This morning I returned to work for the first time in 17 days. I’ve been in Hawai’i most of this month, a six-day vacation on Maui followed by an 11-day Habitat for Humanity build trip on Moloka‘i.
I was struck by the inanity of my reactions to a few things as I started the workday.
First, the bit of SQUEE when my badge worked to let me into the building, and then into my secured workspace. No reason it shouldn’t have worked, but it’s always nice when you return from an absence and you can still get into the office.
Second, someone stole my chair. I’m using a different chair that isn’t quite right, does not have the adjustments just the way I was accustomed before I left.
Next, my monitors are at the wrong height, and I can’t seem to get them where I want them to be despite wrestling with the adjustment arm half a dozen times in the hour I’ve been here so far.
My work email had 7,000 unread items in it, and Outlook is still yakking with the Exchange server to synchronize and index everything. So I can’t search or sort mail effectively yet.
And now I’m delayed in my work by an network credential that expired and I have updated, but has not propagated fully through my primary domain. I can’t connect to any network resources right now.
All of which seems absurdly important on the one hand—how am I supposed to get anything done if my primary communication methods aren’t working the way I need?—and laughably stupid on the other, because I just spent 11 days helping to build a house for a family who had been waiting more than 20 years for permission to build on their own land because a government bureaucracy kept dragging its feet and piling delays at every turn.
A few hours’ wait for my email to sync and index and my network login upate to propagate?
Totally okay with it now.
