That's a wrap.

What a week.

I haven't been this glad it was a Friday for a long time. No wait, I think I feel this way pretty much every Friday night. What a fricken long, tiring, stressful, clusterfuck of a week.

It is my first taste of being in charge - I think it has gone fairly well, especially considering my first stint at being the point man also coincided with the third busiest time of the year for us. I had at least one staff member off every day. An integral program failed all week long. I realized I was sending the same information every day, no changes, causing a lot of delays for many people (unintentionally) because part of the file that I was grabbing was listed in lower case letters instead of upper case letters, and in no training manual, or in the training I got from the person I took over from (in their defense they were a temp, and frankly didn't have a huge vested interest in the program, beyond the small fraction of what they were shown) was it listed that it was important to have the whole file name listed in upper case letters. I assumed that the extension part could be lower case... well. Huge mistake. Most of the issues should sort out tonight.. the rest will hopefully sort out on Monday when I run my program again - I asked for a data refresh and that is being run tonight. Fingers crossed, it goes well and by Tuesday I can let the mob.... er... folks that are clamoring at our door know that everything is all good.

This is a short lived stint, since my supervisor is in Hawaii, but a welcome one. I was at my old job 10 years and never got to take the reins, and I have been in this just barely a month and I have been making decisions left, right, and centre, hosting team meetings, checking in with folks, and running with the ball. It is nice to feel valued in a different way, and to have more control... and best of all, to have a window with a view. Some days, my office is so bright I have to angle my monitor so I can actually see what is going on. Crazy! What a nice change from the broom closet I had at the old place, and then the box within a box, within a box, within a box I had not even a year ago.

Some days I can't believe the changes of the last year.

Then I met with the anal retentive archives dude yesterday, hoping to get rid of the 22 boxes in my office. A grand total of 6 boxes are officially ready to go. I then needed to spend a few hours I didn't have fixing another 11. One will stay put until they have a chance to go through the types of files in there and assign a retention period since we started making up our own numbers. Then I have another 6 boxes beyond my door that I think I am just going to be in denial about and wait for a motivated day when I feel the urge to do one final push for records management and get it out of here.

Of course, I love it when things get done, like yesterday. The wheels they don't turn so fast in a large institution. I am hoping those 6 boxes are gone next week. An approval to send off the other 11 to the archives would be nice as well, and I will optimistically hope that they will be gone the week after. Who knows about the rest.

In another 6 weeks the rest of my office furniture shall arrive.

Next week I may go and switch out the art work I have. It is some funky interpretive that I have hanging on the wall that does nothing for me.

That said, it has been a decent week at work - I have certainly bonded with my coworkers, and well, I have learned a few things the hard way. Seem a few stars, and well, some that fulfill different roles in the overall scheme of things.

What else?? It feels like work has dominated this week.

Brandon is fighting a cold - which is a far cry better than fighting the flu. Ken's between the pipes tonight, and I went out for dinner with Brandon and my folks to this funky little Italian place up the street. It was brilliant. It was a great departure from this week - marking a real end to it, and running in to the weekend. Granted the beer I had probably helped.. that and the latte with a shot of sambucca dropped in to it also helped.. LOL

Man, I can ramble when I set my mind to it.

My next goal is to update Brandon's adventures. I have been remiss in the last 6 weeks. It has been hard enough putting a few thoughts up here, every now and then, than trying to put up some new pics of him. It's Mum's Day this weekend. Wow. It is starting to feel real - like it isn't just about my mum anymore. My daycare lady floored me today when I picked B up - she had a picture she had made from hand cut outs, and B's picture in the middle, and a poem. If I was a crier, I would have been croaking out big crocodile tears. As it was, I was a little emotional but none of the wet stuff seeped out.

So, off I run.