It has been a long, long week. Hurricane. Power outages. Meetings late into the evening. Checking email before I go to bed and as soon as I get up in the morning. Not getting much of my "day job" accomplished. Saying that I am glad this past week is over is something of a grand understatement.
By way of context, I work for a large financial services company, which means we have people's money. Lots of people. And lots of money. As a result, we take what's called "Business Continuation Planning" (or BCP) very seriously. Based on the events of this past week, we rightfully take it very seriously. I happen to be the BCP coordinator for my division's Human Resources function, which mainly means that, in the event of disaster, I need to represent the needs of the needs of my co-workers and make sure they have up-to-date information on what is happening. Practically speaking, for much of the week this meant three times a day conference calls...morning, afternoon and evening. It also meant small novels worth of updates to read, evaluate and determine what to pass along. Fortunately for me, Human Resources isn't considered to be a "critical function" for purposes of Business Continuation. Translation: the company can get along with out us for some period of time. This didn't mean we got most of the week off, but rather, it meant that most of my peers worked from home for part of the week.
As for me, while our Scranton office was closed on Monday and Tuesday, I was actually in the office. Well more specifically, I was in Monday morning, until about 1pm. After the winds started kicking up I figured discretion was the better part of valor, so moved my office home and worked the rest of the day beside Jean Luc the cat. Tuesday, while the office was technically closed, I was in working, as I didn't have Internet service at home anyway. So much for working from home. Hell, who am I kidding? I don't really like working from home anyway. Regardless, I'm sure that the skeleton crew in the office on Tuesday was glad to know that an Director of Organizational Effectiveness was on-site, ready to solve any mis-alignments of the STAR model that might arise during what was then Tropical Storm Sandy. Tuesday was a long day, but I did manage to get some work done, despite the storm.
Wednesday and Thursday were more or less normal (but long) work days. The Scranton office made it through the disaster with flying colors, and outside of some power failures, most of my co-workers on the East Coast managed to get through the troubles without too much inconvenience. Well except for the three that live in New Jersey.
Today started at the doctor's office, which actually had nothing to do with disasters and everything to do with sinus infections. Great moments in bad timing don't you know. Today ended with me leaving to pick up my youngest daughter at West Chester. She came home for the weekend, hopefully to relax. She works very hard at everything she does. Kind of like her Dad.
Today ends with me sitting at the keyboard, trying to abate a nagging cough and contemplating what has been a very long week. In hindsight it's good to know that our BC Plans worked so well this week. It's frightening to think that this kind of thing might be happening more often in the years to come. I know, Noted Climatologist Rush Limbaugh and 3 Albanian scientists tell us that global warming is just a "theory". A "theory", you know, like gravity, or that prolonged abuse of Oxycontin causes hearing loss. On that "high" note (pun intended), I bid the work week a fond farewell.
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