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I actually have to work from home on Fridays
Thursday, March 27 2025
When the recruiter had told me about the job I now have, he billed it as "hybrid," though only just barely. Fridays, I was told, I could work from home. During the interview process, though, the job seemed very much on-site, so I was sure to make it clear to the recruiter that I wanted to have that one day to work from home as promised. Today being Thursday, I had to get ready for this work-from-home thing that nobody had yet talked to me about. So I started by asking the lead developer about the VPN I would need if I had to work from home. Then I added that I was expecting to be able to work from home tomorrow, since that was how the job had been sold to me. The lead developer seemed a little weird about that, saying I should clear it first with the CEO. But then, in subsequent Teams conversation, the lead developer revealed that the office was closed on Fridays and I couldn't actually come in even if I wanted to. By then, the CEO had set up a meeting to discuss what I would be doing on Friday. It all seemed a little excessive, but I went downstairs to that meeting and in the end the CEO's only concern was whether or not I had enough to do on Friday and that if I worked on Fridays (he seemed to suggest there was a possibility that I not, which would be fine), I would be working from home, since there was no other choice. Pretty soon we were back to that jokey banter that makes me like this new job even if there are things about it, particularly my computing environment, that make me want to scream.
Ron, one of the guys who serves as sort of the glue between the blue collar and white collar parts of the company, passed me in the hall or somewhere and noted that I hadn't been with the other guys at lunch today. So I decided to join them with the Tofurkey sandwich and smoothie Gretchen had made for me to bring yesterday but that I'd forgotten and brought today. Immediately, the talkative guy from the manufacturing floor said, "So I hear you're vegan!" And then went on to regale me with the fact that one or more of his kids are vegan and that he himself has learned how to make certain vegan foods. For example, he told me what sounded like an accurate way to make vegan mac & cheese using cashews and nutritional yeast. He went on for awhile like this, with me just nodding my head and grunting now and then. Before long, the conversation that he dominates was back on the subject of golf, and I realized at this point that this guy, the talkative guy, is a bit of a shape-shifter, talking in relentless detail about whatever he thinks the people present want to talk about. (I'd been told that he will also talk this way about software development, a subject he knows nothing about.)
Back home in Hurley at the end of the workday, I heard my first phoebe of the season in New York. (Remember that I'd heard them back on the 18th in the upper Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.) Usually phoebes show up here on March 23rd, but evidently the cold winter and recent cold weather delayed their arrival.
While Gretchen was off at pilates, I decided to finally install a replacement cable modem that Spectrum had promised would produce a faster internet experience. It was bigger and didn't fit into the nice little spot I have for such equipment (screwed to the bottom of a shelf in the laboratory) and it couldn't be powered with my custom three-cord wall wart, so those were big strikes against it. When I found after installing it that the internet was absolutely no faster than it had been, I tried to get the old one working again. But evidently once a cable modem is uninstalled on an account, it can't be re-installed. I talked to tech support (reaching an actual American with an somewhat unprofessional jokey personality), and he lied to me in various ways to explain why I could no longer use the old cable modem, eventually hanging up on me. So I was stuck with the bulky new one that was no better than the unbulky old one. (I'd said to the jokey tech support guy, "I thought things were supposed to get smaller over time!")
Then once I got the simulated landline working again, the phone rang and it was my brother Don, who'd been repeatedly trying to get through. He'd had a frustrating day, telling me that Joy Tarder had taken him to the DMV to try to get him a valid identification only to be turned away because the framed birth certificate he'd brought was a "commemorative" one! I didn't know there was such a thing, and that they exist at all seems like an absurdity. Why would anyone have a birth certificate that is for display only? It's the ultimate participation trophy, saying "congratulations, you weren't assembled in a factory." So now I don't know how Don is ever going to get a valid ID so that I can become his power of attorney or continue receiving his benefits. It's as though he's trapped in the pages of a Kafka novel.
This evening Gretchen and I met Ray and Nancy for dinner at the Yum Yum in Kingston to celebrate Nancy's birthday, which had been back on the 16th. The restaurant was full when we arrived, but we soon had a table and a very nice older waitress. Dinner conversation was mostly about things like my new job and our recent trip to Flordia, though Nancy also talked about her job as remote graphic designer. She's been working that job since July and still hasn't been able to get any health care out of it, which is terrible, since she and Ray depend on expensive health care. We also talked some about the immigrant-hostile machinations of the present administration, and how that affects Ray (who is still a citizen of the Philipines and holds a green card). These days, a green card doesn't protect its holder from being arrested and deported just for writing an article that Trump and his goons do not like, exactly as if we're living in a fascist dictatorship. For these reasons, Ray has no intention of leaving the country and trying to come back in while Trump is in charge. He's also working on getting his citizenship.
Gretchen had made some cupcakes to serve as a birthday cake, though the matches she'd brought didn't work. So our nice waitress found us a lighter. In the collection of gifts was a nice little painting of an octopus I'd done and a book Gretchen had gotten.
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