My most recent Medium articles

After three weeks of hearing nothing from the publication to which I had submitted these two articles, today, during my lunch break, I bailed and withdrew the submissions. I have since published them myself.

Vacationing in the Era of the Rona

It's OK to Stand Your Ground

I will keep writing, as well as trying to connect with publications within Medium that are a bit more prompt about getting back to authors who have submitted articles. 
 

Holy Moley

This arrived in my email at work today:

As [employer] pivots to resume normal operations across the system, we know many members of our team who have been working remotely during the pandemic are awaiting details about plans for when they may return to the workplace. Employees who quickly pivoted to working from home at the start of the pandemic, and those who are flexing or rotating their schedules to reduce density, have made it possible for our clinical teams to remain safe on site.  At this time, those who can work from home–for some or all of their hours–should continue to do so until after Labor Day.

 My employer, not I, added the bold print for emphasis.

This tells me that my employer does not expect COVID to just disappear magically any time soon. They are taking precautions at least throughout the summer. Moreover, there is not any indication that after Labor Day, they will reduce their precautions appreciably. Rather, it appears to me to be a case of "We will revisit the policies and see whether to extend them or not".

It looks like I get to keep my ten-second commute for a while longer.

That moment when...

That moment when you log off work for the day, and holler, "I'M HOOOOME!" 😂😜

Someone must have found a batch of faxes that needed processing, because I got inundated by the fax fire hose again today. Oddly, the ones that were not dated with a recent date were all dated for the third week of April. I suspect that there were some items set aside back then for whatever reason, and today, they were found and sent my way. Well, it's all good. The ones I couldn't finish today will be done on Monday.

In other news, I have enrolled in the Hadley School to take an online braille course. They took over for the Library of Congress, which used to offer a free braille transcription course. I had started the transcription course back in 1990, but at the time, I was working full-time, studying ASL interpreting, AND moving from my apartment into a house. Something had to give. So I didn't complete the transcription course.

I'm interested to see how they handle this online. When the Library of Congress was doing the course, we had to use a slate and stylus and actually braille the assignments. Obviously, I can't do that for an online course.

I will get started on it this weekend. One blessing of the lockdown is that we have all kinds of free time, lol. No commuting, no going out with friends, no going to church... that leaves a person with a whole lot of downtime, so I am finding constructive ways to fill it.

Social Distancing and Work

Today, we got an email from work.

Commencing June 1, folks who are working remotely will have their state and local income taxes deducted based on their HOME address, not their work address. This means, for example, anyone who lives outside the city, but works in the city, will NOT have the city wage tax deducted from their pay. Anyone who live out-of-state will have their own state's income tax deducted instead of that of the state where they work. This will not be retroactive to March 13, but it is how things will proceed going forward from June.

My first thought was that I won't be impacted, as I live and work in the same locality. Then, I thought some more. I started wondering exactly how long they expect things to continue as they are going, if the largest employer in the city (after the city itself) is going through employee records by the zillion and making changes. I realize that not everyone can work remotely, but even so, that has got to be a boatload of humans whose records are being adjusted. This is being done with the knowledge that as everything reopens, all those records will have to be returned to their pre-lockdown state.

Wow. Yeah, the big picture looks a bit different to me now than it did before I logged on this morning. Don't get me wrong; I love my ten-second commute and I will enjoy it while it lasts. However, it might be lasting a little longer than I initially realized.

Double wow.

Resurgence, Part II

The health system for which I work is calling its gradual reopening from the COVID-19 minimal staffing "Resurgence". The clinic where I work is actually starting to see urgent patients, but they are still maintaining a skeleton crew, rotating days that they work from home vs. in the clinic itself to minimize the number of people in the clinic, and rescheduling as many appointments as possible to be telemedicine visits.

