The Trouble With Remotes

Today's Drabble comic reminded me of a couple of funny television-remote-related anecdotes, as well as some musings. First up, the comic:

Yesterday my boss arrived at work, dug around in her purse for her keys to let herself into the building, and was surprised to see her TV remote in there. That's when she realized that in her morning rush, she'd inadvertently grabbed the remote instead of her cell phone... which happened to be sitting right next to the remote. When she left at quittin' time, she wondered aloud about what kinds of long distance calls her dog must have made in her absence ;-)

The mention of her dog reminded me of Ron and Debbie's late doggie-- Sammy. Apparently one weekend while they were out of town, leaving the dog to his own devices (see, unlike kids, dogs can do well on their own for a few days-- leave them some food and water, and they're good to go!), Sammy accidentally stepped on the remote, turning the TV on. Further actions-- maybe playing with it? -- caused the volume to go up. Way up. It got so loud that not only did it scare poor Sammy, but the neighbors actually called the cops because of the noise! The cops had to break in and turn off the TV. Who knows how long the TV was on before Sammy was rescued from the clutches of the noise pollution! ;-)

We're so attached to our remotes. Makes you wonder how on earth we managed to survive in the days of TVs that had knobs you had to manually turn. I remember growing up watching one of those small B&W models with the... what was it, 13? channels. That was before we moved into our house, and our living room apartment was so small we sat close enough to the TV that sitting up and reaching out to turn the knob wasn't too inconveniencing.

Why is it that when the batteries on a remote run low, we respond by pressing the buttons harder? Do we somehow believe that the weak connection will work better if we exert untold force on the poor buttons?

Amazing, isn't it-- in the span of just a decade or two, we've gone from the non-existence of remote controls to now having to keep track of 3 or 4. Let's see-- the TV, the VCR, the DVD, the stereo, the DirectTV console... yeah, it adds up. No wonder we're so attached to our clickers, we become virtually unable to function without them. Just like Ralph Drabble above :-)

The New Job at my Old Haunt

As many of you are no doubt aware, I started a new job at UCSB 2 weeks ago. I'm currently starting my third week, which is also my first full 5-day week. The first two were short ones: I started on a Tuesday, then last week was shortened due to the Labor Day holiday).

I first came to UCSB exactly 10 years ago, in the Fall of 2001, to begin my studies in computer science here. This is where I met my husband, this is where our son was born, and this is where we bought our first house. And now, 6 years after graduating, I am back-- except now I can park in some of the better-located parking lots! :-) It feels a bit strange to back on campus amongst all the young 'uns. Today's freshman class was born during my senior year of high school! How's that for perspective? A lot has changed on campus since I was last here, and I feel a mix of nostalgia as I walk by our old haunts near the Engineering building, and take in some of the new scenery that has been constructed since I left.

Anyway, I digress... the new job!

Many of you have long known that I've had aspirations to move out of the software engineering industry. I mean, the field is fun to a point, but I knew early on that this was not something I wanted to do long-term, as a career. I thought about the various types of things I'd done in my career thus far and came to the conclusion that there were a couple of things I knew I enjoyed doing, and did well. One was training, which I discussed briefly in an older blog post here. The other was basically anything that was highly-organized and highly-structured in nature.

I remember when I first arrived at the 72nd Signal Battalion headquarters in Mannheim, Germany, a brand new Army lieutenant. As part of my inprocessing, my sponsor took me to meet the Battalion Adjutant (S-1), which is essentially the equivalent of an HR manager for the unit. I remember sitting in Darren's office, thinking to myself, "this is the job I want". Sure enough, after a couple of years, I landed the job. And just as I had imagined, I loved the job. I loved the administrative nature of the job. I loved organizing and analyzing data, having it at my fingertips whenever it was needed. I loved figuring out ways to streamline our personnel processes. When it came time to write my annual review (which came close to the time I was getting ready to leave the Army), my commanding officer acknowledged that I had a passion for this type of work, and that if I had chosen to stay in the military, he would've recommended me for a personnel-oriented career track.

Unfortunately, I had no idea of what kinds of civilian-equivalent jobs my work as the S-1 would translate to. I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as "Human Resources" in the civilian world. Instead, having been surrounded by fellow Signal Corps officers who came from engineering backgrounds, I decided to give computer science a try. After doing that for 6 years, though, I was feeling burnt out enough to realize that I needed to actively pursue a different career. I had held out for something within Training or HR at Citrix, but nothing really panned out.

So when the job opportunity came up at UCSB, I jumped at it. I wasn't really holding out for much, as I knew how hard it is to break into the UC system, since many of the job placements are done from internal hiring/promotions. But lo and behold, here I am!

The days have been flying by. Each day keeps me so busy that time zooms by before I even realize it. In fact, the only way I even know that time has gone by is by the rumbling in my tummy alerting me to lunch/snack time. I'm enjoying the work, and am learning about all sorts of things related to Academic Personnel and campus-wide policies pertaining to personnel.

My job is strictly 8-5, which is great because I can leave work at 5:00 on the dot to pick up Todd from school. And when I arrive at 8:00 in the morning, my co-workers are there, too, in case I need to pick anyone's brain for something. Unlike Citrix, where most of my co-workers showed up between 9:00 and 10:00, so if I ever ran into an issue at 8:00am, I'd have to wait at least an hour anyway. And leaving at 5:00pm wasn't so easy either, as I'd often find myself right in the middle of something I couldn't easily break away from. That wasn't so bad when Todd's after-school care was nearby and open until 6:00pm, but now that it closes at 5:30 and is farther away, it's even more imperative that I leave right at 5:00.

The benefits are really good too-- especially the defined benefit retirement plan-- that's pure gold in this day and age. Discounted university classes are a nice plus (not that I have the time or inclination for that these days, anyway), and there are all kinds of opportunities for training within my field.

Anyway-- so far so good! I like being at a job where I'm not only in my element (I get to wield a red pen! It doesn't get any better than that! ;-) ) but where I'm busy and productive all day long and where I can go home and just NOT think about work in the evening or on weekends.

There you have it. My first couple weeks (and the years leading up to it!) in a nutshell :-) Here's to many, many more!