Tag Archives: Monday

Trauma…

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Going back to work today was every bit as traumatic as I thought it was going to be… and I’m trying hard to resist the temptation to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and pretend that the who experience was a bad dream. That seems like a perfectly reasonable idea right up to the point where rent needs paid at the end of the month. Such is life for a cog in the machine.

While I’m bitching, I should note that my nose has been bleeding off and on since around 2:00 this afternoon. I’m officially over winter and the cold, dry weather that comes with it. You can only spend so much time sitting at your desk with the better part of a tissue jammed up your nose as a makeshift pressure dressing so you can do something other than stare at the ceiling until the bleeding stops. Fortunately, I think it’s slowed to a trickle. Hopefully I can make it through dinner without feeling like a stuck pig.

Happy Monday.

The first twelve minutes…

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It’s Monday. I’ve been at my desk for about 12 minutes this morning. And someone just wandered by to ask if I had read the 15 separate issue papers that arrived over the weekend. Of course I’ve read them. Somewhere between finding the coffee pot, hanging up my coat, and waiting seven minutes for my computer to boot up. I know that some people spend the weekend thinking about these things and rush breathlessly into the office on Monday to get in there and “make a difference.” I, on the other hand, am a bit like an old car. I need time in the morning to warm up before jumping into anything requiring a lot of horsepower or fine motor skills.

Even on my best day, the answer to “what have I done in my first 12 minutes in the office” is pretty universally “not much.” Check back in an hour – or 45 minutes if you’re really in a hurry – and there’s a fair chance I’ll have had time to get caffeinated and come up with whatever you need. Believe me when I say that standing there looking at me haplessly like a mammoth stuck in the tar pits isn’t going to help your cause. It’s pretty much just going to annoy me more than usual and slow down the whole process.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Time management…

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I’m a good employee. I’m conscientious, pugnacious, and attentive to detail. I get things done on time and do my best to at least project the illusion of confidence. For the most part, things are reasonably busy and productive (as long as you count meetings as “productive” time). Even on those busy days, once I get back from lunch the days just drag. The 120 minutes between 2 and 4 seem to pass at the same relative speed of the six hours between 7 and 11. I’m sure some big-brained psychologist out there has a good and rational explanation for why that is, but a cursory Google of the issue hasn’t returned any really satisfactory answers.

And don’t get me started on the weekends. They go by so fast that they’re practically non-existent. Seriously, damnit. I no more than wake up on Saturday morning and suddenly it’s Monday again and I’m schlepping down Route 40 with a thermos full of coffee and a bleary-eyed slightly dazed look on my face. Sure, time flies when you’re having fun and all, but should it really fly when all you’re doing is cutting the grass, cooking a few meals, and picking up a bag of dog food? When you’ve figured out the secret to this time management dilemma, let me know.

Sitting here on a Monday night, all I know is that I want my weekend back. Or I want to start my next career as a PowerBall winner. Either way’s good.

That time…

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It’s getting close to that time on Sunday. You all know the time. That moment when you realize it’s late into Sunday afternoon and you have absolutely no interest in doing whatever it is your overlords and paymasters want you to do on Monday. Maybe that’s the cosmic joke. We spend a quarter of the weekend annoyed that it’s about to be over. I suppose that’s offset a bit by wasting half the day Friday looking forward to the end of the day, but still it seems like a less than optimal trade off. In an hour or two I’ll start thinking about dinner. Not long after that, I’ll notice the sun has started to drop behind the trees. Then there will be a 50 minute reprieve thanks to HBO. But after that, Monday is the inevitable next stop. Meh. I’m not feeling it this week.

Anatomy of a day off…

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Anatomy of a day off…

I took the day off yesterday. Not so much because I really needed to, but a three day weekend now andthen is much appreciated. I realized that my days off aren’t exactly what most people would think of as relaxing. I was up at 5:30, which I suppose is technically sleeping in. Dropped the truck at the Toyota dealer at 7:00 for an oil change and an hour of shooting the shit with the service manager. Then it was grocery shopping and driving halfway across the county to pick up meds for the dogs. After that, it was off to my own doctor for what has become a never ending routine of follow up inspections and random pokings and proddings. An hour of that and a clean bill of health, or as clean a bill of health as I’m ever likely to get, it was back to a house in serious need of cleaning and dinner that apparently didn’t magically make itself in my absence. Follow that up with a bowl of orange sugar free jello and periodic napping and you’ve got the anatomy of pretty much any weekday when I’m not at work. I’d tell you what one of those days looks like, but that would be too depressing to contemplate on a Saturday afternoon.

As it is now, the hiring freeze is still on and I’m no closer to hitting eject on this place than I was eight months ago… But I’m still swinging for the fences. The house is a little cleaner than I was yesterday. And today’s dinner, I’m assuming, isn’t any closer to magically making itself while I’m out. The beer’s cold, the scenery is excellent, and there’s still another day between me and Monday. All things considered, I’d say I’m still doing better than average.