I, meanwhile, have been told to continue working from home until the clinic is operating more normally, which makes me happy because I can keep my ten-second commute a while longer. I only wish it was possible to have my ten-second commute forever, because getting to and from work is such a bear on a lot of days, but I will take what I can get. Plus, now that we know I can do this, I can work from home on days where Mother Nature is losing her mind with blizzards, hurricanes, etc.

But anyhow, that's how work is going. Meanwhile, the county in which I live is slated to go from Red to Yellow on Friday, June 5. The Archdiocese is going to resume having Masses as of the following day, which means that one of my side gigs will be back up and running in June, hip hip hooray! Next up, I am praying that the neighboring county where my deaf-blind friend lives will start easing restrictions. I would love to resume going there as his aide on Fridays, which is my OTHER side gig.

Every little bit helps. Between the zero overtime and the zero side gigs, this lockdown has been rough on my bottom line. But I still feel fortunate, because there are a lot of folks out there for whom the shutdowns knocked out ALL their income, instead of a noticeable chunk of it. So I absolutely am not complaining; I'm just observing.

I am also crossing my fingers that everyone who really needs their income stream to be jump-started ASAP will be among the first to return to work when the restrictions are lifted in earnest. We absolutely had to enact the social distancing and the closures, because the virus is no joke. But I know that the precautions that have kept people from getting sick (or worse) have caused hardships in a lot of households. Compared to their challenges, my altered bottom line is nothing. So I hope they can start returning to normal as soon as it's safe.

It's heeeere

Good news! My laptop arrived this afternoon, at least a day earlier than I had expected it to. I will take tonight and tomorrow to make sure anything I need to migrate over to the new machine is safely stored in my Dropbox, so I can jump in and Retrieve All The Things and install them on the new machine over the weekend.

Tomorrow is our 21st anniversary. We usually go to Popi's on our anniversary, but of course that isn't an option until the lockdown restrictions are lifted. Therefore, we will get takeout from Popi's instead. The food will be just as good whether we eat it in their building or ours, lol.

Due to computer problems, I spent a couple of days where I was just too mentally exhausted to practice with the braille book.

But then, I got back on board with the braille last night, and I noticed something. Something must have been percolating in my subconscious during those two days off, because there was a noticeable leap forward in my ability to feel the letters. I think our brain must keep processing lessons whether we are actively working on them or not. So if we keep at them, and don't let too much time lapse, it seems as though we not only might not lose ground, we might gain a bit of ground if we play our cards right. Interesting stuff.

Resurgence

Today, the medical system is officially embarking on what has been termed "resurgence". This is the gradual reopening of our clinic, which will be seeing patients for the first time since April 1. That was when we began transitioning it to be repurposed as surge beds for non-COVID-19 patients.The good news is that we never reached such a level of overflow that our clinic was pressed into service for inpatients. The other news is that all the things that were done to ready the clinic in case it was needed for overflow beds, has had to be UNdone so we can use it as an outpatient clinic again.

We were a Tier 4 surge area. The hospital got as far as Tier 2, to the best of my knowledge, when making use of overflow beds. I don't know if Tier 3 was used, but Tier 4 was not.

We will be resuming the skeleton crew staffing that we had prior to the changeover. Only a very limited number of urgent patients will be seen in person. The rest will continue to be scheduled for telemedicine for the time being.

I, however, have been instructed to continue working from home for the time being. That works just fine for me. There is no shortage of electronic faxes to process. That goes double since today, it seems like they have turned on the fire hose of faxes now that the resurgence is underway. Holy moley but it has been busy today! I have had over 30 faxes so far today, and it's only lunchtime.

That's fine by me! Bring it! 👍

That moment when you are working on THREE PCs at once

I strongly suspect that the hard drive on my main PC is on its last legs. Argh grumble mumble swear cuss growl.  The disk usage has been tending to be in the 90-100% range consistently, even when I'm not doing anything particularly intensive.

