Wasting Time

I wasted a lot of time today - first of all I spent over 28 minutes on hold trying to reach Office of Personnel Mgmt to make a change in my tax withholding.  I finally got tired of holding on and hung up, going to their website to make the change.  Since I don't do things on websites if I can talk to a human on the phone, I hadn't used my web account in so long the password had expired.  I emailed asking them to issue me a new password and got a prompt automated reply informing me that they had to check and verify my information after which they would mail a new password to me.  Estimated time was over 15 days.

This afternoon I decided to try again.  This time I got an automated message telling me that the wait time was about 32 minutes, so I decided to just hold on.  I made my lunch and ate it while waiting, wondering what I would do if someone answered while I was chewing a mouthful of sandwich.  But I finished lunch and I think I waited a total of less than 30 minutes to speak with someone.  The person was extremely pleasant and took care of my request very quickly.  I'm so glad I called back and got that taken care of.  I can't complain about waiting 30 minutes (twice) when I think about the patients waiting months at some VA hospitals.  (Not all VA hospitals are like that - my brother in Cincinnati can't say good enough about the VA he goes to, and I think my brother in Milwaukee also gets good and prompt service.)

This morning I sat down with my computer on my lap and a big big mug of coffee in my hand, when I dropped the full mug of coffee.  It went everywhere except on my computer, and I spent a lot of time moving furniture around trying to mop up all the coffee,  I probably still didn't get it all.  That was another time waster.

The library sent me a notice that a book I had requested at least 6 months ago had finally arrived.  It is "What Makes Olga Run",  the story of a woman in her 90's who started training in her 80's, and is still setting a lot records in many events. She holds more than 23 World Records in Track and Field events.  She has no women in her age category to compete against, so she has to enter events with much younger women or with men in their 90's.  I didn't realize there were so many older folks , men and women, who could probably put most seniors to shame.  I have never liked running and won't start it now, but I will do my workouts at the gym with renewed energy and vigor as I read Olga's story.  I believe Olga is from Canada - maybe there is something in the water up there?