I had a one day break between our Disneyland trip and a big work conference. My company, being an online tax company, is a member of the NACTP, the National Association of Computerized Tax Processors. They have several conferences a year with different parts of the industry involved - some are just the vendors (that's us), some involve different parts of the state tax departments and/or the IRS. It's...awesome? Well, it's taxes but my employer is awesome so when I was asked to pick up my manager from the airport and attend this conference in downtown Phoenix, it was a no-brainer.
Since I normally work from home all the time, being gone for two full days was really weird. A couple of things I learned/was reminded of:
1. I HATE rush hour traffic. It's gross.
2. I am really, really grateful I don't have to commute daily in traffic like that.
3. I really don't like being gone from my kids all day. I missed them a lot.
4. I really, really, really didn't like being gone from Jacob all day. (Yes, I'm spoiled - I know.) I missed him TONS.
5. Having kiddos go from the near constant attention of a vacation to being gone all day is not fun for them. I didn't try to do anything for myself between walking in the door and their bedtime. It was kinda nice to know I was missed but at the same time, I was sad that they seemed to have a hard time with it (don't know if that makes sense or not).
The main thing was really that I'm really, really grateful for my work situation that allows me to work from home. And even though my kids don't get much of my attention during the work day, my presence in my chair is (apparently) better than nothing.
My second downtown adventure was a couple of weeks later when I got called in for jury duty. I have only gotten a letter once before in the 12 years I've been eligible (hope I didn't just jinx myself by admitting that) and it was for St. Louis and I was living in Utah, so that one was easy to get out of. This time, I didn't really fit any of the excuses. My brother-in-law had just gotten a letter a couple weeks before me and the night before when he checked in online, he didn't have to report downtown. I was really hoping for the same, but nope.
Most of all, I just didn't know what to expect. My only real exposures to jury duty were "12 Angry Men" and "Runaway Jury". I hadn't heard about any big trials in Phoenix recently so I was guessing it would be something small. So I drove down (stinking traffic again). I went through the metal detectors, checked in, filled out my forms, and waited. And waited. And (wait for it).......waited. :-)
In the end, I watched their little orientation video, the movie "We Bought a Zoo", more than I wanted to of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", and played on my DS for a while. And then they dismissed 2/3 of us and we went home. Overall, a rather anti-climatic day. Seeing the process was certainly interesting. Except for the fact that I just sat in a room with around a hundred other people for five plus hours, that office was probably one of the better managed and more efficient government entities I've seen. I was really glad it didn't turn into a longer engagement and I got to get back to my life pretty quickly.
Since I normally work from home all the time, being gone for two full days was really weird. A couple of things I learned/was reminded of:
1. I HATE rush hour traffic. It's gross.
2. I am really, really grateful I don't have to commute daily in traffic like that.
3. I really don't like being gone from my kids all day. I missed them a lot.
4. I really, really, really didn't like being gone from Jacob all day. (Yes, I'm spoiled - I know.) I missed him TONS.
5. Having kiddos go from the near constant attention of a vacation to being gone all day is not fun for them. I didn't try to do anything for myself between walking in the door and their bedtime. It was kinda nice to know I was missed but at the same time, I was sad that they seemed to have a hard time with it (don't know if that makes sense or not).
The main thing was really that I'm really, really grateful for my work situation that allows me to work from home. And even though my kids don't get much of my attention during the work day, my presence in my chair is (apparently) better than nothing.
My second downtown adventure was a couple of weeks later when I got called in for jury duty. I have only gotten a letter once before in the 12 years I've been eligible (hope I didn't just jinx myself by admitting that) and it was for St. Louis and I was living in Utah, so that one was easy to get out of. This time, I didn't really fit any of the excuses. My brother-in-law had just gotten a letter a couple weeks before me and the night before when he checked in online, he didn't have to report downtown. I was really hoping for the same, but nope.
Most of all, I just didn't know what to expect. My only real exposures to jury duty were "12 Angry Men" and "Runaway Jury". I hadn't heard about any big trials in Phoenix recently so I was guessing it would be something small. So I drove down (stinking traffic again). I went through the metal detectors, checked in, filled out my forms, and waited. And waited. And (wait for it).......waited. :-)
In the end, I watched their little orientation video, the movie "We Bought a Zoo", more than I wanted to of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", and played on my DS for a while. And then they dismissed 2/3 of us and we went home. Overall, a rather anti-climatic day. Seeing the process was certainly interesting. Except for the fact that I just sat in a room with around a hundred other people for five plus hours, that office was probably one of the better managed and more efficient government entities I've seen. I was really glad it didn't turn into a longer engagement and I got to get back to my life pretty quickly.
1 comment:
Bah humbug on jury duty where you just sit all day and they go home. Done that and wasn't impressed. A big bah humbug on traffic. Really hate driving in it also.
Glad that you did not have to spend more than one day with the jury duty.
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