On-Call, something I will NOT miss in retirement

I'm sitting here listening to a network maintenance call after hours. Being on-call is DEFINITELY something I will not miss in retirement. After I retire, I look forward to being able to stay up late, get up late, and not be interrupted by a phone call in the middle of the night.

For the 22 years I have been at the California ISO, I have been on-call. Sometimes for weeks at a time. Luckily our on-call rotations are generally not a problem as we don't get calls. But, the very fact that we are on call causes some consternation as you are always expecting a call. And, while you are on call, there are things that you can't do and, you have to respond within an SLA to a call.

So, my personal on-call will start on 1-Jan-2020, but, hopefully, it will only be for fun.

Retirement: Where do I go online?

Retirement is coming:

• 45 calendar days
• 22 work days

and I'm looking at my online presence. I'm wondering where I should stay and where I should be after retirement and what sort of presence I should maintain.

It's interesting after nearly 56 years of employment what adjustments should be made. I have been several places because of my employment and other places because of my non-work life.

At a minimum, I will need to change my status from employed to retired. I imagine there are other things which will have to be changed, including things I am "following". Many of these are related with my job and will probably not be relevant to my retired life. I also imagine I will be adding things as I get involved in them.

Then there are places which I wonder if I should be involved at all. For example, LinkedIn which is concerned with getting a new job. I will not be looking for that, hopefully, unless something goes really wrong with our finances. I know, right now, that I am actively pruning things which seem irrelevant to my next phase and may even drop my membership completely.

More as I get further along in the process.

Hey, Google! Want me on a Chromebook?

Google,

If you want me on a Chromebook, provide an application like OneNote. It's as simple as that. Make the application as useful and easy to use and I might actually switch.

What do you have open?

It has been a while since I wrote anything here. Lately, I have been looking at my workstation and thinking about the programs I have open. Here's a look.

Every day, I open these four application:

• Outlook
• IE (our corporate browser standard)
• OneNote
• Skype (formerly Lync)

In addition, I might keep Chrome open periodically. Except for Chrome, I don't close these until I shutdown my workstation at the end of the business day.

Unlike some people, I don't keep a lot of windows and applications open, but I live in these applications. My workstation has to be able to handle all the development and office tools (e.g. Word, Excel) that I use throughout the day as well as these four applications which I use pretty much consistently.

Which applications do you live in?

 

Too many bowl games?

I like football as much as the next guy -- OK, maybe not as much as some guys, but I watch it -- but there seem to be an inordinate number of college bowl games during December. In fact, so many that I lose interest in watching them. What about you?

Don't Decide the Order

HEY, Social media!

Don't use some fancy algorithm to decide the order in which I see things. I don't need any AI or other technology to decide what's important for me. I like to see things in the order in which they were posted--that's it.

If you want to insert an ad or promoted site, that's OK. I understand that your primary goal is not to provide me with information, but to make as much profit as you can. I can ignore those things easily.

But don't decide to rearrange the order of things just because I have looked up something or bought something. Because I buy toilet paper online, doesn't mean that I'm interested in toilet paper in any way other than it's utilitarian use. Just because I look at some electronic gadget, doesn't mean that I can afford or am even interested in some other similar gadget.

Just because I read an article about someone or something doesn't mean that I have a broad interest in some other thing that might be vaguely related to that article of make some corporation more profit.

Just keep the most recent things, the most recent. There is no need to rearrange things when I say I want to see the most recently posted articles. You won't get my dollar by doing that.

Don't mess with it.

Start a Video, Lose my view...

I have said it before and will say it again. If your site starts a video without any intervention from me, especially an ad, you will lose me. I may never return to your site or will really consider clicking on a link that leads there in the future.This is an issue with even some major sites like CNN. I HATE this, especially when I'm visiting your site while at work or in public.

If I want to view your damned video, I will click on it myself. DON"T DO IT! Enough said...