Ice, ice baby

No automatic ice makers here. At this point, I’ve gotten used to not having them, but I really do miss iced tea, as opposed to cold tea.

At home, I have a little ice tray. It’s nothing much, just a cute little silicone mold that makes little hearts. They’re maybe a third the size of a real ice cube, and about three times the trouble.

Silicone ice trays are fun little novelty things, but they’re very bendy, and it’s hard to get them from the counter to the freezer without them spilling all over. I need some kind of plastic flat surface to put it on while I transfer it, but that’s not happening right now.

Plus, my freezer is really too small for such things. I went on a housing board tour to all the properties where we have people and have solidified the fact that I have the worst kitchen of everyone I work with. Not that it’s bad, just that it’s small, has a door on it (which knocks down on the space even more), the tiniest amount of counter space and the smallest fridge/freezer.

It’s perfectly fine for me, even though the kitchen does smell like swamp gas sometimes due to some big vent thing that’s outside the window. But during the tour, I mentioned it to the person here and they were all appalled and as soon as it happens again I can call them and they can come up and take a whiff so they know what I’m talking about. Some pipe somewhere is backed up.

My place does, however, have the best pool of the bunch, the coolest movie room and the only mini-gold course so I am not complaining whatsoever.

In general, the freezers here are a bit smaller and weirder than they are in the States. They don’t have shelves. They simply have drawers. You can’t just open up the door and toss something in; it’s a rigmarole to open the door all the way in order to be able to pull out a drawer, then you tend to find that that particular drawer is a bit shallow for whatever it was, so you have to try again.

My entire freezer is really small, but large enough because I don’t exactly have a hurricane’s worth of food in there. One drawer, the largest, has two things you put in ice chests to keep things cold (they came with the place) and a bunch of little boxes of Junior Mints. That’s also the only drawer deep enough to keep the sandwich bread.

The one at work is larger, and one day I noticed one of the temporary workers playing in a drawer. She said she was refilling the ice trays.

I had NO idea there were ice trays in the freezer at work, so this was good news for my tea. (Every night, I make about two quarts of tea. One comes to work with me and eventually gets a bit warm, and the other lives at home and I drink it at night. No wonder I cannot sleep through the night.)

When I refilled the trays and got a closer look, I discovered they were “semi-automatic.” For purpose here, that mean they were two little ice trays, the kind you fill up with water, arranged in a little compartment that slides outside the door of this little freezer. It slides out to refill them both at once.

When they freeze, there is a little mechanism on the handle of the compartment that you twist. The two trays then rotate, dropping the ice into a second shallow drawer, which can be pulled out to retrieve the ice cubs.

It’s just absolutely brilliant in its simplicity, and it’s opened the world of late-morning/early-afternoon tea drinking. That’s how long it takes for my Nalgene of tea to get warm, so now I have iced tea – with actual ice cubes – late in the day.

Safety First

We have a big party planned for Independence Day and I feel like I’ve been in meetings forever.

It’s kind of like the other event we had. We spend forever going back and forth with emails to straighten stuff out, then have a meetings to undo all the progress we made in the emails.

Anyway, as we inch up to the week of the Fourth, I already feel like I’m spending a lot of the work day doing things other than regular work and this week I feel like I just gave up any hope whatsoever.

It’s just a nutso time. On Monday, I got hauled into some other meeting that had something to do with this weekend: could I skip half the day on Friday and work, possibly until Monday, doing something else? I have no idea I was in this meeting, but I essentially got voltentold to do a temporary duty thing, which I’m on now.

Monday evening, I also had to stay late – and then return – to get some communication out. It had been sitting in my drafts folder for a week waiting on the right people to tell me it was done. And, after that took forever, of course it came through at 4:45 and no one knew HOW it was to be sent.

I did what I was told and sent it, then was told I did it wrong and had to do it again, so I did it again and went home – at 6:30. THEN, as soon as I got home, I got a call that said it was wrong again, go back and do it again. (For the record, I’d done exactly as instructed.)

