Commute Gets Worse

Last week, after several drives to and from work that had me in the car for a couple hours a day round trip, I finally asked my boss if I could work from home two days a week instead of one. She didn't have a problem with that, so now I get to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two of the worse traffic days around here.

So, of course, with things looking good on that front, they had to take a turn for the worse elsewhere on my commute.

On Wednesday, I was taking my normal meandering back-roads trip to work (Route 7 from Sterling to Tyson's is a nightmare), and I got up to the bridge over the toll road on Beulah. And there was a big sign there that said the road was closed. They didn't bother to put up signs before the bridge saying it was out, just at the bridge. So I had to turn around and drive back to Route 7 and make my way to the office that way. Final time: one hour, fifteen minutes.

On the way home, I figured the bridge might be opened again - they didn't look like they were working on it or anything, so I tried to get back to it. But no, it was closed. So I had to get back on the road and find another way over the Toll Road. Finally, I got home after an hour and forty five minutes of driving.

So my round trip that day took me more than three times as long as my round trip to my old office would have. So much for the benefit of working from home two days a week.

I checked online and found out that the bridge was out indefinitely because a truck had hit it on Tuesday evening, and they needed to do tests on it to make sure it was still stable. Of course, they had no idea how long that would take, nor when it would open up again.

I Wonder How Much All That Cost

So yesterday in an HR meeting, our HR VP confirmed something to us that we had long heard rumors about: the headquarters for our particular group is moving from Reston to Tyson's (again). Which means that the head of our sector is moving back to Tyson's. Which means my group is moving back to Tyson's. After I got over my initial disappointment (I've moved on to my mid-range disappointment now), I started to figure out just how many times my Company has moved me, and compared it to my other two companies before this one.

State Department Federal Credit Union (15 months) - They brought me in out in Old Town Alexandria and kept me there for the entire time. Never once moved.

Quest Diagnostics (2 1/2 years) - They brought me in over in Chantilly and kept me there for the multi-year stretch.

Northrop Grumman (4 years and counting) - Here's where it starts to get insane...

I started in Dunn Loring where I remained for about two months. Before too long, I was moved from there to a building out in Merrifield. I had a nice long stretch there (about half a year) until I was moved from Merrifield to Herndon. We had a month there before we crossed the beltway and went to Tyson's. I got to enjoy the long, grueling commute for almost a year before I was moved out to Chantilly. By then I had my new house, so the commute was actually pretty nice. I must have stayed there for about a year and a half before people realized they had not moved me in a while, so they moved us to Reston earlier last year. I've been here for about a year and sometime this year, we're moving back out to Tyson's. So in a little over four years (by the time we move), I'll have been in seven locations.

The argument for all this movement is it makes business sense and it will help cut costs. But I can't figure out how we're cutting costs if we have to keep paying to move people.

Play Us a Song

I love listening to instrumental music when I’m at work. I find that listening to anything with words distracts me as I spend a good clip of time just trying to figure out what’s being said, and if I already know what’s being said, I sing along with it instead of concentrating on my work.

As such, I have a particular fondness for movie soundtracks. Back before my iPod days, I had a CD of a mix of soundtrack bits. Last of the Mohicans, Independence Day, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. All great soundtracks, and all helped get me through the day.

Now, however, buying one song at a time has brought me to even greater heights of listening pleasure. Right now I’m listening to “In the House – In a Heartbeat” by John Murphy, or better known as that awesome song from 28 Days Later where the main character goes all crazy on the soldiers. Next up is “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” by Moby (not to be confused with Not Moby… a little HIMYM humor there), the song that capped off the movie Heat.

I’ll spend my day listening to 40-50 different songs, sometimes backtracking to hear one again, but all of which keep my head clear and keep me from going crazy in the silence. If anyone has any suggestions for good movie soundtracks, let me know, and if you want some of my favorites, just ask. I’m always interested in trying some new songs to add to my playlist.

Work Exists

Sometimes that's frustrating.

Take today, for example. I came in to the office today, excited because all my hard work over the weekend (lost the majority of Sunday to work) meant I should have a pretty easy rest of the week. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Oh, quick aside - I'm listening to the soundtrack to Book of Eli. Creepy music. Great movie. I'll try to talk more about it later. I was going to blog about it the day after I saw it, but I decided I couldn't say I wasn't all that religious and then have my first two posts be about religion.

Back to the story. So I come in to the office, ready with a new topic to post about (Legion MKII, for those who are curious), but as soon as I got in, I found two waiting emails. The first referred to an employee who was not listed right. I did some research - nope, the employee was listed right. The second was referring to 95 employees who were not mapped correctly in the hierarchy. I checked. Sure enough, they could be marked wrong, but when given the option to look over things earlier, they didn't.

Long story short, I am now having to rush around and make a bunch of changes to the data because employees did not look over their data earlier when we requested. Now that the data is due, they want everything correct immediately. Which means I have a lot to do, and means I can't go over Legion today. Maybe tomorrow... though I may have to talk about LOST instead. We'll see...