A Dragon in Sheep’s Clothing

What a week.

Friday was the last day for the 2nd gal across the hall who gave notice two weeks ago. One of the rumblings in the grapevine was confirmed: another lady across the hall is leaving. She was more of a supervisor, and while I don’t know any details, it has been said that she was neer allowed to do her job, so there she goes.

And on Thursday, the VP on our side of the hall also gave her notice. She found a dream job, and I think she’ll be happy. (I don’t believe the “it was a hard decision to make” lines she tried to feed us.)

 And while there was a lot of initial optimism about the changes ahead, Friday was a bit of a let-down. The Powers That Be already have an “interim” person in mind to relieve our VP, we think. And that is disheartening. I think my supervisor would make a fantastic leader for our side of the hall — she has the connections, support, buy-in and institution familiarity to get things on track quickly. Someone brought from the outside — especially the “friend of a friend” type — likely won’t have any experience in a higher education institution, let alone a public one, and the learning curve will be steep. Whoever they are, they will be our 5th department head in 2 1/2 years.

So, many people on both sides of the hall are looking for new jobs, while keeping an eye out to see who will be the next to go.

On another note, I still don’t have dial tone at home. A Verizon repair guy came, but he didn’t seem to know what to do. He said that he was getting a dial tone at the box outside, but not inside, and that a tone inside was likewise not making it outside. He opened up 2 of 3 jacks inside and couldn’t see anything wrong. He also told me that nothing was labeled in the box outside, so I’m not sure what was going on. In any case, he couldn’t figure it out and said he would ask other technicians who have experience doing installations in multi-unit condo buildings. I didn’t hear back for 2 days, and then came home to a card on my door saying that the problem was inside and they needed to get back in to fix it.

I called the cable company to ask what exactly they changed to hook up my cable phone (my previous service). They didn’t know exactly. So I called Verizon (my new provider) again and explained the situation. I don’t have any phone boxes inside my place — a box for all the units is on the outside of the building. The cable guy didn’t rewire anything inside, but I don’t know what he did outside. The tech on the phone ran a quick test on my line, and the result said: problem with outside cable.

*sigh* So another repair request was placed, and flagged as “repeat.” Surprisingly, a tech called me today (on my cell phone, while I was at Panera) to tell me he was coming by. I told him I wasn’t home, but that I had been told the problem was outside. He said he would take a look and let me know. If he needs to get inside to test the line, he will come back tomorrow.

Maybe I just got bad luck with the first repair guy. At least the phone tech was helpful. Hopefully I’ll get a dial tone before the weekend is out, and I can actually blog from home again!