Tag Archives: weekday

Somewhere in the middle hump…

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When you get use to easing into the week by spending most Monday’s working from home, a Monday thrown directly into the daily asshatery of the office is like wrapping yourself in a cold blanket of angst. Going from a nice quiet Sunday surrounded by books and dogs to a cubicle surrounded by 30 other chattering bureaucrats is just hard on the system. It’s not insurmountable pain and agony, of course. Maybe it’s more akin spending eight hours with your swim trunks full of sand. It’s just unpleasant.

There are two sides of every coin, though. In this case, the obverse is that it’s one more day ticked off the calendar – meaning the work week is 1/5 the way done and there’s still a nice day of answering phone calls and emails from the comfortable precincts of Fortress Jeff still left to come. Don’t tell me I can’t see the brite side of things.

All told, it’s probably just another Monday – somewhere in the middle hump of the bell curve; not great and not awful. If there’s one thing I can count on my inner pessimist to deliver, it’s a constant stream of reminders to not worry, because things can always get worse. I’m quite sure that’s one of those sayings that’s supposed make you appreciate what you’ve got, but for me it’s always been more of a warning that even in the midst of what seems stupid, there’s plenty of room to drive the train even further off the rails… and into the ditch… knocking over a bridge… and crushing a bus full of nuns and children on their way to adopt all the puppies.

So if you’ve ever wanted to know what thoughts lurk in my head on a typical Monday in the office, there you have it.

Cantaloupe…

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So I had a bowl of cantaloupe for dinner tonight. There were plenty of other options. Lots of leftovers in the fridge that would have needed 90 seconds of heating up. A selection of cold cereal if I happened to feel exceptionally lazy.

I legitimately just wasn’t hungry. And I have no idea what to even do with that because feeding time is one of the parts of each day I look forward to most.

It’s safe to say I’ll be over the current lack of interest in dinner by the time breakfast is served. More likely I’ll wake up in the middle of the night feeling ravenous and end up making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 2am.

Just another in a long list of ways Tuesdays – and weekdays in general – just screw with the program around here in all sorts of minor and obnoxious ways.

Monday is just another word for nothing left to lose…

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This was the first Monday I had to actually go into the office in months. Something about staffing and coverage and blah blah blah. I’ll still get my telework day this week, just not as the day that eases me back into the weekday routine of angst, bother, and death PowerPoint.

I know it was a Monday today mostly because when I got to the office and wanted to buy a bagel, I discovered that my wallet, watch, and other small items I carry every day were not where I expected them to be (i.e. in my pockets). Instead, they were exactly where I left them the last time I had returned home from being out in the world of people. Which is exactly where they are deposited the hundreds of times a year I come home from being somewhere else, so it’s not as if they’d been secreted off to a new undisclosed location and chaos ensued.

I can only assume this was my subconscious rejecting the idea of a Monday that strayed so far from the standard. This lack of early morning cerebral engagement means I started off the day doubly disappointed – first, I was destined to spend the day tethered to my desk in the concrete bowels of the building without fresh air or daylight and secondly, I was required to do it without benefit of starting the day with a toasty warm bagel. 

I think that nicely encapsulates exactly what kind of day it has been. In fact, I’m going to start a petition to officially change the name of Monday to Double Disappointment. It feels altogether more fitting.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Second Monday. Look, I’m 100% thankful for the unscheduled Federal holiday on Wednesday. The unintended consequence of this Executive Branch largess, though, was that this week had what is effectively a “second Monday.” Going back the the work after a bureaucracy-free and relaxing weekend is a regular, recurring minor trauma that fills Sunday evenings with angst and dread. Once the week gets going though, the follow-on weekdays are each slightly less traumatic than the day before. Plopping an unexpected day off down in the middle of the week created an unnatural imbalance in the normal flow – and in doing so made Second Monday feel even worse than regular Monday. It’s hard to believe that such a thing is possible, but there it is.

