Broken Chairs and Fear of Change...

It's finally Friday. This has been a very long week even though the days have gone strangely quickly. I can't say it's been a bad week, per se, not in the grand scheme of things. It's just been one of those weeks where, every day, it's been a small thing that's just set the day just a little off kilter.

I'm enjoying my 8-10 minute commute to work. That's my positive experience for the week. Also, I quite like the beaten tin tiled effect in our new kitchen. That's rather nice. I like the fact that someone put brown paper over the back of the women's bathroom doors so that no one can see you when you're going to the loo. Of course, now I have the urge to dig out my boxes of crayons and decorate the brown paper. I won't, however because that would probably be frowned upon. Part of me wants to draw a giant crayon christmas tree with stick people hanging from it with little labels naming who they are.

I probably shouldn't have told you that. Now you'll think I'm peculiar. Of course, you are reading this blog and if you haven't figured that out yet, you should probably back track a little.

All joking aside, I'm trying to ignore the fact that my chair at work is broken and if I lean back too far, I have to do a wild flail to stop from falling completely backwards. It's not even that far that I really have lean back, any sort of weight on it causes a bit of flailing. Also, my desk is scratched, my file cabinet attacked me and I'm one of the few people in my are not getting a nice shiny computer. My computer is too new, you see. My first boss at the company picked it out not long before I started. Now it's mine. Everyone else is getting Mac's. I have a little PC.

It's actually not the PC part I mind. I think it's more a case of "New Computer Envy". While I have to admit Mac's are quite nice, there's something about them I don't trust. I think they're too shiny, too glossy, too slick....even smug. Everything about Apple/Mac's strikes me that way a little. It's like those PC vs. Mac commercials with John Hodgman and Justin Long. They used to be clever with Mac always being just a little slicker than the PC and always making him look antiquated and defective. Now I think they're just mean. Also, that commercial for the AT&T iPhone where they make fun of Verizon and their 'maps' ad campaign. Verizon's "maps" campaign, if you haven't seen the commercials, is to make fun of the ridiculous amount of 'apps' for the iPhone by showing maps of where Verizon has coverage vs. AT&T.

Let me tell you, having a couple of friends with iPhones, the shoddy coverage of the iPhone is not much of an exaggeration. The retaliation campaign has Luke Wilson standing under a map filled with Verizon markers that show their coverage. The markers slowly tumble off the map as Luke Wilson hawks the merits of AT&T's 'smart phones' (i.e. the only phone anyone cares about from them...the iPhone). He talks about how you can't surf the web and talk on the phone like you can with an iPhone. Except, here's my question: If you have no coverage anywhere, what difference does it make if you can talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time? No signal=No real usage. So, shut up iPhone/Mac/AT&T.

I digress. Back to those Mac's. I know they're a lot more reliable than PC's, that they're less prone to viruses, that they don't rely on Microsoft but I still don't like them. I don't trust them. I can't tell you why; I just don't. I like PC's, even if they do rely on Microsoft. To be honest, I don't NOT like Microsoft either. I find their software products easy to use. Yes, I'm not a fan of the Blue Screen of Death which I tend to get rather a lot but in some ways, Microsoft is responsible for a lot of my computer knowledge. To fix a problem, you must learn everything about the problem. Thus...I know more about computers, Windows and Microsoft software than I ever thought I'd learn.

Anyway, I'm sure it'll be my turn to get a new computer in the office in about two years which, I think, is the timeframe of our 'computer cycle'. Every three years, they're replaced. Since mine is not a particularly good machine and it's very slow, I will admit sometimes that can of Pepsi on my desk looks awfully like a good way to accidentally 'break' my computer.

I'd never do that, I promise. I have too much respect for working computers. I've been around too many that haven't worked when they should have.

It doesn't really matter. For me, I'm looking ahead to the weekend. It's been a hard week; I don't like change as much as I should and this has been a week of changes, some of them big. Some of them are smaller, like the fact that I transformed my living room by putting up my Christmas tree and decorating for Christmas. Those are the kind of changes I embrace.

I intend to keep embracing them this weekend. I have more decorations to put up, some Christmas shopping to do and company to keep. I'd love for the weekend to go slowly so I'm going to keep a firm grip on it lest it slips away and, all to soon, I find myself back in my cubicle trying not to flail madly in my chair as I try to stop it falling backwards. I've was told I might be able to get a new chair when I asked my boss if something could be done about my broken one. It's not new Mac but it's a start.

And that would be a change I might embrace without complaining.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I promise my week of New Office venting is officially over. Next week, I shall move onwards. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Happy Friday.