Tech Top Up and COVID Consequences

It has been a rather quiet yet fraught week here at Inkreadable. I have been slowly learning the two pieces of software that TEC is using to keep track of our schedules and payments, a Google extension called TimeNavi. It took a little bit of getting used to, but I was able to figure it out. The most difficult thing to remember is that you actually have to access the software from your calendar and not your email. It does save a hell of a lot of time when trying to create a timesheet. Where it used to take me about 40 minutes to create a timesheet, it now takes about 5. The functionality of Moosend was a little bit more complicated.

You’ll remember that I was asked to take over the management of TEC’s various mailing lists. The first list that I was asked to do was their newsletter. TEC was able to give me a list that I was able to format into Excel and upload. I sent an email saying that I had done my work and asked if there was anything else that I needed to do. I was assured that there was nothing else to be done, but scarcely an hour after my email, I got another email from TEC, that I needed to now edit the newsletter. After I had asked was there anything else I need to do. so that was a little bit stressful. But I managed to spend another hour making sure that the pictures were ok and the buttons clicked to the right places. Thinking I was finally done I sent another email, and this time, all was well. The next list I was asked to do was the business-to-business Christmas cards. Again, a list was sent and I again uploaded it into Moosend and sent out another email. Only to find out that I still wasn’t done. Six of the addresses that I had put into the list would not be recognized. I to spend another half an hour with my boss trying to figure out why the addresses were ignored. Eventually, with the help of Moosend we were able to figure out what was happening with the lists. wit turns out that the email addresses that were not populating had been unsubscribed from the mailing list. Since Brenda knew who they were, she was able to send them a personal Christmas card. It’s actually a pretty good strategy because that touch of personalization will make them feel like they are special, and bring them back to the TEC mailing list.

But my tech journey was not over yet, dear reader. On Friday, I was contacted to do a Christmas card list for the teachers. Again, they gave me the list of teachers but I had to put in the extensions on my own. So that took another half hour. Then I had to migrate the list to Moosend and thankfully that worked without problems. Of the 28th mailing addresses that I imported, not a single one was ignored. But I think it will be quite a lot of getting used to and a lot of adjustments before I am sufficiently comfrtable enough to use Moosend with no trouble. but I’m being paid and it’s a little bit of consistent work which is always appreciated. As is the trust in my tech abilities.

Saturday brought a press conference in the Netherlands and the news that we would be going into a full lockdown once again. In addition, Greece required a cover test to enter so I had to spend the weekend getting all of that sorted out. We were able to book our PCR tests on Saturday evening a 7:00 pm. We went and both Jasper and I were surprised to find that it was quite busy. After we got home, I decided to check my email. Upon checking I found an email from Lufthansa saying my flight for tomorrow is ready to check-in. I freaked out, dear reader. I looked at my ticket and confirmed with Jasper that we had in fact booked a flight leaving at 6:20 in the morning on the 20th and not at 6:50 in the evening on the 19th. We then had to spend our Saturday date night on the phone with Lufthansa: 30 minutes getting nowhere with Lufthansa in the Netherlands and then a further 2 hours with Lufthansa in Germany where we were able to get a ticket through Frankfurt leaving an hour later than our original flight, which flew through Munich. From Frankfurt, we flew to Athens. In Athens, we had a four-hour layover and then we got to Crete three hours after our original flight.

Yes, it was exhausting, but we have arrived safely on Crete. There was no rest for the wicked, however, as there was only enough time to get to my sister’s house, greet my niece and nephew, then we were off again. My sister was working on a new project, a bistro/art gallery/artist studio when I was there in the fall. The grand opening was last night. It was a lovely opening and I’m convinced it will be a great success. More importantly, my sister is living her dream. If you are ever in Chania, you should check out Maiami, which is the greek way to spell Miami, which is the name of the bistro as it’s located in a fabulous art deco building that does remind one of Ocean Drive. It’s a working vacation for me, and I have to go and prepare for today’s lessons. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and a festive holiday season to you all.

That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable instrument. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.