a disgustingly bad housekeeper.
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* In reality, we only ever saw them during one 12-hour period. I saw them at 3:00 one morning, we started disinfecting the apartment at 2:00 that afternoon--the R.C. saw one at that time, I saw three, and we never saw another one. Nor have either of us been nibbled on in our sleep. I suspect I got all, or nearly all, of them that first day. Which has not prevented me from Wigging Out on a daily basis ever since. Every piece of lint I see on the carpet leads my brain to see b*u*g*s and I go into a short cleaning frenzy for that entire area.
It's so nice to be back at work (Hah!) Even CEOJason made an effort to speak to me Monday, not only thanking me for the special candy bar I bought him before I left town, but saying that sales dropped off 50% the week I was out of the office (by way of indicating my importance).
No one asked me about Las Vegas, though. NewBoss Anais asked if I had fun on my "week off" is all. No one else mentioned it at all. I was gone for a week. Maybe no one noticed?
I want to blog the fun, and I will, with back-dated posts, but in the meantime I'm getting behind on blogging current drama.
Continue reading "'Nuttery Updates"Home Drama. Sigh. Color me humiliated.
Before I start, let me say that the apartment gets dusty sometimes, especially in summer when we have the windows open so much, but we are not dirty people. We do clean regularly. We don't have any animals in the apartment, it's an inside entrance, so we don't track in mud and/or whatnot from the outdoors, either. We bathe, do laundry, carry out the garbage regularly and frequently, and don't let nasty dishes sit around in the sink or on the counters.
I'm just saying that if Some People don't stop delicately suggesting that I do some cleaning and/or change my bed linens occasionally, I'm going to start screaming.
Continue reading "I'm back and I'm buggy!"