So I went back and did it again. I then looked at what I had done, and noted that it, indeed, had been done correctly. The person who said it had been missing something had not looked through the entire thing to see it.

And that person called me AGAIN to tell me to send it a fourth time, but after I explained where the info was, it was OK. At least until the next morning, when more crap went wrong. Essentially, I delivered it to the office, and it was up to the office to give it to the right person but I had no control over that.

More information than is relevant, but that was my Monday and Tuesday – dealing with a communication that took forever and finding out I was going to have to work the weekend doing something hot, humid and boring.

Tuesday evening, I wound up having to cover the other office late, too. This broke a record for me. I do not normally get opportunities for overtime, but in this one two-week span, I did the outdoor movie, proctored a test on Saturday, worked in the other office and claimed an hour (even though I stayed late two) on the communication thing. Each of those are different money sources, so I had four OT slips to sign this week. That didn’t even take into consideration that the TDY I am on is for an entirely different thing.

So basically, this week was toast as far as regular work goes. As soon as I would into a groove, something happened. I think Thursday was the worst, though.

We have a monthly meeting at the end of that day, and there was a Fourth planning meeting, too. But to start the day, I had to go get a piece of mail addressed to my boss.

Last year, one of the units in my department received an envelope containing some white powder. In the end, everything was OK, but panic ensued and they had to do lockdown, scrub downs and everything. I wasn’t there, but it was a pretty scary thing.

As an aside, I am also on the WMD team, meaning if another incident occurs, I’m going to be the one scrubbing down my colleagues. I have a bright orange suit to wear if that happens. It’s held together with duct tape. (OK, not really held together, but duct tape plays a useful part.)

Thursday, I was working in the other office and the security guy came in. I heard him talking about a situation and it involved another white powder thing.

Next thing I knew, I heard the announcement that we were on lockdown. Because we have a lot of safety drills, another person walked into the office and asked if it was real. I said yes.

And the whole time I was wondering if I was going to get the call to go and suit up, and what I would do if that occurred. I mean, I wasn’t in my real office; I was covering because someone else was at lunch. And I started messaging people in the office where the “incident” was, asking what was going on.

Next thing I knew, we got an all clear, so that was nice. But it was really bizarre. As it turned out, they were able to identify the substance as being harmless, so we didn’t have to do anything. (It had happened to the same small group of people who had the real scare last year, so they were understandably a bit gun-shy and did the right thing by reporting it. Had I not been where I was and knew it was a real call, I would have assumed it was a drill.

So back to work, right? Yay! First time in a week. I got a double order of cards I’d been waiting for and was distributing them when I heard the PA announcer click.

Remember that from elementary and high school? You’re in class, going about your business, and the PA clicks. You freeze, because whatever comes out could change your day. It’s important, right?

And “it” was an announcement of a “disturbance” outside. SERIOUSLY? TODAY? As I’m on a different floor and not even at my desk?

It clicked off and those of us on that floor just looked at each other. Then it clicked again. “This is a drill.” WHEW.

But on the drills, you still have to play along. There’s a real reason, of course, but holy cow, a drill on the same day you have a real alarm?

Usually the drills are nice and short, although they involve sirens and other loud things. This time, though, it kept going. We did the “duck and cover” and someone said the head security guy, among others, were going floor to floor to find out if we were really ducking and covering, so I crawled under someone’s desk.

Then we had the “evacuate” siren and the announcement that floor wardens needed to take charge of their floors. Well, my floor is seriously screwed up – we have one big group that takes up two floors that just changed seating; I don’t even know who’s on my floor anymore – and although I have no idea who my floor warden is, I’ve been told it’s me.

And I was on the wrong floor. So what do you do? Well, I just evacuated with everyone else, although at first I went out the wrong door where I found myself locked in with several others. (Fortunately, it was a “disturbance” and not a “fire” or anything like that, where I could have been a “casualty.”)

But we found the right door and filed out, then stood in the 100-degree heat until it was determined we’d passed the drill. (Note to self: black is a bad color to wear on drill days.)

I have no idea what time we started with the drill, but we got back in at 4:15.

