A case of the Mondays…
I’m starting this a few hours earlier than I have the past few nights, in what I believe to be a futile attempt to get to bed earlier. I feel incredibly exhausted right now (more so than my regular state of exhaustion), and I have an 8:00 AM meeting tomorrow. Despite that attempt, an hour managed to pass between my second and third sentences, so my chances of getting to bed early are not looking very good so far. People keep distracting me…IM, chat, phone…gah. I hate technology.
So today was Monday. What a horrible day, even though I did sleep in until about 9. There should be mandatory breakfasts provided at work on Mondays. I was strongly considering stopping at Bruegger’s Bagels this morning to pick up one of those egg and sausage bagel sandwiches they make. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those (this past spring break in Colorado, to be exact), and it sounded particularly good this morning. If you ever want to pleasantly surprise me, get me one of those, some morning when I have to work. I’ve also discovered that no matter how much extra time I give/allow myself, prior to some deadline (as in, a deadline to accomplish something, such as leaving my house for work), I’ll uncontrollably waste enough time to either push me past the deadline, or at least make the margin of completion about 10 seconds from the deadline. Even though I’ve reached this conclusion many times, I still optimistically set my alarm to allow myself about 40 minutes in the morning (versus the 15-20 minutes, or possibly less, in which I could actually accomplish everything, if needed).
I had to "fix" a laptop used by one of my bosses, today. It kept rejecting her email, explaining that one of the recipient addresses was wrong. After some investigation, I discovered that, *gasp*–like it said–it wasn’t sending email because one of the recipient addresses was wrong. Nathan@mycompany.com won’t work when the actual address is Nate@mycompany.com. As a Mac user, I’m sure she wrote that off in her mind as the fault of Windows.
Later, the “Mac server admin” asked me to make a change in one of the other servers. Later in the day he complained to me about why his Mac wasn’t working right, with the new change. I demonstrated it worked perfectly in both Windows and Linux, so he kind of sulked off. Take that Steve Jobs!
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my company organizes lunch runs (they send one of the assistants out to buy everyone food). I still have to pay for lunch (except Free Pizza Fridays), but it means I have a sure shot at getting lunch. Today was Noodles & Co., so I got my classic large "Wisconsin Macaroni and Cheese." They specifically wrote on the sheet of paper that we should calculate tax for our meal, and give them money accordingly. Not being one to over-spend something on the scale of $0.06, I calculated the exact cost, and included exact change. The "lunch lady" for the day (an assistant for one of my bosses) then proceeded to complain that some people had included change. Wtf? How am I supposed to calculate and include tax, if I’m not supposed to give them change? I’m not going to give them $6 for my $5.14 meal. Maybe I’m cheap. Maybe they’re just stupid. Well, I’m the one writing this, so screw them; I win; they’re stupid.
I also spent a moderate chunk of time (both last night and today) editing an article for my company, since AMD was bitching at us to get it edited and posted. After showing the edited article to the author, he commented "it doesn’t look like you changed very much." Ow. I proceeded to show him a word document with "track changes" enabled, which showed every page crammed with changes, which then earned the response "Oh, you changed a lot. Thanks." That’s what I do it all for–some recognition and thanks. That reminds me that my friend’s mother, whose computer I fixed on Sunday, emailed me today, to thank me for the work I did. That made me feel good, too. Remember this: if someone (I) spends his or her time doing something for you, that they don’t necessarily have to do (or even if they do have to do it), a thank you can mean a lot. I like doing nice things for people, but it pisses me off when they don’t acknowledge it.
I didn’t get home from work tonight until about 8 PM, but I did have a nice, freshly-cooked steak dinner waiting for me shortly after I arrived (and yes, I did say thank you). It was a truly delicious steak, although I would have preferred a twice-baked potato to go with the meal instead of cuscus and asparagus, but I won’t complain too much. It really was fantastic. After dinner, I got some things together, because I’d agreed to tutor a neighbor in the use of Microsoft Excel (at a really nice hourly rate). I called, received no answer, so I just went over there. Well, she’d forgotten about it, so we rescheduled for Thursday evening, which is probably alright. I’m sure I won’t do any preparations with my newfound additional prep time, but it’s a nice thought. I just hope I don’t get there and have some huge mind fart, and forget how to add. I’m sure she’ll have some database-minded questions I won’t be able to answer, but I’m generally alright with that, assuming I can throw at least an hour of new information at her.
You know the rest from there…got back, wasted time by talking to people and listening to music, and such. I spent another unnecessary $100 tonight on a new video card. Blargh =E. Maybe one of these days, the fact that I’m going to be broke soon will sink in. We’ll see. G’night.