The file restore from my cloud backup after my catastrophic drive failure is taking much, much long than I had anticipated... or hoped. I started the restore July 25th and they're telling me they're not even half-way done collecting the files.
Needless to say, this makes everything I do take far longer than it should.
Partly because I haven't yet received the afore-mentioned backup yet and have to request files to be downloaded from the cloud multiple times for each project I'm working on.
But mostly because those older file on local backup I DO have available are trapped on Apple's "Time Machine" technology.
I used to really love Apple's approach to backup but, now that I am forced to use it for something other than an occasional "oops" moment, it's just so horribly bad. The goofy "space vortex" interface is absolute shit for serious recovery. I finally abandoned it and started restoring directly from the Time Machine file bundle, but this has its problems as well. So many times I get an "ALIAS BROKEN" error and can't even get at the original file. Even worse, every time I get the error, the Finder snaps my search window closed... so instead of choosing an alternative file to restore, I have to start my search all over from the beginning. Like I said... bad.
So... once I get up and running again, Time Machine will be completely abandoned in favor of a more traiditional technology that actually... well, you know... works.
Well that was a grueling 16-hours.
But any day you get back to your hotel from work before 3:00am is a good one, amiright?
At the tone the time will be 2:56am.
Yep. Good enough.
26 hours straight on 3 hours sleep.
That's gotta be some kind of record... even for me.
There comes a point when you just can't function any longer.
I worked last night until 1:00am... woke up at 4:30am to work some more... took a quick nap from 7:30-8:00am... got cleaned up and went to work at 9:00am... came back home to work at 5:30pm... now it's 9:30pm and I've hit a wall. My brain just won't work any more.
Which is unfortunate, because I'm not even half-way through all the things I really needed to get done.
I either need to clone myself or seek a medically-induced coma.
The good news is that I had grape Kool-Aid and a cheese sandwich for dinner. I had been dreaming about them all day long. And now... it's just five hours until 4:30am rolls around again. It would be nice if I could sleep for most of that but, well, you know...
Luckily, I don't require my brain to blog.
I packed a sack lunch for work today.
Mostly because I wanted a cheese-and-potato-chip sandwich, and you can't get that at the mini-mart. So long as you pack the potato chips separately so they don't go all soggy, it makes for a pretty good meal...
And THAT was the highlight of my day.
If it were any other day except Saturday, that would be enough.
And so it's Friday.
My entire day... from 4:00am to 8:00pm... was spent working. I have a number of projects coming due, and I've been killing myself trying to stay on top of everything.
Then, at long last, tonight I finally reached my breaking point and decided to set aside my work.
For different work!
Well that's four hours of my life I'm never getting back.
I could have spent it eating ice cream and playing video games, but nooooooo!
Except... it's never too late for ice cream is it?
After missing one day at work... and running at half-speed for two more... I've gotten incredibly behind. There are piles of projects on my desk, and I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get caught up.
So, naturally, I put in 16 hours today.
That really put the "turd" in my "Saturday." Especially considering I barely made a dent.
Right now, all I can think about is escape...
Well, escape and a Choco Taco...
Though that probably goes without saying.
Not the best day.
And yet, I should probably be grateful because it wasn't the worst day either.
It was just long and busy and difficult and ended too soon for me to get caught up on the mountains of work that never seems to go away. This puts me in the odd position of wishing that a long, never-ending day was even longer. Which is wholly depressing and surprisingly encouraging at the same time.
I leave on vacation in a couple weeks, so at least there's that to keep me going...
Though, given the absolutely heinous exchange rate for the near-worthless US Dollar, I may have to declare bankruptcy by the time I get back. So even vacation is not exactly the drama-free escape I was hoping for.
Is anything ever?
A long time ago in a land far away, I took a temp job because I didn't want to go hungry from the lack of hours on a project I had. It was a unique job because it was task-based instead of time-based. Each day you'd get a list of tasks that added up to around 7-1/2 hours (each task having a time value assigned to it). The problem was that the time values were almost always wrong. Most of them in a good way. One of your tasks might have 2 hours assigned to it, but actually only take 30 minutes to complete. The up-side to this was that they didn't care how much time you spent at the office so long as you got your task-list done. If you could show up and finish everything in an hour, you could go home and still get credit for a full eight hours.
Pretty nifty, huh?
