Karin's Adventures

Sometimes the seemingly unrelated little things that I hear about on random occasions provide food for thought and insight into the bigger, maybe even global, picture.

I hadn't even noticed this woman who was spending entire days in one of our study lounges, obviously not studying anything. She was watching movies on her laptop most of the time. Someone else noticed her, though, and was curious enough to ask. The woman's story may be nothing unusual, given the place where she lives - but I find it jaw-dropping, given the place where I used to live.

Her son is a student at Indiana Tech. They live in Ohio, maybe two hours East of Fort Wayne. Recently the student totaled his car. The family can't afford to buy a car, and the woman doesn't want to be stuck without a car at home. She probably also doesn't want to take the risk of her son wrecking another vehicle. A college education is expensive, and very important for the son's future. She doesn't want the boy to miss out on that.

So what does this mother do, given the lack of public transportation and shortage of money? She drives her son to school in the mornings, then spends her days sitting in a study lounge while he is in classes, and then drives home again late at night.

Ohio isn't really what comes to mind first when thinking about downhill skiing, but there it is: Mad River Mountain.

It's only about 2.5 hours of leisurely drive away from Fort Wayne, and there is a Comfort Inn in nearby Bellefontaine where you can bring a dog along. They have extra large rooms with a whirlpool, just what you need after a few hours out in the snow to relax the sore muscles. 

From the 'work' point of view this week was pretty much lost. Two unrelated incidents resulted in greatly reduced productivity for me personally, and for the team as a whole: on Monday my computer's harddrive crashed, and an important colleague didn't show up for work.

The way those two incidents unfolded, and were dealt with, over the course of five work days resulted in valuable gain, though.
I learned a lot about Windows 7, and I learned a lot about people.

When our comfortable routine gets disrupted by unexpected events, we forget about the carefully orchestrated masquerade that we keep up to protect our true self. People's unkempt faces show, and you recognize the leaders, the followers, the bystanders, and the saboteurs.

Of course, all that matters is the end result: I now have Windows 7 running on my computer, with most of my tools working again, and our colleague will hopefully be back to work on Monday. 

Once a week we have a team meeting at work. Usually it takes about an hour. Everybody briefly reports about what they are currently working on, so that we all know what's going on. This week the meeting took well over 90 minutes, though. I admit I was getting a little bored, because my part was short and done early. So, while I was listening to my colleagues talk, I drew a face on the back of the plate that had been housing our gold fish crackers.

One colleague said my drawing demonstrated *some serious talent*, which is why I signed it and gave it to him to keep.
You never know, maybe this face on a plate will be worth a lot of money when I become famous.

New Year's Eve is another chance to party with friends, and to carry on the family traditions. Like herring salad, and fireworks, and champagne at midnight, and watching 'Dinner for One' on TV, and melting lead to predict the future.