My Friday on the first week of June was a series of side quests and grinding.
It began with Microsoft having blocked my (leisure) computer due to Trojan. Then I went back to sleep and overslept. My smart phone and work machines were OK, so I could check my morning non-leisure emails. Which included checking final details of a reimbursement which had to be finalized this week. And social media. And non-essential websites. I planned to drop my infected laptop (silenced, because the alarm was blaring whenever the lid was open) to a repair shop, go to check the amount to add into the reimbursement, visit a nearby internet cafe to finish the reimbursement, then go somewhere to continue my designs. I wanted to do gift mug designs.
Despite the late morning, after getting my first espresso and discovering that the computer repair shop was not open yet, I instead went to a two county trip to discover what more was owed to me in reimbursements. Less than 3 dollars on top of everything. I should have let it go. Also, the schedule was now too tight for me to do leisurely stint in an internet cafe. Because I had to update the reimbursement info via email and read an online form, I did not have time to do other things on this trip. Except to stop for espresso and donuts. The repair shop was open by the time I got back to my home county, I left my machine there, and then went to coffee shop to finish my reimbursement form. And do some writing. And to idle. At least the reimbursement thingy is done. I hoped (the following week I needed to sign up for a new payments platform to receive my payment…) And then the computer repairman phoned that the machine was ready.
He had had to eliminate a hacked browser. Which deleted, not only all my open tabs, but also my bookmarks. I don’t want my bookmarks into cloud. In any case, if I had not had time to read them before, I would not have time to read them now, either – all my time seem to go nowadays into mindless little tasks that multiply every single year as the digital task masters invent new things to do with our free time. And if there is time is left over after the ‘helpful’ modernization (all these fancy new apps, not to mention in general dumping the stuff that company workers used to do onto their hapless clients via AI – when phoning to a customer service line, I vastly prefer human call center workers, because they can comprehend the concept of a problem beyond a limited set of preprogrammed alternatives), this time will be further eaten by some regulatory requirement or paperwork or some such nonsense. But in any case, at least my machine was repaired fast, by a human, and I am too tired to care about my unread websites.
This round ended in the afternoon. I rested for a while, after which I spent time doing laundry and updating my product SEOs. That is a long grind. visiting a coffee shop for a while. After the coffee shop visit, before I had finished the SEO for the second listing of the day, I realized that I may need to update my mockups to be compliant with new New York advertisement code, since that applies to all online shops that (potentially) sell also in New York. Better to be safe than sorry, when it comes to the whimsical enforcement of opaque rules. Because of this extra work, I dislike New York government – IMHO it is worse than California government, and that is saying something. And now I am typing here, with dinner (a quick takeaway) waiting.
I thought I would be that day designing gift mugs but I was delayed again. Regardless, my SEOs are still probably a disaster (and I don’t know if my ongoing fiddling with them will help or worsen the situation.)
PlanktonPunkt 