And you’d think that might have canceled the 4 p.m. meeting but no. We went ahead and had it anyway.

Because, because, because, because, because

I’m on month three of my movie outreach. It’s supposed to be outdoors, but that’s kind of touch and go since summer is monsoon season. The first showing, “The Princess and the Frog,” was outside but the second, “An American Tail,” had to be moved inside.

This time, we had as perfect weather as you can get here in the summer – sweltering hot, but not all that humid and definitely not raining.

So we were off to see a wizard, even if we did have – for the third month – some technical difficulties. We have to use the English subtitles (most of the guest speak English well, but it just makes for easier understanding when you can also read it to make sure you’ve got it right) but we don’t use a straight DVD player. Instead, it’s a projector, and at first (and with “Princess”) we didn’t have the remote. And when you hit the wrong button to start – it’s very hard to tell where the stupid dot, arrow or whatever symbol is to know if you’re on the “setup,” “language,” “play,” or whatever other sub-menus there are.

If you miss and start the movie, then you can’t just go back to the menu unless you have the remote. It doesn’t work if you hit stop twice like on most DVDs. And when you play again, it just resumes where you left off.

So the PR guy fiddled with it and we couldn’t get the subtitles on the screen and kept resuming the film. After several tries, we just started it playing with subtitles, but about five minutes in, PR Guy said he’d go get his laptop and play it on there. I then got back up in front and took a poll to see if they wanted to wait another 10 minutes to make the fix and it was unanimous.

We went back to the office to grab the laptop and turns out, there WAS a remote. Now, since we went through this two months ago with “Princess,” I’ve no idea why PR Guy didn’t think to bring it this time, but it was there and we got it, along with the laptop.

And we ended up not needing the laptop. I punched the right buttons and got the subtitles and a round of applause, then we hit the yellow brick road.

Watching it with the audience was like seeing it through a kids' eyes: Most of the people are adults, but they'd never seen this before. It's a truly American thing, and to observe people's reaction at, say, the first glimpse of the in-color Oz, the Horse of a Different Color or the Munchkins was really cool. I could hear oohhs and aaahhs. And watching them make the connection that the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow were her farm pals  was fun. (I'm positive the first time I saw it, I never put that together).

Prior to the movie, I’d given the little spiel about it being the first American fairytale, 75 years old this year, Academy Award for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” first full-length film in Technicolor, etc. I had a map and pointed out Kansas and explained about farmers, too. I'd also gone into some of the quotes from it, so when we got to parts like the Wicked Witch screaming "I'm melting! I'm melting!" or Dorothy’s “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” I could hear them murmuring in recognition. (Having subtitles really helped on that, too.)

We had a quiz after (my straight-A audience!) and then I sent them to home, where there’s no place like. I do think they enjoyed it.

In 1939, that movie must have been phenomenal on the big screen. All the color of Munchkinland. Impressive.

It was my first attempt at a non-cartoon movie, and I hope to build on that. So far, the audience hasn’t exactly peaked – we had about 40 people – and I hope it’ll go past summer. It’s only one night a month and it really is fun to do.

Next month, I’m aiming for “The Rookie.” I hope I don’t ruin my chances to do “Field of Dreams” later by doing a baseball one now, but I am going with the rated G one first.

And that’s been the sum of my excitement lately. I wish I could make up something more interesting, but that really has been it. I also proctored a test today and I have two sets of tentative plans for tomorrow, but it’s possible neither will materialize.

It’s not quite mid-June, but today it was already 95 with a “feels like” 102. And today really wasn’t too humid at all. As we progress through the summer – and I’m really not sure how long it runs – I am pretty sure I am not going to be in to wandering around outside It’s just too miserable.

Working my butt off

Holy cow, summer is a busy time here. My department is just hopping, and will be all summer. It’s usually vacation time, but that’s pretty much why my department is the busy one.

Because the workload has increased – like setting new record for people served on a daily basis – we have gotten a lot of temporary help. Some are what they call “summer hires,” and then there are interns and people on temporary assignment from elsewhere in one way or another, along with temporary local staff, which comes about down a different pipeline.

