The Chinese Inconvenience

[rain_gryphon]

So, the Chinese Doom, or, as I suppose it ought be called now, the Chinese Inconvenience, may have visited me. I had about two days of sneezing, fever, and coughing, which felt more like a cold or hayfever than anything, and then today I'm more or less fine. My chief harm is a strained back from unexpectedly sneezing when I was in an awkward position, but that will pass.

I wanted to get one of the Abbott home antigen tests, but those, which were reasonably abundant and priced at $15 a month ago, are now represented only by empty shelves, with a handwritten $25 label pasted over the old one.

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Work, the Curse of the Drinking Man, has found me again! A few months ago I took a job with the same fellow who had me for work-from-home data entry earlier in the year. He's a property tax consultant, who helps people lower their taxes, so I'm supporting something that I believe in, which makes coming to work rather more enjoyable than if I were just getting money out of it. It's a five-person office, so they're not really at the level where they actually need a full-time IT guy, but it benefits them to have someone part-time, and on call, for when things happen. I work three days a week, most of the time looking up tax data online, and then entering it into our DB system.

My strength as an IT dude was never that I was particularly good at any one thing, but rather that I was reasonably good at a wide variety of things. A small office is a much better fit for someone like me. So far this week, I've helped the Boss make his first-ever video conference call, fixed the toilet (flush chain broke), printed out the pictures he got in an email, and solved a variety of minor user issues with computers. I'm useful, and I feel fulfilled :)

We got remarkable amounts of Christmas gifts from our clients as well - candy, and baked goods, and fruit. The whole office was just stuffed.

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Comments

[thewayne]

Could well have been Covid. My wife and I arrived at my dad's last night and tested ourselves to make sure, both negative. That's the good thing about being vaxxed and boosted - as I recall you are - usually breakthrough infections are fairly mild. And if you did have it, you now additionally have natural antibodies trained up!

Yeah, it's nice to be able to use useful old IT skills in a somewhat unrelated field. I use them a lot in my library job. When I started, our inter-library loan system was dead. It had been dead for so long, no one knew how it worked. I started watching training videos to train myself, and I figured out that the search function that takes an incoming request and bounces it through our catalog to grab our Library of Congress spine label number was the part that was broken. After that it was an easy fix and we were back in business! I do all sorts of things now, possibly using old computers to set up screen saver photo displays just as random wallpapers to look pretty and brighten up the place.

[rain_gryphon]

Soon, I shall be indestructible!

[moonhare]

I bought two kits last week, when they were available, at $23+ apiece. My daughter pronounced she had COVID, from a nursing class hospital visit, but I had no symptoms I would admit could be the virus. Two of my co-workers had spouses tested positive and they quarantined even though the CDC said it wasn’t necessary. I did the test last Thursday, within the five to seven day window, and came up negative.

Now my youngest has been exposed (last night) and is laying low, waiting to see if he develops symptoms. Person at his friend’s house got their PCR test results today, positive, and may have infected him and five or six others there.

Otherwise, Merry Christmas to you and yours :o)

[rain_gryphon]

Thanks! They finallly had more tests today, but I suspect it's too late to test now. Hopefully you stay well. Happy New Year!

[moonhare]

Happy New Year to you, as well!

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the part time job gig nonetheless!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

TY! I'm enjoying it :)