Return to home and work after Gustav

[Phoenix-rising]

I just got home tonight. DH & I spent the last 10 days in a hotel in Jackson, MS. We were waiting around to see if Ike was planning to pay us a visit, but my office demanded that everyone return to work, even though they don't have power at the office and they're working off generators at the moment. So I drove home alone and left DH in Jackson. He set up a temporary office at the hotel in MS and some of his staff are still there working with him until their office here has electricity and internet restored. DH & I were extremely fortunate. It's dark right now, but from the looks of it the damage to our house is minimal. I think the metal chimney thing is somewhere in the backyard, but water didn't get into the house. Our satellite dish is down, but we have electricity and water at home. Our neighborhood is quiet and lots of homes are still boarded up. I think lots of people are still waiting for Ike to make up his mind. I expected all the traffic lights in town to be out, but was surprised that most of the lights on my way home were working. There are still areas in darkness though. I tried stopping at a couple of gas stations along the way to fill up, but the 3 that I stopped at didn't have gasoline, only diesel. I think I still have half a tank though. Even though I wasn't physically working at the office last week and today, I put in at least 50 hours of work last week that very few people realize. I was a little (a LOT) miffed that people who went to the Houma office today were under the impression that I wasn't "working". Last week when most of our staff was evacuated they were playing cards, or drinking, or relaxing while I was working every.single.day, including Sunday and Monday for Labor Day just to make sure our office in Texas didn't have any major disruption in their daily routine when we switched from our servers in LA and worked off our servers in TX for the very first time. My boss spent the week fixing up his deer hunting lease in Missouri while I worked my butt off and made sure I was accessible to troubleshoot the kinks in the system. The top dogs at our office fail to realize that you can effectively do IT support remotely. It'll be hard not to give someone a piece of my mind tomorrow at the office if I get any flack over staying in MS instead of running back home. I shouldn't be grumbling. A lot of others have it worse than me. At least my electricity and water are working at home. On the bright side, while I was out of town, I got a scorewatch alert that my FICO score jumped from 727 to 756. As the util goes down, the scores are going up.

[treski]

Glad things seem to be okay ... and congrats on the score jump. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Hey, Phoenix, when you come up for air, you should document all this, and present it to your deer-stand-repairing boss, and tell him that it's time to set up some sort of telecommuting system.

I was hired to work at home 6 years ago, but due to the actions by a couple of chuckleheaded VA contractors who couldn't keep track of laptops, we were all hauled kicking and screaming back into the office 3 or 4 years ago. There are people all over the country doing what I do at home, but you know how it goes; no one wants to sign off on something that they think might land them on the 6 o'clock news one day. Despite that fact that our work is completely secure. (Can you tell that I'm still p.o.'d?)

[Anonymous]

Congratulations on the increase!!!!!!!!!!

Where do you work in Houma?  I always forget to ask.