Therefore, this is the setup I have going today

First, I have my main computer set up (after having spent about 30 hours between yesterday and the day before doing resets and a bunch of other "Dear Lord and Patron Saints of Tech, let this work" stuff. We are finally at a point where it takes a little under 10 minutes to boot up. Which is better than getting stuck infinitely during the bootup and not actually booting at all.

Second, I have my main computer remotely connected to my work computer, so that's two PCs I'm using.

Third, I have my netbook open, so that when things are calm on the work front, I can look up fixes for Windows 10 excessive disk usage, and not cause my main PC to use its disk any more than it absolutely has to. Because too much disk usage equals frozen computer, which equals 10 minutes spent recovering from frozen computer, and I do not need that while I am trying to actually get freaking WORK done.

So there you have it. I am working on 3 PCs at once, because I'm just that much of a geek.

P.S. I have also started to apply any of the fixes I find that don't involve a restart. We have gotten the disk usage down to somewhere in the 80% range.  Go, me! That's still way higher than I want it, but it makes Frozen Computer Syndrome less likely, so I will take it.

Tiny But Mighty

Working from home has just gotten a lot more interesting, in the sense of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

My main computer, the 17" laptop, started hanging during boot yesterday. All I was getting was the spinning dots. To make a long story a lot less long, I used Google-fu on my phone and tried a whole bunch of scan and repair techniques, all of which did diddly squat to fix the problem.

So I am left with the nuclear options. First, I am trying to reset the PC such that it keeps the files but reinstalls Windows. In the event that fails, the next option is just do a complete clean install of All The Things and start from scratch.

I am decidedly Not Happy about the fact that it has been showing "Resetting the PC.... 1%" for two hours.

However, this is where the Tiny But Mighty comes in. I have got a 7" netbook, which is barely bigger than my iPhone XS Max Plus screen,  Last night, when it became clear that the likelihood was slim that I would have the main PC up and running by 7 AM this morning, I started setting up the netbook to connect to work.

So that's what I am doing today and, apparently, every day until I get my pain PC back up and running.

What can I say? Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Since this netbook does not have a camera (the one thing I would change about it), I had to go retrieve my webcam from the camera bag and set it up, to ensure that it was working in time for our conference call this afternoon. I actually need the camera more for its microphone capabilities than for its imaging, for the time being, as the netbook's audio drivers got glitched by a Windows update many  moons ago For whatever reason, it doesn't recognize its own microphone anymore, but it does work with the camera's mic, so I set the camera up. Nobody shares audio in these meetings, though we COULD if we wanted to. I don't want to, lol.

So wish me luck in reinstalling Windows on my machine, because I am OVER these blasted problems. #FML

To Do List

I have been building up to starting to write on Medium for a while now. I would say it's been two or three months since I made the decision to start submitting articles. But first, I prepared by creating a list of topics to write about.

It amuses me that the article I submitted last night actually started out as one topic, but quickly morphed into expounding on a different topic. Here I was, thinking that I was going to cover one particular situation, and then my brain said  NOPE and veered off in a different direction. I just went with the flow, edited accordingly, and hit Publish.

In retrospect, maybe I need to go through that topic list and make sure that there aren't redundant entries on there. Perhaps a few of the items on the list are a little TOO closely related to one another, and they can be categorized as a single topic.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing.  I just heard Todd Rundgren's "Bang on the Drum All Day", and it reminded me of how enthused I am to sit at a keyboard and just create.

Fortunately, the past few workdays have been offering me ample opportunity to deploy my brainpower, which means that I am already in high gear when I log off at the end of the day. I have started handling electronic medical records requests, and it has been a bit of a travail trying to send faxes via email. Once I got it working on my end, the Gremlins started acting up on the receiving end. I got an email yesterday afternoon, saying that we are now to email the requests to a new address set up for this purpose, rather than using Outlook to send the faxes.

It's all good. I started sending the medical record requests the new way as of today, and it works. Take that, Gremlins!

I am now officially a writer at Medium.com

I have been a paid member of Medium.com for a few years now. I finally reached the point where the Urge To Write grew too strong to resist, so I started working on articles.

