Another day, another buck-fifty

For the last month I've been the only person in the IT Department at the office, which means that longer-term projects have seen no progress at all while I deal with "it won't print." Fortunately, this week a new employee came aboard to help out. Unfortunately, today (her third day with the organization) she had her first squirrel encounter.

You see, the infrastructure at our branch office is largely powered by squirrels in wheels.  All the squirrels at our branch office stopped running on several occasions this summer, mostly when thunderstorms occurred. Today the telecomm squirrels went on strike. Luckily, their brothers in the power squirrel union opted not to honor the picket lines (intra-squirrel politics are unbelievably complex and capricious). After urgent calls were placed to three different vendors, the telecomm local went back to the job, but they're still staging a work slowdown, resulting in no outgoing voice traffic. You would not believe the cost of the medical benefits they're demanding-- rodent dental coverage is not cheap.

We're one of the last businesses in the area using squirrel-powered systems; when we first started using them, back in my great-grandma's day, whenever word leaked out that the squirrels were trying to unionize, the company would just call in Pinkerton bulldogs. Nowadays, you've gotta call lawyers and publicists. I suppose it's a more civilized system, less violent; still, the old way was nice and simple.

So, between this and a couple meetings, I got nothing done again today. Tomorrow I have my first supervisory meeting with my boss since the new employee came on, and I just know we're going to talk about the fact that in three whole days, I still haven't gotten any work done.