Guess What?!

They couldn’t fix it.

*laughs*

So, to recap, IT issues with the hospital’s programs caused my laptop to crash. That’s where we left off.

Friday, I went and babysat Little Man. It went well. He loves to be held, which did hinder some of my IT stuff, but he honestly mostly slept. That was cool by me. I left at 1, after Chrissy’s mom arrived to relieve me. It was ok, but I know fo’ sheezy that I don’t really want a baby. They’re a lot of work, and I didn’t get warm fuzzies or anything.

So, we’re working on the IT stuff. I actually got in touch with someone super helpful at the hospital. He tried his best for me, looked at everything and my VPN was fine. So I called the Elekta rep.

Here’s where the issues start to get worse.

The Elekta rep told me – quite sternly – that the program should NEVER have been installed directly on my laptop. I apologized and explained I didn’t know. He eased up on me, and I told him I’d tell the hospital so that they do not repeat that with other contractors.

So, he tried to help me. He was kind of a jerk, but he did do his best. When it came to trying to re-install the program, he couldn’t do it. My laptop kept refusing and shutting down the installer. So he told me there was nothing he could do; that files had been seriously corrupted on my OS.

Sweet.

So I called Laura. I explained that they couldn’t fix it. You know, that thing she said she’d never had happen? Of course it would happen to me. *laughs* I told her that my laptop was completely FUBAR, and I would need to wipe it and reinstall the OS and start from scratch. At that point, I stated that I didn’t believe I could continue on this contract, because I was not offering up my laptop again. I told her I really wasn’t happy about it, and she expressed understanding.

I have to admit, K was pretty good. The client refused to pay me for "downtime," which is offered when a consultant can’t work due to hospital IT issues. K agreed to pay me a portion of downtime so I didn’t have to use as much time to get me to FT hours.

Laura also began looking for a new contract for me immediately. She said they were going to offer my current client the option to overnight me a hospital laptop, but if they could not comply they would move me to a new contract ASAP.

I know the client doesn’t have a laptop there. They made that abundantly clear to me. So I know I’ll be on a new contract.

I think K is starting to wake up to the talent I have, in spite of my years of experience. The first hospital has requested to only work with me. The second contract, where I worked with another K CTR, I often helped that CTR with reports and the like, and we got along incredibly well. I know she spoke of me very highly. The third contract wanted to hire me outright.

So now, they’re starting to try to help me out a bit. It’s about darn time. They offered me a very good contract with a facility where I’d have the chance to learn something new and gain some highly-specialized experience. The problem? Travel to Colorado for two weeks. I said no. I said to Laura that I had just gotten home, and I just was not willing to travel again. If they changed it to completely remote, great. Otherwise, there are two other possibilities, so hopefully I won’t be out of work for too long.

Having some days off won’t bother too much, honestly.

Sean and I killed my laptop, reinstalled the OS, and now…it’s working fantastically. So you tell me if the problem was with my laptop or the hospital’s programs. I have my theories.

In other news…

I think our hamster is dying. In fact, looking at him now, he may be dead. Nope, just checked. We’re taking him to the vet tomorrow, and we’re pretty sure we will have to put him down. Sean always has a hard time dealing with death, but we don’t want him to suffer. If we could have gotten him in earlier, we would have.

He’s three years old, which is about the life expectancy for a dwarf hamster. I think we’ve both agreed that Chip will be our first and last ham. I really wanted to get him for Sean, but Sean is so enamored with Zoe that she fills that pet need. Maybe in a few years, but right now we’re really quite content with the cat.

I finally went to the gym yesterday! It was good. I only managed to walk for about 35-40 minutes, but it’s more than I have been doing. I felt really good afterwards. I was going to try to get back today, but I’ve elected to clean up around the house instead. I have a lot of work to do here! I’ll head back tomorrow.

My ankle didn’t bother me nearly as much as I expected, although I certainly knew it was there towards the end.

My Facebook hiatus is already over. I couldn’t remember my damn password for Pinterest and the e-mail retrieval system wasn’t working, so I had to log in with FB. I am trying to stay off of it, however.

Sean’s mom is freaking killing me. I woke up this morning to three e-mails from her, copied to Sean as well, with three articles about weight loss. I know that we both need to lose weight. But having her push will not do any good. I said to Sean, "We need to get her a job. Christ." She had even said, in an e-mail a few days ago, that she knew pushing her loved ones wouldn’t work. *facepalm* I know she means well, so I’m trying not to be too aggravated about it.

Love my man, gotta love my in-laws. Or at least tolerate them (thinking more of Sean’s dad; I genuinely do like his mom).

I think that’s all I’ve got. Watching some spooooky TV and cleaning on the commercials, so I’m going to get back to it!