So. Right.
Jun. 3rd, 2018 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quoththeravynI moved offices, one floor straight up, after 23+ years in that one.
I started work here in 1995 when the Project was starting to hire in a big way. After being in a 6-person double office from June to October, I got a private office (the one I've just vacated). "You are a political animal; who knew?" a friend remarked. I had to protest it was someone else's political animism.
23 years is a long time to accumulate paper. I set myself the goal of downsizing one whole file cabinet (from two to one) and rather outdid myself (why do I need all. those. thesis. drafts. anyway?) so the fact that there are fewer shelves in the new place than the old one (leaving room for a big white-erase board I can't imagine using very much) should not be an issue. Some of the stuff that was on the shelves has gone into hanging file folders (and I still have half a moving box full of empty folders).
Those Dread Boxes On The Top Shelf that I hadn't actually looked at in years? One was ancient backup tapes (I don't think we even have a DLT drive anymore?). The other two were a complete set of acceptance test reports (easily found again if needed) masquerading as ground calibration archive notes (which I thought were likely unique). Out into the blue bin thing with the wheels. Filled four times over, for easily a ton of paper.
It'll be good, I think, being closer to the rest of my little work group. I'll miss some of the neighbors, notably the software guru who would willingly drop whatever he was doing at 4pm on a Friday and help when our software stopped working and we couldn't do stuff that was already overdue when we got it. I'm sure he'd still do that, but I'd have to walk downstairs now. Also the old office was on the way from grad student country to everything else around here, so I had a pretty much complete sample of grad student sightings for a few generations of such critters. Present office is on a dead-end hallway.
All of this is a dress rehearsal for next year, when I have to downsize the house, retire, pull up all my roots, and move back where I came from. Last Move Evar, is the plan. To a place where there are amusements and folks to make food and help if I need it, stairs are optional and the bath is close to the bed. In the present house, it's downstairs and to the opposite corner of the house... being sick in this house would suck, bigtime. A place where there are relatives nearby, but not too nearby.
But the ex wants the house and can afford to assume payments, buying out my interest. So the cat can live out his days right where he is, with, to be sure, different minions and staff, some of whom he might remember from the Before All That. I hope she likes the place. She's younger, for one thing, so it'll be easier for her to keep up with it than it is for me.
Meanwhile there's a spacecraft to babysit. It occurs to me that writing contingency procedures is much like writing science fiction... On a sunny summer afternoon you're trying to imagine what it would be like if the data are making no sense, it's 3AM and the wind is howling and driving snow, the boss is on another continent, and it's Your Problem, Sucka, to figure out what's going on and what to do about it. I could almost imagine a story with alternating pages or chapters or something, set in both of those worlds, with the same character muttering choice words for her former self for leaving out that one thing nobody thought of until the emergency was upon her.
Anyway... how's by you?
I started work here in 1995 when the Project was starting to hire in a big way. After being in a 6-person double office from June to October, I got a private office (the one I've just vacated). "You are a political animal; who knew?" a friend remarked. I had to protest it was someone else's political animism.
23 years is a long time to accumulate paper. I set myself the goal of downsizing one whole file cabinet (from two to one) and rather outdid myself (why do I need all. those. thesis. drafts. anyway?) so the fact that there are fewer shelves in the new place than the old one (leaving room for a big white-erase board I can't imagine using very much) should not be an issue. Some of the stuff that was on the shelves has gone into hanging file folders (and I still have half a moving box full of empty folders).
Those Dread Boxes On The Top Shelf that I hadn't actually looked at in years? One was ancient backup tapes (I don't think we even have a DLT drive anymore?). The other two were a complete set of acceptance test reports (easily found again if needed) masquerading as ground calibration archive notes (which I thought were likely unique). Out into the blue bin thing with the wheels. Filled four times over, for easily a ton of paper.
It'll be good, I think, being closer to the rest of my little work group. I'll miss some of the neighbors, notably the software guru who would willingly drop whatever he was doing at 4pm on a Friday and help when our software stopped working and we couldn't do stuff that was already overdue when we got it. I'm sure he'd still do that, but I'd have to walk downstairs now. Also the old office was on the way from grad student country to everything else around here, so I had a pretty much complete sample of grad student sightings for a few generations of such critters. Present office is on a dead-end hallway.
All of this is a dress rehearsal for next year, when I have to downsize the house, retire, pull up all my roots, and move back where I came from. Last Move Evar, is the plan. To a place where there are amusements and folks to make food and help if I need it, stairs are optional and the bath is close to the bed. In the present house, it's downstairs and to the opposite corner of the house... being sick in this house would suck, bigtime. A place where there are relatives nearby, but not too nearby.
But the ex wants the house and can afford to assume payments, buying out my interest. So the cat can live out his days right where he is, with, to be sure, different minions and staff, some of whom he might remember from the Before All That. I hope she likes the place. She's younger, for one thing, so it'll be easier for her to keep up with it than it is for me.
Meanwhile there's a spacecraft to babysit. It occurs to me that writing contingency procedures is much like writing science fiction... On a sunny summer afternoon you're trying to imagine what it would be like if the data are making no sense, it's 3AM and the wind is howling and driving snow, the boss is on another continent, and it's Your Problem, Sucka, to figure out what's going on and what to do about it. I could almost imagine a story with alternating pages or chapters or something, set in both of those worlds, with the same character muttering choice words for her former self for leaving out that one thing nobody thought of until the emergency was upon her.
Anyway... how's by you?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-04 03:12 am (UTC)Wasn't for a happy reason, though. Sudden death at age 49 by way of heart-attack. Your reason is better.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-04 01:27 pm (UTC)At one point on the second day she came around the corner holding a coffee can dating from the 1960s. "Have you lost your marbles?" she asked, removing the lid. "I found your marbles."