Here's my profile, which I just realized I need to add to my sidebar on here:


Donna's Medium Page

So stop on by and see what's happening! I published my first article over there yesterday. As it happens, I also posted a version of the same article here, but there are going to be times when I post content that is unique to either this blog or Medium, rather than being duplicated.

Here's the article link that allows both free and paid members to read the content:

I Enjoy My Lockdown Work Situation

Enjoy!

Does it make me a terrible person?

I enjoy my lockdown work situation.

Am I a terrible person?

I read a LOT online during my free time. Social media, Medium, news sites, blogs; you name it, I read it. Since every possible pastime that involves leaving the house has been temporarily curtailed by The ‘Rona, that leaves me even more time to sit and read.

Understandably, those of us who partake in social media, we who write online snippets about our day and click the Send button, are opining about what the stay-at-home orders mean to us. I think it’s crucial for people to express these points of view, since the appearance of COVID-19 is going to be viewed as a major historic event. People in the future will be curious to know what it was like to live under a worldwide lockdown, and we owe it to them to give a contemporaneous account of how our lives were impacted.

We also owe those future people the benefit of our insight, as well as descriptions of how the changes in our world have made us feel. Whoever has not lived through these times will be ill-served if all they are able to access is a bland timeline of events. To make the information come alive, we who are living the experience will have to record our thoughts and feelings for posterity, to shed light on what life was like when the social distancing rules were enacted.

As such, I can’t help but contribute my own point of view to the mix. I am one of the fortunate folks who is able to work remotely while our office space is locked down. I work in an outpatient medical clinic attached to a large medical system. The entire floor of our building has been temporarily converted to house non-COVID patients, in the event that the hospital across the street becomes overloaded by patients with coronavirus. The intent was to give the COVID patients the beds in the hospital, and migrate the non-COVID patients onto our floor.

We were told on April 1 that we had two days to remove our personal effects from the clinic, so that the transition could take place. I dutifully brought a large box to work and packed anything that was mine, so it would not be damaged or misplaced while the clinic was repurposed.

Then I came home, and I have been working from my living room ever since. And I have discovered something about myself that almost makes me feel guilty. Every day, I am seeing people write online and speak on TV about the hardships that the lockdown is visiting upon them. They express how much they miss the things that are currently disallowed, or lament the way their income has been utterly disrupted by all the business closures. But all I can think of, when I assess my own lockdown life, is how much I revel in working remotely.

My revamped workday is an easy thing to enjoy. Reducing my daily commute time from a 3-hour round-trip to ten seconds is outstanding. Instead of leaving the house before sunrise and returning home after sunset, I am actually able to see sunlight coming through my front window on weekdays. Having actual free time after work, and being able to spend it in my own home instead of languishing at bus stops, is a pleasure. For the time being, I have even more downtime than I am accustomed to, because on top of not commuting, I also am not working overtime. A person could get used to relaxing in their own house, you know?

I am very cognizant that I am one of the fortunate people, in that I am still able to work full-time while not being put at risk of contracting coronavirus. I also am grateful that the income disruption I am experiencing, the lack of overtime pay and the suspension of two side gigs, is not a crippling blow. The bills are still getting paid and the groceries are still being purchased (presuming we can find them in the store). And, most importantly, my husband, parents, and I are all in good health. In short, I am well aware that having the ability to like anything whatsoever about La Vida Lockdown is a luxury, and I count my blessings that I can see positives in our current situation while others justifiably lament the difficulties that they are withstanding.

But while other folks are expressing their frustration at the changes coronavirus has made on their daily lives, I frequently think of how much I will miss remotely working once we resume a normal schedule. I feel guilty for enjoying myself in this regard, so I have kept this to myself (until now).

