Minutia

This post inspired by Scott Adams’ Minutia.

This is kind of an amalgam of the past week, rather than a rendering of one single day. Things seem to change from week to week at the moment, probably because I’m living with a fast-developing, high energy puppy. Also, my work days vary widely so I thought I’d share an example of what a day can be like. (I did choose not to write up those days where I have three meetings in a row as they are brain-numbing.)

I don’t normally wake up at 4am, but for some reason I have been lately. Also I don’t usually go to sleep as early as 9pm – usually it’s between 10 – 10:30pm, but for the past week I have, when I haven’t had evening events to attend.

4am WST

Wake up and wonder if I should take Paco outside or if he can wait another hour.

4:30

I dozed off. Should I take Paco ou…?

5am

Alarm goes off. Paco is still sleeping. Listen to the news. Scoop Paco out of his bed and take him out to the backyard. When he finishes he races back in. I have a shower.

5:15

Switch computer on. Put kettle on. Check email. Check feed reader. Make cup of tea. Read.

5:20

Drink tea. Read. Answer email. Write comments.

5:30

Start writing post. Make breakfast. Make another cup of tea. Read more feeds. Eat breakfast.

6:00

Still writing. Reading. Listening to news.

6:30

See if M wants a cuppa. No. Pet Paco. Make more tea. More writing.

7:00

Finish blog post. Wake M (again). Pet Paco.

7:15

Chat on IM. (I don’t know why, this often happens at this time of the morning.) Make lunch (ham sandwiches). Chat. Post. Wash breakfast dishes. Chat: “Going AFK”.

7:25

Get changed for work. Pet Paco, who is still trying to sleep. M in shower.

7:30

Get breakfast for Paco, although the puppy is still in bed.

7:35

Finishing touches on what I’m wearing for work. Chat with M. Paco eyes us from his bed: “too cold to get out of snuggly bed.”

7:40

Stick book in bag, make sure I have everything. (It is usually at this point that I leave my office key at home. When this happens I am locked out of my office and unless I can face the ignominy of asking the faculty office people for the skeleton key I have to spend the day in the library.) Put shoes on. Paco gets out of bed to come and say good morning. Give Paco his breakfast. M gives Paco a treat – a piece of cheese, some crumble, a Dentabone… Switch Twitter to phone notification. Switch off computer.

7:50

Take Paco outside.

7:55

Bring Paco back in. He goes straight to his bed because he knows we are leaving. Mournful dog. Put stuff away. Switch things off. Lock up. Off to the bus stop.

8:00

Express bus goes past. Very cold at the stop, everyone looks half asleep and half frozen.

8:06

Bus arrives. Standing room only. M reads. I plug in the iPod.

8:15

Arrive at the city bus station. Bye M. Head to the train station. Very cold. Feel hungry.

8:32

Train. Read. Look at the river, which looks glassy. Read the occasional Tweet.

8:41

Arrive Oats Street. Run to cross the track before the gates close. Thankfully the bus is at the station, so no need to stand in the cold.

8:55

Arrive on campus.

9:00

Walk up five flights of stairs. In the office. (Today I didn’t forget my key.) Switch computer on. The walk up the stairs warmed me a bit, but it’s cold in my office, so leave scarf and coat on. Check phone messages. Walk down the corridor to fill my water bottle. Put lunch in fridge. Check email. 27 emails (not counting spam). Start answering things that can be answered easily: “Do we have this conference proceeding online?” No, we don’t even have it in print. “May I send my newest PhD candidate to see you?” Yes. “We need to have this series of physics journals”. Cost per journal (and there are 5 of them) averages £3,500. Joy.

9:15

Go to the staff kitchen. Put kettle on. Chat with postdoc fellow who is making coffee. “Are you the one who does EndNote support?” Yep. We make a time for me to drop in in the afternoon. Switch Twitter to web-only notification.

9:20

Phone rings. “I can’t make it to any of these seminars you emailed the faculty about. Will the series be run later in the year?” Yes, absolutely. In the meantime 3 more emails have arrived. E-books offer from the Royal Society of Chemistry that needs consideration. What is happening with the ASTM standards online? Answer: not a lot (we don’t have these online, still waiting for a consortium offer to be announced). Colleague still can’t log in to our internal blog. Email IT about blog authentication problems. Drink tea. Write more email. Start fiddling with blog post on Flickr (for in-house training programme I am helping with).

9:40

Knock on door. Third year civil engineering student. “I need help, I can’t locate this article on ground improvement”. We don’t have the journal but we manage to find something else that should be just as good.

9:55

2 new emails. I still have 18 emails from overnight to answer. Look at list of things to do. Stare out of the window. Looks like it will be a nice day. Listen to the sound of coffee machine in kitchen. Go to the loo. Wonder what Paco is doing.

10:00

Plod, plod, plod. Eat Fuji apple.

11:00

6 emails left to do something with. Am hungry. Boss emails me: “please rewrite your report and use these headings, and can I have it by this arvo.”

11:15

Get my lunch. Phone rings. Chat with colleague. IM M to say hello.

