erin.hickey

In an ideal world, if I wanted to lose my job, here’s probably how I’d function:

*Please note at every hour, take 5 minutes for a bathroom break and time to get more water*

8:30-8:45- Check e-mail, listen to messages, fill up water cup

8:45-9:30- Work out ideal wording for e-mail. Listen to voicemail again, respond.

9:30-10:00- Read TV recaps from the night before

10:00-10:30- Ask various questions about how the company works because I still don’t know

10:30-11:00- Morning snack break

11:00-12:00- Send out a dozen mass e-mails. Wait for responses

12:00-12:30- Pre-lunch break

12:20-1:40- Lunch

1:40-2:00- Post-lunch break

2:00-2:30- Snack break

2:30-3:30- Pick up phone to make calls. Hang up the phone because it’s scary. Check Facebook

3:30-4:00- Check e-mail

4:00-4:15- Afternoon break

4:15- Leave

Here was my original plan for the day: Sign lease, relook at apartment, meet long lost friend at his apartment and play for the night. However, long lost friend took a long nap at his parent’s house and I am now stuck in Starbucks waiting for him (after driving on Lake Shore Drive for 40 minutes. But it was a really pretty drive and Hyde Park wasn’t as scary as I thought it was). Since I am doing nothing other than reading snarky recaps of The Vampire Diaries, I thought I’d share with my followers (all 2 of you. Thanks!!) the lovely people walking in from of the Starbucks on Sheridan and Broadway:

• * A policeman who I SWEAR could have been Uncle Jesse circa 1992 parked in front of the fire hydrant to run into Starbucks. This makes me want to be a cop for 2 reasons: To park wherever I want to and to get transformed into a character from Full House. Stephanie Tanner all the way.
• *I always forget that Lakeview isn’t just comprised of improvisors and gays, that there are families here too. Unless those children are just living on their own

• Sidebar: I don’t think I’d even let my children walk around the streets of Chicago. They’re not allowed to do anything
• Sidebar 2: How come 13 years have a relationship and I don’t? This just further proves my point I was better in 8th grade when I had 2 boyfriends.

• *There’s a girl carrying a cello on her back. In heels. I hope she can share her secrets with me.
• *I’m pretty sure a homeless man is about to make a drug exchange on the corner. That duffel looks awfully conspicuous and he has no teeth.
• *Homeless drug dealer just used baseball signals to communicate with…someone? I don’t know but I want to see what the other person was doing. He walked away and now I’m sad.
• *I took a picture of him. I just realized I can take pictures on my phone and people will think I’m just texting. Score.
• *Some dude just acted like this intersection had a cross walk on the diagonal. He slow jogged it across to catch the bus. Maybe I should take walking tips from him before I move down here.
• *HOMELESS MAN RETURNS AND IS STILL GESTURING. I almost want to go outside and talk to him but it seems like he’s walking towards the school.
• *I’ve been watching a lot of White Collar recently so 1) I am CONSTANTLY thinking about Matt Bomer (aka Bryce Larkin: Not an Accountant) and 2) I’m SUPER paranoid that people are trying to take my wallett. This has nothing to do with people watching but it does explain why I’m acting super shift and constantly looking around.
• *Now that I wrote that down it’s all I can think about.
• *My friend is on his way to get me. I need something more interesting to look at other that this hooker that is stuck in the 80s.
• *Man hustling by with a beautiful bouqet of flowers. Maybe for me??
• *Not for me :(

I hope everyone enjoyed that. It’s not super intersting but it can’t draw attention because then the FBI will be after me. Or maybe I want that? MATT BOMER!!!

Ever since 2000, the worst thing that could ever happen to a person is that something small is wrong with their computer. Just ask Carrie Bradshaw. My horror happened at 2am after a long night of drinking. My DVD player wasn’t working so I could not enjoy my Jimmy John’s while watching “The Wizard of Oz”. I thought my life was over. Then I went to sleep.

Being the procrastinator I am, I put it off for two weeks. I finally made my Apple Genuis Bar appointment and the night before decided perhaps restarting my computer would fix my problem. Horror #2: My computer won’t turn back on. This just won’t do. I need my computer. Yes, I convinced my mom to get us smart phones but it’s hard and headache inducing to use when the screen has 14,000 spiderweb cracks. The next morning, Debz took me to my appointment with my sister, who was sad her Mail application wouldn’t send mail. Girl. Use gmail.com. My world is crumbling.

After playing with Kid Pix 3D for about 10 minutes, my new BFF, George, calls me up to the stand. Here’s is our conversation verbatim:

Erin: So I made the appointment because the CD drive wasn’t working. Then I restarted it to try to fix it. Now it won’t turn on.

BFF George: So it won’t turn on?

Erin: Correct. See? When you try to turn it on, it goes to the start screen then turns itself off.

BFF George: Ok. So it’s not turning on.

Erin: …yes.

So BFF George plugs it into something and it pulls up some generic page and he gets my computer to turn on. I get excited, naturally. Until this…

BFF George: Ok, see here where it says there are two broken sectors of the hard drive? You usally need to replace it when it says one broken sector

Erin: …so that’s bad?

BFF George: Well, it’s not good. When was the last time you backed it up?

Erin: Well, all of my pictures are on facebook and I recently started using Google Music. Does that count?

Needless to say, BFF George and I were not on the same wavelength. It was at this point, Debz got involved. Guys- if you have never seen my mom arguing with retail people, YOU HAVE NOT LIVED. It’s inspiring and horrifying.

BFF George: We’re going to have to replace the hard drive. It’s going to wipe everything. You can go to a 3rd party and they’ll take everything on the hard drive and move it to an external hard drive. It’s about $50-200 plus the cost of an external hard drive

Debz: That’s not acceptable. Because I’m betting it will be closer to $150 plus the cost of an external hard drive. The reason she has the extended warranty is so that you can fix it. And we’d have to make a second appointment for you to fix it? We’re talking about a week without a computer, which, as we both know, is not ok.

BITCH KNOWS WHAT’S UP. So we left, my sister with her fixed computer, my mom with a plan and me with a feeling of humiliation and pride for my mother. Debz informed me that our cousin Peter would know how to fix it since he used to work at the Apple store. He said that if you make a big enough stink about it (his words), they’ll let you keep the old hard drive and he could put it all on my new hard drive once they fix it. This sounded like a job for Debz. I turned the car around and dropped my mom off at the store while I searched for a parking spot.

10 minutes later I walk into the store. My mom got them to agree to fix it, let us keep the hard drive and it would all be done in an hour.

That movie Carrie Bradshaw was in, “I Don’t Know How She Does It”? Should have been based on Debz’s prowess at the Apple store.

You can see on LinkedIn who viewed your profile in the past 3 months. Here’s my list:

• My boss (which I’ve been operating so…myself)
• 2 friend from college
• Someone in the Information Technology function in the Law Practice industry from Germany
• Vadim Sagalchik

…I’ve become an international business sensation. Finally. What I’ve always wanted.

I also like that LinkedIn tells me my family are second degree contacts. I wish, LinkedIn…I only wish.