I sincerely wish that all the dreadful aspects of the lockdown were not happening to people. My heart goes out to the ones who are sick or in financial distress, and I adamantly agree that their well-being is just as important as mine. Therefore, once society gradually begins to resume normal practices, I will not complain. Certainly, I look forward to resuming seeing family and friends in person instead of communicating only via the phone and Zoom calls. I will also willingly go back to long waits at bus stops in the rain and snow, working all kinds of extra hours, and only seeing the sun come through my front window on the weekends. We need the world to be healthy and thriving, physically and financially, and that is the only way we are going to achieve it, so I will not bemoan my fate.

But boy, am I ever going to miss the ten-second commutes. Son of a gun, but are those ever nice.

Here's an example of the kind of "work at home" scam I've run across in my online job search. I've never bought into any of these things, but that's largely because I've done a lot of research on anti-scam sites BEFORE actually applying for anything.

On Craigslist.org (from whose classified ads I've gotten a few legit interviews, so it's certainly not all hogwash over there), I responded to an ad entitled "Clerical/Data Entry Position".

In the ad itself, information regarding the job was limited. The job details involved processing orders received via email, for pay, and it was an entirely work-at-home position. The ad instructed interested parties to send an email requesting additional information.

This is always the first sign that there's likely to be a scam afoot. Craigslist has banned scammers from placing their false advertising, and will remove any ads inviting people to join what are essentially pyramid schemes or outright swindles. HOWEVER, if the ad contains minimal information and tells the responder to REQUEST the details, then no one can prove that it's a scam and the ad is allowed to stand. So caveat emptor: if the advertisor seems to be downright secretive about this job opportunity, there's a reason for it.

But, for kicks, I responded to the ad anyway. I have two email addresses that I use for job searching. One is for the opportunities that I'm positive are legit openings; the other one is what I use when I'm suspicious that the "job" will be a disappointment at best, and flat-out shady at worst, once I've received more complete details. I used the latter address to answer this ad.

And here, for your entertainment, is the response I got, interspersed with my commentary.

Thank you for your interest in the Processor/Typist position. Here is some more information about the job…

Job Description
>Work at home part-time or full-time
>Earn $250 - $1000 per week
>Full online training
>Completely Legit
>Work your own hours and days

The monetary promise above is exactly the kind of thing that would have gotten this post flagged and removed from Craigslist, had the ad contained the above information. It's false advertising to claim that the person will receive this kind of income when they're essentially dependent on the number of orders they receive, and there's no way to control that.

Oh, and of course, stating "Completely Legit" automatically absolves the poster from any suspicion. Just like the ads out there that say "This is not a pyramid scheme" automatically make the thing they're advertising not be a pyramid scheme. All you have to do is declare something in print, and it's instantly true. Yeah, right.

Requirements
>Computer with Internet and E-mail access
>Good typing skills
>Basic Internet knowledge
>Self-motivated

Information
This home based position is a great opportunity for stay at home moms/dads, students, or anyone who wants to work in the comfort of their own home. There is no cold calling (calling strangers) required. You respond to orders sent to your e-mail and process them at your convenience.

And you do have to be self-motivated, because as it turns out, you'll be completely responsible for getting your own name out there so people will send their orders to YOU.

Details
This home based position gives you the opportunity to earn $250 - $1000 per week. We are seeking only self-motivated people with the desire to work in this field. No experience needed.You must have a computer with Internet access, a dedicated e-mail account, and basic typing skills. You can choose to work full-time or part-time and can choose to work the hours of your choice.You do not have to contact anyone. You will be processing responses from the ads, which will be explained to you in your training materials. Everything is sent to your e-mail account. There is no contract to sign—the amount that you choose to process is entirely up to you. As with any job, you must be willing to work hard and try to respond to the orders in a timely manner.

PLEASE BE ADVISED, this job is not for you if you do not wish to be your own boss, work from home and at your own convenience, and make money for tasks that you accomplish. This position is very much self-driven and task oriented.

Bingo... "you will be processing responses from the ads, which will be explained to you in your training materials". The so-called training materials are going to tell you to place ads on as many free classified sites as possible, in order to maximize the number of responses you receive.