2. Cubicle Hell. For all of the wonderful management literature written extolling the virtues of “open concept” workplaces, none of them bother to take into account how the average employee may actually require some time to analyze, read, or complete a work product that requires some level of concentration. I only bring it up because of the increased frequency of people holding entire goddamned meetings with groups of 4-5 others spilling out into walkways or shouted over the top of adjacent walls. Multiply that by as many as 5 of these impromptu “meetings” fired up all at the same time, well, you might as well sit back and start counting ceiling tiles because even pretending to look productive under the circumstances is a lost cause.

3. The human tailbone. I’m not a fancy big city doctor, so I don’t know exactly what a tailbone is supposed to do for a person. I reckon it’s mostly like an appendix – except that when something goes wrong with it it doesn’t burst and kill you so much as it stays right where it is and hurts like a sonofabitch whenever you sit down. In any case, it seems to me that there should be some kind of corrective option beyond, well, just don’t sit so much. That’s fine advice, I suppose, when your day isn’t spent tethered to a desk and reading  volumes of fine print for the minutia that someone is trying to bury in the fine print. And yes, before someone points it out, I know that Churchill worked at a standing desk. He also worked in the bathtub and I am, clearly, no Winston Churchill. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Stomach. My stomach has been trying to kill me off and on for the last few days. It’s not debilitating or preventing me from getting on with my day, but it’s made food something of a dice roll, meaning that I traipse through the day mostly hungry in order to avoid workday unpleasantness as much as possible. Of course continuing to pour coffee down my throat probably is doing nothing to mitigate the issue. Realistically, though, if I’m going to be hungry also having me uncaffeinated feels like it’s just asking for more trouble than we’re trying to avoid.

2. Perceived time. We humans have a bit of an odd relationship with time. We struggle mightily to measure it down to the merest fraction of a second, but it’s really how we perceive the movement of time around us that matters most. I’m grown increasingly interested in the perception of time after sitting at my desk for 37 hours on Tuesday, but finding that the most recent Saturday lasted only 192 minutes.

3. Be nice. Someone from time to time will suggest that I should make an effort to be more understanding – to “be nicer.” I’m sure the suggestion is well intentioned, usually implying that I’d be more approachable, less apt to judge, or in some way become a kinder, more sensitive human being. Seriously? Have you met most people? Piss off with “be nice.” I’ll continue to respond and react to people as their actions and attitudes dictate. If you’d like me to be nicer, I’d recommend convincing people at large to be a little less dumb. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Deflated…

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I went to bed last night thinking that this week was the run up to the long holiday weekend for Labor Day. I was halfway through the morning before I realized my math was wrong about that. I was happily tucked into this alternate timeline where it was just Telework Monday, three days in the office, and then a 4-day weekend. Needless to say discovering the error of my ways has led to a decidedly deflated feeling this afternoon. It’s a level of disappointment I wasn’t in any way prepared for today and I’m afraid it’s flavored everything I’ve done today (including turning in this utterly lackluster blog post for the day).

I’d say the tone for the week is firmly set. There’s just no coming back from that kind of letdown on a weekday.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Cash only. It’s 2018. I can order products directly from Europe from the comfort of my living room using my cell phone. We live in an age of technological wonder…. which begs the question, why in blue hell can’t I use a debit card to buy six dollars worth of lottery tickets? It’s apparently the only activity in the developed world that steadfastly insists on being cash only.

2. Weekday deliveries. I order a lot of things online. That means in most cases that thing is going to have to be delivered to the house. Most of the time it’s easy enough. They big truck arrives, leaves the package on the front porch, and I retrieve it when I return home. Occasional, something needs a signature before it can be released. There are usually easy ways around that too – except in special cases that require live ink from someone older than 21. Look, if you try to deliver the same package at approximately the same time on three consecutive weekday afternoons, the chance of typical working adult being there is somewhere between slim and none. The fact that SOP is to attempt delivery three consecutive times when a normal human being is probably at work reeks of ridiculous. There should be a better option available… and no, “we can hold it at our warehouse 40 minutes away so you can pick it up” is also a pretty dumb option. I’d be willing to pay a premium for some kind of guaranteed weekend delivery option.

