So it was back to work today, but work was not as scary as it was Friday. I did have one angry client though, because I had told him something would be done last week and he gave me the benefit of waiting until Friday without ever hearing from him. Honestly, with everything else going on it had just slipped my mind. I called him and talked to him, and after months of delays, his site is almost totally complete today. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? It’s a weird situation. I was thrust into managing the project halfway through its completion, so I never felt like I was fully up to speed on it. But I talked to him and he seems a pretty fair guy. I think I was able to show him enough today to make him at least a little satisfied. And that’s what I always try to do, make our people satisfied. I’ve been working with clients or customers since I was 13 years old working at Dotsey Feed and Garden, so I do take pride in it and I feel very bad when people are not satisfied because of something I did or didn’t do. In this case, it was following through to make sure the particular task was done and calling him to let him know there was a holdup.
Scott, my boss, seemed none too pleased by the situation of course. When he asked why it happened I told him flat out that with all the other projects going on right now it just fell through the cracks. He said, “I’m going to try to get another person to help.” Since it was over IM, I was thinking it was meant in a neutral tone, but I can’t help, after getting an e-mail from the client like we did, that there wasn’t a little bit of a threat in that. I mean, I’m really not worried about my job security at the moment, but I hate to let Scott down as much as I hate to let a client down.
After work today I started painting the downstairs bathroom. I worked on it from about 6:30 to 9:30 with a short break to eat a Chick-Fil-A sandwich and watch the end of an episode of Everbody Loves Raymond (it was a flashback episode dealing with Ray’s proposal to Debra) when Amanda got home around 7:00. She had been out shopping for Chris Mowbray’s baby shower. Chris is her boss and a friend of mine from way back in high school. Her last name used to be Schoch. That reminds me, Amanda told me the other day that her brother, Brian Schoch, and his wife are pregnant now. Man, everybody’s having babies but us.
Anyway, Amanda painted the butterfly house her grandpa gave us yesterday. She painted it Joker colors; purple and green. We’re going to have some psycho butterflies in that thing.
I painted the entire bathroom, even a big section behind the washer and dryer (enough so you won’t see the unpainted part anyway, as I don’t expect we’ll ever move them out of that closet unless it’s to replace them) although I did forget a thin spot between the door and the washer and dryer closet. I guess I’ll get that tomorrow.
When I finished I told Amanda that since I’d just spent my entire evening painting the bathroom that she could clean the brushes, which I am loathe to do. She said she’d put up all the clothes instead. After a little consideration, I grudgingly agreed to that. I’m not much one for putting up clothes, although since we hang just about everything now it’s really not all that bad. It’s just that I washed all the colored clothes over the weekend so there was a lot to do.
Unfortunately it seems the cat peed on a pile of clean clothes, so they had to be washed again. I thought it odd that our dear Mr. Cobblepott would do such a thing until Amanda pointed out that the litter box was full. She’d recently bought a new, covered litter box, so I haven’t been noticing the smell like I used to, and I only think to clean the box when I smell it. That’s usually while I’m working in the office and the cat has just taken a really odious dump.
So I cleaned up the litter box (I about filled up a plastic bad with all the stuff I got out of there!) so Mr. Cobblepott will hopefully resume his normal habits. It would explain too why he’s been trying harder to get outside lately. Poor guy. Poor us too, of course, since I had to sniff cat piss and rewash two loads of clothes.
I worked on wedding pictures last night and tonight and I’ve finally got them all done. I’ve been uploading them tonight, but the files are large and there are a lot of them, so it’ll probably be a while before they’re all totally ready for everyone to see. I started using a Photoshop trick I learned on a wedding photography message board that, used as a batch action, really snazzes up some of the photos. I went back and applied it to all of the pictures for both Jon and Denise Greene and Ashley and Cory Burrell. I think it was a great touch.
I’d post an example, but adding and resizing pictures with the interface I’ve got is a bit of a PITA. One of these days I’ll change WYSIWYGs and it’ll be easier.
Zach Dotsey