The World in My Head

While this shot might suggest that I’m standing by to respond to QVC viewer calls, this has actually been my communication web this morning as I’ve swapped between calling card and Skype calls. After more than a decade of working from home (and being the first in my organization to do so), I’m now part of one of four North American time zones featuring home-based staff. We’ve been increasingly urged to adjust to a Skype-based reality (which, being with an organization that employs people with at least 23 languages I’ve heard pronounced Sky-pay, Skipee, Skeepie…)

Though I could still romanticize about a Princess phone I am still not one to embrace Skype conference calls. The dual headset thing is a bit spooky, since it feels that my co-workers are literally in my head. And, yes, I often walk around with the Skype and cordless headsets on at once.

Yesterday, I was on a conference call with domestic staff and people in Ouaga, Quito and Port-au-Prince. At one point, the main thing you could hear were the sounds of Haitian tuk tuks honking their horns, kids playing soccer in Cleveland Heights and birds chirping in DC’s Adams Morgan district. My neighborhood contributed the clinging of a Honduran ice cream vendor’s bell that could have convinced people I was in Tegucigalpa until a crack head started screaming to his gal-pal, “I gonna cut you up you filthy ho. I mean it. I mean it. I know you don’t think so, but I’m gonna.” It was finally drowned out by the sound of the MUNI 48 bus passing by as we heard about the release of the new HR manual.

And, no, I still refuse to become a Vulcan with a RAZR phone.

Living Daylights

Okay, besides the fact that it was much too hot in San Francisco today and I managed to reset all the "manual" clocks in the house early yesterday afternoon, can someone explain to me why it usually takes Sprint at least 24 hours before they reset to the accurate time? It has happened consistently for the 5-6 years I've used them as my main mobile carrier. Both computers updated themselves automatically as did a $15 Crate & Barrel travel clock, but not the Treo 650. I was also surprised that the less than a year-old, fairly pricey SONY DVD recorder didn't reset itself. I'm sure it will next month.

I hope that I am not starting my work day at 6 a.m. or 10 a.m., though the fact that I have coworkers in about 15 different time zones always adds confusion to it all.

Then there is the fact that there is a 15 minute time change when you go from Nepal to India. Nepal did it just to prove that they are not part of India

Anyway, it has cooled down enough I can go out for yin yang prawns at Firecracker.

UPDATE: Okay, Duh-moment alert. I turned the phone off and then back on and it went back to contemporary time. Hey, it took me three years to do a MySpace page. Now if the IT guy could just tell me why I can't print...