It’s way past time for another installment of What I Learned (About Computers) This Week.
I spent some time over at GenealogyBank because I purchased a one-year subscription last October and I haven’t had time to use it. I set up some search queries in Legacy and, in a couple of days, I found 111 obituaries!
GenealogyBank is constantly adding more newspapers and, obviously, some of my people have died since I last checked. Then I went back and went through their Social Security Death Index which is practically up-to-the-minute. In the process of adding obits, I also added 160 people to my database. I love obits. They’re little windows into people’s lives, or at least the kindest things that are said at that time of writing. Sometimes it’s all we get. Dogs, horses and dead people; it’s hard to beat. $9.95 for a 30-day trial.
My 7 months at the college have flown by and a couple days ago they finally sent me an official contract. It all started out innocently enough and not-a-job. After that it deteriorated into whatever/whenever. You know how it is with schools; they’re bottomless pits when it comes to survival needs. But there’s only one of me and there’s only so many hours in a week and there’s a limit. So I started acting out my stresses until the Admin sent an email to the Dean saying I think we’ve worn JL to a nub, time to reassess. So, I got my contract laying out exactly what my job is and isn’t. That felt really good – some borderlines.
Fast-forward to this afternoon: I’m lying in the sun enjoying my new-found lack of pressure and the phone rings. This is really odd because I keep my phone unplugged. I thought it’s probably a telemarketer and they’ll go away pretty soon. The next thing I heard was the school Registrar talking a mile a minute on the answering machine … crashed … computer can’t … don’t know why … it worked this morning … I asked the Dean if I could call you, he said yes …
I’m listening to her intently and with the other side of my brain I’m thinking, I read my contract 3 times and nowhere in there is even a whisper of ‘on call for emergencies’.
When it comes to computers there’s no such thing as Sacred Space. They will gobble you up and spit you out. Turn yours off and go out for dinner with someone you love. Tomorrow’s another day.
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