Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Stress level high

It is one of those days. Come in and get knocked silly for 4 hours straight. You barely finish reading emails and drinking the morning cup of coffee before the shit hits the fan. You go to grab stuff off the fax just to find it out of paper. You know that this damn machine is going to start beeping at you and read "paper jam" as soon as you slide that shelf back in. Sure as shit it soon sounds like a semi backing up. You take some paper out and then panic when you read the display that says 85%. You struggle to recall if that means the memory is 85% full and that means you have a shitload of faxes waiting to print or if that means there is 85% free memory which ain't all that bad. After slamming the paper shelf into the machine a couple of times you are about to say "Fuck it! Let the next person take care of this damn machine!" and walk away but it spits out the last paper and you breathe a sigh of relief that it is a memory free message.

You find yourself wanting to wring the neck of the highly paid salesperson who cannot follow simple fucking instructions. He continually tries to take a short cut and submit reports that are not completed. You know he would dare not try to do the same thing to his boss or give his customer such shoddy service, but yet he tries to pull of this bullshit with you. You are tempted to find our which parking spot his car occupies and egg the motherfucker but good. Wait, that is going a tad too far but you can visualize it in your head. That is a bit of satisfaction.

You grab some lunch and find it hard to eat because of the constant interruptions. Man, you knew you should have gone out for the liquid lunch. To be able to sit back and relax with a nice beer would greatly beneficial. Instead, you have a ham sandwich and a bag of pretzels to munch on.

You decide to shut out the world and post, hoping it would be a stress reducer. But once again, you get interrupted by someone looking to get some item clarified because she needs to get the big guy an answer by noon. Pacific time. Being the smart person you are, you notice in the chain of emails that she got first notice of this 2 weeks ago and now is finally getting the info she needs from you. Yes, you are expected to push everything aside and jump through the flaming hoop so she can get the report in and take all the kudos for the job.

You stare at the clock and see it is not even noon. You cringe when the meeting request comes through about another project that has been thrown in your lap because some guy on the west coast thinks, "Hey, he is creative and funny. I bet he can do a good job." The time of that meeting is at the end of the day. Just when you think you can slip out a bit early to get cocktails with this guy, you see you are stuck at work until the very last minute. That means it will be longer before some of the hoppy goodness of the Gods can cross your lips and send the chemicals into your brain to give happiness that you so rightfully deserve. And all the while you keep thinking "Why must this be happening to me?!?!? Maybe I should go that one meeting room in the building that does not have a window and a lock on the door and go hide for a while"

Um...so how is your day?

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