Compensation
You will be paid from $10.00 - $20.00 for each order that you process. For example, if you process 35 in a week, you make $350 - $700 weekly. The average person makes $600 per week. The amount of money you earn is entirely up to you. You will be responsible for keeping track of your earnings for tax time, as we do not take out any taxes or provide you with a 1099 form.

As a matter of fact, if you follow the formula detailed later in this very email, you will receive approximately $15 for each order that you process. And the reason that "we" don't take out any taxes or provide a 1099 form is that once you've received the training package, "we" never need to interact with you again. You're on your own.

Training
The training materials you receive will give you step-by-step instructions on how to get started. When you receive your training materials you may begin working on that same day. There is no special software required for this position. If there are any questions on the training materials, please contact me.

The training materials, such as they are, will give you a template for the ad you're going to be placing on all these free sites. They'll also most likely provide a list of online sites where you can post free classified ads, though it's anybody's guess if the information is current or outdated.

Method of Payment
You will receive your payment through PayPal. You are not going to be paid weekly; you will be paid for each application that you process.

And THIS is why "we" don't take out taxes for you. The money isn't coming from "us", but from the people who send in responses to the ads.

There is a ONE-TIME non-refundable fee of $15.00. This cost will cover the training materials sent to you. Once you process your very first application, you will have made back this fee!! I processed 7 orders on my first day. One of my partners had 11 on her first day and by the end of the week, she could have processed 46 orders. Some start-up fees are as high as $30.00 or more. We have tried to keep our fee low. Please understand that as much as I would like not to charge this small processing fee, we must protect ourselves from those who are not serious about this work. Be assured that you will recover this fee after processing your first order. The Training Materials will automatically be sent to your e-mail after your payment is received. You can then get started right away.

If you do not have a PayPal account, you may go to http://www.paypal.com to open a free account, so you can get paid for your work and purchase your materials. You may use me as a reference.

I repeat, BINGO. This is where the money comes from. The people who respond to your ad are going to get a form letter like the one I'm quoting. The letter will ask for this "one-time fee" to be sent to your paypal account. Therefore, you will earn "between $10-$20" for every order you process. The actual amount will be $15, minus the paypal fees.

I mean, THINK about it. The fee is allegedly to "cover the cost of the training materials"? Hello? They're sending the materials via email! WHAT "cost"? There's no expense for paper, printing, or postage!

Please e-mail me as soon as you make your payment via PayPal so I can expedite materials to you. The payment at PayPal for $15 goes to [removed].

Thank you and I truly hope you join our team! Again, if you have any questions at all, please e-mail me.

[signature removed]

"Our team"? What team? You send money, you get training info mailed to you, you start placing ads. You're flying solo once the money leaves your paypal account. But I suppose that last paragraph sounds better than, "I truly hope you send me money to cover the cost of the training materials that I purchased from someone else who placed an ad just like this one. If at least one person answers my ad, I'll break even. Will YOU be that person?"

**The legal part of this is:
This concept is 100% legal. Refer to US Postal and Lottery Laws, Title 18,
Section 1302 and 1341; or Title 18, Section 3005 in the US code, also in the
code of Federal Regulations, Volume 16, Sections 255 and 436, which states
that a product or service must be exchanged for money received.

What's interesting is that those laws are actually available online, for anyone who actually DOES care to review them (instead of just relying on this person's word regarding what they say). And, as per the anti-scam site breakthechain.org, Title 18, section 1302 &1341 of the US Postal and Lottery Laws actually states that chain letters (e-mail or otherwise) are illegal "if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants." Selling a report (which, coincidentally, is just more propaganda about the scheme) or adding respondents to a mythical mailing list do not make this thing legal. In other words, the laws that allegedly say this "order training materials, then sell them to other people" scheme is legal actually say no such thing.

Like I said, caveat freaking emptor. And don't get scammed out of your $15.