One day a co-worker was heading out and said "I'll be ten minutes late coming back from lunch." It was a totally unnecessary statement, since there were no "hours" to keep track of... just tasks. Nobody cared how long a lunch hour you took. They only cared that you finished your tasks. I assumed somebody was going to be looking for him after lunch or something, but that wasn't the case. The guy was new and wasn't used to how things worked.
But... that wasn't the end of it.
From then on, any time somebody left the office for whatever reason, they'd announce that they'd be coming back late, even though there was no earthly reason to do so.
"I'll be fifteen minutes late coming back from break!"
"I'll be thirty minutes late coming back from lunch!
"I'll be an hour late coming back from HR!
Pretty soon it became a contest as to who could be the most "late" coming back to the office. After a couple weeks, it got pretty crazy. Finally, one guy came in, distributed his tasks to friends, announced "I'll be eight hours late coming back from the copy room...
He, of course, got paid for those eight hours because his task list got finished and that's the only thing that mattered to his employers.
Genius.
It may sound crazy, but it was a results-driven workplace which is actually kind of refreshing. Sure the example I'm using is flawed because the tasks weren't attributed the correct time values... but, other than that, I think it's a great system in theory. You get a reasonable set of goals and then get paid for achieving those goals, regardless of how much time it takes. If you are an efficient, productive worker, you are rewarded with a short work-day. If you are an unproductive, inefficient worker, you have a long work-day ahead of you.
But that's not how the real world works. Well, that's not totally true. Some jobs are paid on commission or by assignment, which is kind of the same thing. But it doesn't seem as though that's how most 9-to-5 jobs work. Fast, efficient workers are just given more work to fill out their eight hours. Slow, inefficient workers put in just enough effort to not get fired.
And why do I care? Why am I rambling on about the past and whining about unfair work hours for efficient, productive workers like myself?
BECAUSE, ZOMFG!, PORTAL 2 IS AVAILABLE FOR EARLY-SALE DOWNLOAD NOW!! AND ALL I WANT IS TO SPEND AS MUCH OF MY TIME AS POSSIBLE PLAYING IT!
How badly do I want to show up to work tomorrow, announce that I'll be thirty-two hours late coming back from the supply closet, and then spend the rest of the week playing Portal 2?
So bad that I don't dare buy a copy tonight.
I've been waiting over two years for this day. I shouldn't be bothered over waiting a few more weeks.
But I am. I am.
One of the down-sides to working in a time zone eight hours from home is that you essentially put in two full work days. First there's eight hours on-site, then there's another eight hours as your original time zone gets to work and you're inundated with another round. Mondays, as you might imagine, are the worst. And so I do what I've been doing for years now, knock off work early on Mondays so I can decompress for an hour or two before starting in again. It may not cut down on the amount of work to be done, but at least it keeps me sane.
While at the candy show today, I dropped by to see if the chocolate chicken had been replaced but, alas, she hadn't. If anything, she's gotten much worse now that the beak and eyes have melted away. This is what I'd imagine a chicken with the ebola virus would look like...
I'm meltiiiiiiiiiinnnng!
Today was yet another busy day working, which was nice. The problem is that I am so exhausted by the end of it that there's really no time to see much of Cologne except the inside of my hotel room. It would be sacrilege to not pay a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe here, but I just don't have it in me. Tomorrow is my last day in the city, so I suppose I'll force myself to make the effort. In the meanwhile, I find a great deal of money can be saved on meal expenses by accepting kind offers of food samples from the vendors at the candy show. To avoid going into a sugar coma, I pass up the vast majority of opportunities, but how can you say no to a freshly-made Dutch poofenwafel? You can't...
A hot and delicious Stroopwafel fresh from the grill and filled with warm caramel goodness.
While wandering back from lunch, I happened across a vendor with this piece of awesomeness splashed across the outside of their show booth...
It looked like some kind of sweet metal band cartoon for kids, which is exactly what the world has been missing.
Turns out it's an animated show based on a wildly successful film franchise and book series here called Die Wilden Kerle (which translates into "The Wild Soccer Bunch"). From what I could understand, it's basically a German version of the American Bad News Bears movie but with soccer instead of baseball. All I know is that I want one of those awesome one-eyed monster logo
Annnnnnd... time to try and get some sleep.
Hopefully.
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