Caterwauling

more graph humor and song chart memes

I’d say it’s fairly accurate, although Tetris needs to be deleted (and only one person will get that joke!) and replaced with “Urge to suffocate Squeak Toys.”

Because, you know, if there IS such a thing as dumb questions, the asker will ask an endless stream of them. *squeeeaaaaakkkk* And don’t even get me started on what else they do to piss you right the fuck off, because I will tell you!

Today is so fucking fired.

Too bad you can’t actually go home after firing Monday … I might have contributed to the shit-canning of this awful day, but I still put in 13 hours of workity work work.

Speaking of work, I’m stealing an idea from Nic and asking you to pretend I just told you about my day, whereupon you act shocked and appalled and I’m saying, “I know, can you imagine?” Then we make several pitchers of margaritas and pass out in a tequila-soaked haze.

I feel better already!

Not only is my laptop flashing the “low battery” signal to me, but this is on top of the fact that my Bullet, well, bit it this weekend. I think it was my audacity of using low-grade IKEA batteries in it.

Back to the toilet-less, coffee-less office to recharge. …

After four gloriously stress- and drama-free days, today:

1. I put on high heels
2. And a skirt
3. And went into the office
4. Where there is no a/c
5. Or running water
6. Which means no coffee
7. But at least I don’t have to pee
8. ‘Cause I couldn’t flush it anyway
9. I walked in to 500 missed e-mails
10. 350 of which are actionable
11. I have two major projects due
12. Which I am going to have to do remotely
13. But I don’t know how to use the remote system
14. Nor have I bothered fixing my wireless network at home
15. But I need the software I have on this machine
16. So I will have to go in search of free Wi-Fi
17. In heels
18. And a skirt
19. But it sure beats having meetings
20. And I’ll be able to completely concentrate on my 2 projects!

I’ve been spending so much time arguing with people who seem hell-bent against me doing things the way they should be done (because I’ve fixed just enough screw-ups in my day to know when to spot a problem barreling at me like a runaway freight train) that, well, a screw-up of my own was pretty much inevitable.

Nobody died or anything. In fact, all I have to say is that some impeccable copy went out to people who were supposed to receive it. I know what the bigger problem is, but that’s an argument that is about two pay grades up. The more-immediate problem is that I’ve lost so many senseless battles this week that I just assumed this was a task I could crank out and feel like I achieved something.

(I was wholly opposed to the task itself on a fundamental level. So I sort of did the Band-Aid thing with it — just rip it off, get it overwith and fugettaboutit.)

Besides, you give me a task, I do it. I do not sit on it or wonder what the hell just happened. (Well, not most of the time.)

What burns my ass is that if the Internet had just gone down a half-hour earlier, I wouldn’t have had people about four pay grades above mine in my cubby asking what the hell just happened.

OK, what really kills me is how much time you spend in a day making everything “just so” and helping your stars to shine and banging the other, ah, wire hangers into some sort of shape that you can’t beat them with. You correct a dozen mistakes in a day but when you make one? It’s on a grand level. My mistakes are few, but boy are they public. *sigh*

I think my people understand that you just get tired and you just juggle everything in and that you’re on autopilot, mostly. It’s like when you’re so tired at night that “you get in the car and the house pulls up.” You don’t know how you get through a day sometimes — you just do, and that’s victory enough.

Anywho, the tornado watch of yesterday brought storms that wiped out the power all over metro D.C. for several hours. We had to give up at work around 5 — it was my battery backup dying that did me in, not to mention that all the local cafes with free Wi-Fi were also sitting in the dark, too, so I was screwed on all accounts.

There wasn’t a functional traffic light anywhere that I had to travel, which let me tell you that there is ONLY so much joy that I can take in a day. Yarr. While there were cops directing traffic at some of the main intersections, you just couldn’t trust your fellow D.C./Md./Va. drivers to exert courtesy anywhere else. It was spectacularly frightening.

Worse still was taking the freeway, which I did because there are no traffic lights. But the freeway was jammed with folks also giving up on working. But then the lights at the off-ramps weren’t working, so can we say clusterfuck, boys and girls? I’ll bet you can!

And of course there was no food at home, which was great because I didn’t lose anything in the power outage, but that meant A) braving the streets again, as it had turned into the Wild West of “it’s everybody’s turn!” at intersections, and B) oh yeah, where are the neighborhoods with functioning electricity?

I’m just so excited that it’s now 6:30 a.m. and I finally have everything (power, cable, Internet) back. I need to make an online purchase just to show Teh Intarwebs how much I missed them!

FANTASY

Me: Hey, really sorry to bother you. But I need a favor. I was wondering if you could do (blah) for me) at your earliest convenience?

Other person: Sure. Would love to. Hey, I have an opening in my schedule right now. Oh, would you look at that — it’s done, just the way you requested it to be done.

Me: Wow, thank you so much. You’ve saved me a lot of time and I’ll mention to your boss how awesome you are.

REALITY

Me: Hey, really sorry to bother you. But I need a favor. I was wondering if you could do (blah) for me) at your earliest convenience?

Other person (cc’d to 6 others): Well, you never answered my question on (unrelated topic).

Me (cc’d to nobody): We met a few months back to resolve that. Remember? We decided (blah). Anyway, my request is kind of urgent today — could you get back to me on how we can come to a resolution? I think we should do (blah) as the quickest, easiest way.

Other person (hits “reply all” to their original message): Well, we asked so-and-so since you didn’t resolve that old issue and they didn’t have time to meet with us.

Me (hitting head with stapler): But so-and-so DID meet with you because they gave me a debriefing. Anyway …

Other person (e-mailing while I’m typing the last response): We need to meet to resolve that old issue.

Me (abandoning last e-mail and getting pretty damn angry): What exactly do we need to meet about? You wanted Y data and it was provided to you.

Me (mentally typing): Not like you’ll ever do it my way, anyway, so why ask?

Other person (did that cc’ line just grow to 10 people? Why are my two superiors on there?): We cannot move forward until you agree to meet with us to resolve the issue we contacted you about two weeks ago. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s the (blah blah project).

Me (lighting myself on fire): Look, I will forward you the e-mail where we discussed/resolved this Moving forward, can you just do me the teensy itty bitty widdle favor I requested today that’s holding up the whole show? Let me know if you have questions. Thanks!

Other person (pwned!)

3 weeks later …

Me (being brave): Hi, I noticed something strange and I was wondering if your team ever did me that sweet little favor.

Other person (cc’d to Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Holy Spirit): No because you never met witih me on the blah blah project.

Me (craps on desk and goes out for a smoke)