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Showing posts from 2016

I am a Pokemon GO statistic

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My husband and I have been playing Pokemon Go for about 2 weeks now. But on the 13th I managed to join the number of players who have injured themselves while playing and I am completely embarrassed by the entire ordeal. So of course I have to share what happened. When I first started playing I couldn't understand how people were getting into trouble while playing. The game is designed so that you don't have to be constantly looking at your phone to play. If you enter the range of a pet, the phone will vibrate. If you are in range of a Pokestop it will play a sound. And catching a pet for the most part requires that you stand still. The loading screen for the game even tells you to make sure you are paying attention to what is going on around you. My husband and I were out for a walk catching Pokemon. I was just a couple tenths of a kilometer short of hatching an egg. We were at our apartment complex and heading back to our building, crossing the street. I wasn't even l

Pokemon GO!

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Pokemon Go is the latest craze in mobile apps. Having never been a fan of Pokemon I wasn't planning on downloading it but alas I was sucked in. It helps that the app is free. My husband downloaded the app this morning and by lunch time he was bragging about how many he had caught already. I couldn't let that stand and started the download. There is a quick tutorial that allows you to catch your first Pokemon. I had a cute little Bulbasaur sitting on my desk at work and caught it with ease. And yes I was slacking off and shouldn't have been playing with it at work. But the longer I waited the farther ahead of me my husband would get. I managed to get my second one while checking the mail at work. Now lately I have been trying to be more active. I bought a new Fitbit and have been active in the challenges my friends and family start. I've given myself a goal of 10,000 steps a day which if I work at it I can finish before I leave work. I have a goal of 1,000 steps ea

Elephants!

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My local zoo has recently built a new elephant habitat which has now been populated with 6 new elephants bringing their total up to 7. The exhibit isn't open to the public until the end of the month but at the end of last week the members got a sneak peak. I just happen to be a member. So here are a few wonderful pictures!

That's not helpful

I work in a courthouse. My desk is in the hallway on the third floor so that I can assist people who get lost in the building. This actually happens a lot. There are actually 3 courthouse on this same intersection. The County Courthouse (where I work), the Historic County Courthouse (where we have some offices and Small Claims Court) and City Hall where they hold their own court for the tickets they write. The court rooms in the other two buildings all happen to be on the 3rd floor while in my building we have no courtrooms on the third floor, they start on the 4th floor and go up to the 10th. I've realized over the past couple of years why I need to be in the hallway to help people. Because nobody else is helpful, or if they try to be, they don't know enough to actually be helpful. I've had so many people show up on my floor and when I tell them they need to be in a different building, they tell me that the people down stairs (information desk and security) told them it wa

No, I don't know who called.

One of the major functions of my job is that of reception, mainly, answering the phone. Between the two offices that I do this for, there are 26 people (including myself) that the call could be for. On top of the actual calls I get for the offices, I get numerous wrong calls throughout the day of people who called the wrong number. When I am unable to answer the phone for some reason my supervisor as well as the interns act as my back up. Nearly every call that comes in gets transferred somewhere. When a call is transferred, the caller ID on the phone I'm transferring to will show the number the call came in on which is normally the main office number (I have a separate number for people to call to get me directly). Now on to the reason for this post. In the law office there are 2 lawyers who, upon coming back to their desk after being away, will look, see they have a missed call, look at the caller ID, see it came from the main line and immediately call me to ask me who called fo

Louisiana Vacation

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Over spring break in March, my husband and I drove down to Louisiana to visit his family. It was a 10 hour drive to his parents house which we did all in one go over night arriving at their house around 6:3o Saturday Morning. This was our first visit in about 7 years. That Saturday happened to be my birthday and the next day was one of hubby's aunt's birthday so we all went out to dinner that evening. The little place we went to had all you can eat catfish. I didn't think to take a group picture of all of us, but I did remember to take a picture of the fish. Yum! I ate a ton of catfish it was so good! The next day we went over to Shreveport to the Boardwalk which is just a shopping are on the Red River. It was a lovely day. My favorite shop was a little place called the Chocolate Crocodile. They had all sorts of chocolate truffles and other candies. I spent a bit much there. Floating Casino on the Red River. The river is red because of all the red soil it travel th

The Art Project

Not everyone has great computer skills. The Assistant Manager where I work is one of them and as the office admin it is my job to help him out. He brings to me what I like to call "Art Projects", documents that have been cut apart, taped back together in another order with hand writing all over them. I then have to turn these into proper documents. Sometimes he would have the original that he took apart electronically to save me some time, but not always. Yesterday he brought me the mother of all art projects. Normally I can finish one he brings me in under an hour, this is a 3 day project. It is a hand drawn organizational chart that I have to try and create electronically with no org chart software. But it isn't just one org chart, its 9 org charts. Well, really there are about 5 as half of them are variations of one another so I'm able to copy and paste then make the small changes. The first was the worst as it was the entire chart and took me 4 hours to complete.

The Shake Up

So there have been some rather big changes going on at work for me lately. About a month ago now our Director of Communications and Community Initiatives was asked to resign. Her position has been eliminated. She had been here for 30 years. It was quite a shock to everyone, most of all her I'm sure. And we had to keep quiet about it for weeks. Everyone in our office knew she was gone, but we were not allowed to talk about it until an official announcement was made. That didn't happen for 3 weeks when finally the media figured it out and published a story. Though because we were not allowed to talk about it, of course everyone knew. Her email was shut off almost immediately so anyone trying to email her would get a bounce back. If that doesn't tell you somethings up, nothing will. On the heels of this change, I found out that the new manager has decided to reorganize pretty much the entire way departments are set up. He wants fewer direct reports and wants to change who is u

Naw, I don't need to know that...

This morning the Law office is holding a huge hearing regarding the Fire Union contract. They are using the commission board room down the hall as well as our two conference rooms to hold people. It's quite the mess and I have no clue really what is going on. But you would think as the receptionist and admin person for the office I would be kept in the loop about the plans. But no, I guess I'm just supposed to sit here and look pretty because nobody has told me jack shit about what the "plan" is. I thought our two rooms were just going to be for over flow, but no they actually have specific people they want sitting in them. So any effort I could give to be helpful is wasted because I don't know what the "plan" is. More and more I wonder what the point of my position is. It seems I'm just here to answer phones and direct traffic on the floor because for the most part I don't have anything else to do. I have my odds and ends that come up here and t

Something Silly

So yesterday I answered a phone call from the CFO who asked to speak to the manager. I ring the manager's phone and it rings and rings and rings. I know he's back there but he isn't answering. Suddenly he is right beside me and asks me what he can do for me. I let him know that the CFO is on the phone and would like to speak to him. He goes back to his office and I transfer the call. The silly part is that he was in his office when I rang him. He heard the phone, looked at it, saw that I was the one calling and decided to walk up to my desk to see what I was calling about rather than just answer the phone. All I could do was laugh and shake my head.