A hilariously dated item found in my grandpa's shop last week.

That Inner Voice...

Adminisk8or

01/09/2023

Trying not to make it the norm- I know I'm late a day to posting again, and my audience of probably zero is furious. As such, I beg your forgiveness.

What a chaotic week it's been. I took on more than I should've this week, and- the outcome? Well, the good news is I've moved over to my new virtualized firewall, and it's great! The other news? I've [mostly] eliminated my old smart home devices that were cloud-based only, and have now setup a network of Kasa devices that play oh-so nicely with Home Assistant. The bad news? Turns out ripping off that big of a band-aid and trying to jump ship from Google isn't as smooth a process as I had hoped it would be. And what's more, I still have several devices that won't show up until the end of this week, which I still have to install. All that with adjusting to not using voice commands anymore. It's been a crazy weekend, needless to say.

But then, it's also been a crazy week. Thursday I found myself going out to a more remote client at work to fix a little VPN issue that should've been an easy fix remotely, but wasn't, and amounted to completely reinstalling Windows. And on top of that, besides that taking all of my Thursday up, I then had to cram what I had originally planned to accomplish the prior day all into the morning of the next. So, there I was Friday morning, reinstalling Windows on a laptop (which was originally an Outlook issue, by the way, and came full circle to it, too), fixing TWO firewalls over the phone for over an hour, helping someone get their virtual desktop machine fixed, over-the-phone troubleshooting and discussing plans for a longstanding battery backup issue at another client with my coworker, fixing a scan-to-email problem remotely with another client, answering several unexpected calls, and many, many texts. All of that, in the span of five hours, by the way. It was probably the busiest day I've had so far in this job of mine- at least in recent memory.

Between all of the madness which is both heaped upon me, and also that which I heap upon my myself, there is also the plight of my good wife. She got a job offer today, and it is an interesting situation. On the one hand, it's a job offer, and it pays... well, it pays. On the other hand, it doesn't pay all that well, and there are other small hesitations, as one would expect with any job. But on top of it all, she found herself in a similar scenario I was in only a few years ago. I was working at a grocery store, *in the style of Billy Joel* saving his pennies for someday!, and I decided to apply to a home depot call center nearby, as it meant a pay increase, better physical working conditions, and a move that could possibly lead me somewhere at least in the general vicinity of what I was studying. I had the interview, went through the second interview, and was then offered the job. It was like 2018, and- oh, I just realized that's like five years ago... weird. Sorry, it was 2018, and making about $13 an hour, with my wife's income and trying to pay rent, plus pay for school was getting tough- so of course, a $2/hour increase would be nothing short of great. I was ready to move forward and accept the offer, and had even scheduled to start training the next week... but then I had a strange notion, which I couldn't fully explain or describe, other than it didn't quite feel right to proceed.

I consider myself someone who is pretty logical, and doesn't just trust to nothing- but I had to go against that in myself, because deep inside, I felt that, again, for reasons I couldn't fully explain, it was the right thing to do. And to be frankly honest, I don't know how my life would be different if I had accepted the job or not, but I can say I still feel good about that decision. I made good friends, had interesting experiences, and changed for the better in those two years I continued to work there. My wife, currently being out of a job, and now faced with an opportunity for employment at a decent place, now faces the same inner conflict I did back then. Despite things seeming mostly right, there is a voice deep inside that seems to be suggesting to continue looking for other work- and I readily support that.

And among other things that seem to be forgotten about as the daily grind grinds deeper in everyone's lives, I think that's something most people have placed aside, because by nature, we are so often obsessed with being logical, and pursuing our own happy ends- so why would we listen to an inner voice that not always, but occasionally might suggest difficult conundrums? I suppose that's all I need say about that.

So, there's something to think about this week. Meanwhile, I'm going to try and keep my life unchaotic so I can hear that quiet inner voice. Until next time, see ya!