11:30

Eat lunch. Read the SMH and How to Save the World. Stretch and gaze at trees.

11:40

Work on blog post while munching sandwich. Why is it so hard to write about Flickr?

11:45

Calendar notifies me that I have a vendor visit at 12, in the library. SHIT! Scramble around for any notes for visit (none), save blog post. Finish sandwich.

11:57

Dash out of office and run to library.

12:00

Venue for meeting is dark and none of my colleagues are there. Hmm.

12:05

Go up to see what my colleagues are doing. “Didn’t you get my message that the meeting is at 2pm?” DOH!

12:10

Back in office. Shake bread crumbs out of keyboard. Switch radio on. Keep working on blog post and emails (3 arrived while I was running around). Make a cup of tea. Chat with academics crowded around coffee machine.

1:00

Go to postdoc’s office down the hall. Show him how to edit in-text citations. Chat about his research.

1:35

Back in office. Must not forget vendor’s visit. Phone rings. “Do we have journal X online?” No. “Thanks, I thought not, just checking.”

1:50

Phone rings. “Does the library want the six boxes of the Records of the West Australian Museum I have sitting in my office” I check our catalogue while chatting. No, we already have them, but thanks for thinking of us.

1:55

Leave for library. Bump into colleague and vendor’s rep.

2:00

Vendor starts her spiel.

2:25

Ongoing spiel. Ask a question about the online translation tool they have. The Chinese (simplified) translation doesn’t seem to be working.

2:45

Vendor finished.

2:50

Coffee with colleagues. I have a chai latte instead of a tea.

3:15

Finish up report that boss wants. Chat with colleagues about the university’s tracking of the external (non-university) websites we look at. We ponder the stupidity of people who would use a work computer to view porn.

3:30

Back in office. Write comments on staff blog. Check wiki. Yes, the MediaWiki breadcrumbs feature has been installed and works. Why did I not have a cup of tea instead of that caffeine-free chai latte?

3:45

Remember that I need to answer a query by email that has been sitting there for days. Dig out the query from the database. It was a query sent by web form and assigned to our team. After debating the answer we each assumed each other was replying.

3:50

Send off response to query. Write more email. Phone rings. Chat with colleague. Keep writing email. Work some more on blog posts. Look for statistics to back up my wild claims. Check Twitter. Succumb and tweet myself.

4:25

Remember that I was meant to have sent out an agenda for a team meeting on Thursday. Start fossicking around for notes and things I’d set aside to help with writing the agenda. Begin agenda.

4:40

Phone rings. “Can you come and help me with EndNote tomorrow morning?” Negotiate a time to go to academic’s office. I will need to look their location up on a campus map.

4:45

6 emails left! Rinse out tea mug in kitchen. Check to do list. Not much progress. Fill in time book.

4:56

Switch off computer. Fiddle with papers on desk. Leave office.

5:00

Bus station. Where is the bus? Plug in iPod.

5:09

Bus arrives. (It’s on time, I was just impatient.)

5:15

Arrive at Oats St train station in time to see the city-bound train pull out of the station.

5:19

Train arrives. Think about the book in my bag but feel too brain dead to read. Listen to lesson 5 of my Dutch book instead. Drunk tries to chat with everyone in carriage. Thank goodness I have the iPod.

5:30

Arrive in the city. Power walk to bus station.

5:35

Bus arrives. I get the last seat, woot!

5:43

Home stop.

5:45

Check letter box. The mechanic who did the last service on our car is moving premises. Open the front door, and am greeted by a mad dog who licks me, jumps up and down and then proceeds to race around the yard.

5:50

Decide it’s not too dark for a walk so I stick the harness on Paco and grab a poo bag. Paco is raring to go. He pees on all his favourite spots, stares at the traffic, and tries to run up to passersby.

6:10

Home again. Paco has a drink of water and looks questioningly at me. “Dinner?” M gets home. Paco runs to greet him and does another mad dash around the yard.

6:15

Give Paco dinner. M switches his computer on, then starts dinner. Tonight: hamburgers.

6:45

Dinner time. We watch an episode of something (anything) while we eat. Paco sits in his doghouse after realising that his attempts to wheedle food out of us won’t work. It’s nice to sit and be entertained.

7:30

M puts the kettle on and makes me a cup of tea. Paco begs for a treat and gets something from the pantry. He takes the treat to hide in his bed. I look at the dinner dishes and decide they can wait til morning.

7:35

Watch the 7:30 Report. Drink tea.

8:00

Switch off the tv. Potter around. Play with Paco. Take Paco outside. Bring Paco back in when he starts barking at the neighbour Staffy.

8:20

Get ready to read in bed. Paco is chewing something in his bed.

8:30

Hop into bed. Current bedtime reading: Glasshouse by Charles Stross. M comes to tuck me in. Paco is flopped in his bed for a brief rest.

8:45

Half asleep so I switch the light off. Paco decides it’s time to go and play with M. Good night!

9:00

Paco comes back in to the bedroom. I can sense him checking to see if I am asleep.
My daily routine is not amusing as Mr Adams’s.