Plus, it’s also turnover season for the regular staff, because we normally rotate in two-year cycles. Last week, four people left and next week, we have two new people coming in, plus more later this month.

As a result of this influx, I am super busy because I get to process a lot of paperwork on each one of them. Yay! Paperwork! It’s as much fun as it sounds, and I’m already tired of crossing Ts and dotting Is on all the stuff.

In all, Tuesday, we will have a boatload of new faces. (Monday is a holiday.) And I just hope they all make it into the building and get logged on. If not, I am going to be scrambling again.

The interns have already started arriving. This program is an unpaid, 10-week internship. The students, who I guess get college credit, also have to foot their own plane tickets, but they do get housing while here. It would be complicated for a U.S. college student to come over and pay for just 10 weeks of housing in a different country, so I guess this is how it’s done, but the kids are at the beck and call of our housing limitations. They can get housing, but they have to move several times to accommodate incoming and outgoing regular staff members.

In order to fill the gaps, a call went out to host a few and stupid me volunteered. I do have to extra bedrooms, right? So I’ve had two kids all week. The girl left on Friday, so it was nice to be down to just one extra person (times like this make you realize you really do like living alone) and the guy, who really is a nice kid, will leave tomorrow.

That’s just one of the things I’ve volunteered for lately, and I think I might have to step back a bit. It’s sort of hit me that I’m doing this, that and the other in addition to the regular job and while it looks good on my evaluation – a necessary thing for promotion and advancement – it’s kind of insane.

I’m on the housing panel and the WMD team, and I do the monthly outreach things and am on the awards-proofing panel. I’ve also volunteered for additional outreach stuff, mostly because it’s easy OT.

We also have a few elected people who organize the entry-level staffers group. Most posts don’t have this, I don’t think, but since we have close to 50 entry-level folks (meaning in the first or second post), it’s best to have a smaller group disseminating the information to them. This smaller group is of, I think, four people who are elected.

I’m not sure how long the term is, but there’s been one vote so far for two people and now there’s been another call for nominations. I missed the first call and remember thinking, gee, I’d be good at that. So on this one, I pondered it. The email said you could self-nominate but I kind of thought it was bad form.

Last weekend in Hong Kong, my colleague and I talked about it and she said I should be nominated and would do it. And earlier this week, we got a reminder email to nominate someone. Well, I couldn’t find the person to ask if she was going to do it (we switched all the desks around – I cannot find anyone!) and just said what the heck, I’d do it myself and sent the email originator a note that just said, “I’m in.”

Later, I found the email sender and asked if she’d gotten it. She said yes and then kind of chuckled and said, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this or not, but six other people nominated you, too.”

It’s nice to know that people recognize the folks who get things done! And it’s nice that it seems I’ve cultivated a positive image. I mean, I know I work my tail off, but it’s still flattering when someone comes to you and says, “Can you do this? I know you will know how.” And I can’t tell you how many people stop by my desk and start a thought with something like, “I know it’s not your job and there’s no reason you should know this, but can you tell me how …” And then I know.

So that’s cool, and it’s also cool to have colleagues recognize other efforts, too.

I’ve still been madly working out every evening after work and weekend mornings, and one of the guys I work with – he’s in a completely different department – is in there frequently. On Saturday morning, once he was done and I was still on the elliptical, he said, “Do you like compliments?”

Well, who ever says no to that?

He said that he’d overheard some people in the elevator talking about how I’ve lost weight since I’ve been here. I’m down about 35 pounds thus far, and it’s noticeable even to me. I’ve worked my butt off.

My normal clothing is LL Bean perfect fit pants, which I pair with a long-sleeve shirt that I do not tuck in. As much as I like the pants, they do not have belt loops and keeping shirts tucked in isn’t possible so I give up all pretense of it.

On Friday, I opted to wear completely different pants – some black with pinstripes – with a purple LL Bean T-shirt. And damn, I looked good. Several people told me so throughout the course of the day, but it was totally from left field that people were talking about me in the elevator.

Definitely nice to be noticed when it’s in a good way.