3. “Uber is killing the taxi business.” I’ve never actually used Uber. It doesn’t feel like the kind of service that you could use reliably or cost effectively in the parts of the country where I tend to find myself. I’ve been in plenty of taxis over the years though. Saying that Uber is killing the taxi business and that government should step in to protect cab companies is a lot like saying government should make us all buy buggy whips and riding tack because we’re hurting the horse and buggy business by continuing to buy cars and trucks. It’s not fashionable to say it, but creative destruction is a real thing and tends to be of benefit in the long run.

Two more days or, A scene from a typical afternoon…

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His bag thuds dully onto an otherwise clean countertop. The only other sound the click of too-long nails and a tail thumping steadily against the cabinet. At least someone is excited about the darkening, rain soaked later afternoon. It’s hard not to love a creature that’s perpetually happy to see you, regardless of whether you’re coming back from the other room or a trip across the country.

He sits heavily on the foot of the bed, pulling off his boots. “Fuck,” deeply exhaled as shoulders slump, “it’s really only Wednesday. Two more days. Fuck.”

“How are you always so damned happy,” he asks in the face of demanded ear scratching and belly rubs. “I don’t guess you’ll want to go out now do you?”

Rain taps at the windows. No one wants to go outside. Dinner. A drink. More ear scratches.

A couple of sets of paws, some home cooking to warm the stomach, and good drink can work wonders. They’re not a cure all, of course, but they make getting stuck on stupid a lot more tolerable.

My biggest regret…

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Over the last couple of years I’ve tried to be a decent member of the community and distribute the requisite candy on the day designated each year in which we teach America’s youth that begging door to door is the key to momentary happiness. After watching literal van loads of kids and adults from elsewhere being hauled in and deposited in the neighborhood to scavenge last year, though, I’m out.

The comings and goings and ringing doorbell agitate the hell out of the dogs – which in turn agitates the hell out of me. It’s the middle of the week and after a day’s work, a hundred trips to the door amidst the frantic jostling of Maggie and Winston sounds like the polar opposite of a good time. The whole process requires a level of polite interface with perfect strangers that I will just never find enjoyable no matter how traditional the holiday experience.

If I thought individual humans were to in any way be trusted to restrain themselves and display a modicum of civil behavior, I’d leave heaps of candy unattended for the taking… but since experience tells me that doesn’t last past the third visitor, it’s all going to be a big pass for me tonight.

It’s a Tuesday night and all I really, truly want to do is be home, enjoy the critters, make dinner, and spend a few hours relaxing before sleep claims me. Truly Halloween is the night of the year when I most regret not buying a house with a gated drive or a drawbridge I could pull up.

Workplace transitions…

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The hardest part of coming back to the office after a telework day is obviously coming back to the office. That’s the fact in the most absolute sense. Trading home for office goes against everything I really want to do in my heart of hearts. If it weren’t for the mortgage and random astronomical bills related to the care and feeding of an English bulldog, perhaps things would be different. I suspect to one degree or another, that’s probably true for most of us, but it’s not one of the topics we discuss in polite company because realizing everyone else is in the same boat would be altogether too depressing to contemplate.

Aside from physically making the transition from working at home to working in the office, the most difficult part of these days is really just in dealing with the environment. Like so many drones, my “official” place of duty features open cubicles, a regular stream of people coming and going, endless interruptions, as many as 30 phones ringing, and the impossibility of getting away from being audibly assaulted by multiple simultaneous conversations at various volumes. I don’t care what the research says. I don’t care what the efficiency experts tell you. Open cubicle work space is a disaster. Sure things get done, but as often as not it’s things getting done in spite of the working environment as opposed to because of it.

Comparing that to my home office within the comfortable confines of Fortress Jeff with its comfortable chairs, expansive desk, fluffy animals, and relative calm and quiet, well, there’s really no question why I do more and feel better at the end of a telework day than I do on any other weekday. The transition between the two realities is jarring and decidedly unpleasant. Short of staring my own business to dispense sarcastic comments and inappropriate remarks, cubicle hell feels like a reality for at least the next seventeen odd years.

It’s kind of nice knowing there’s a better option. Of course it would be better still if it actually weren’t that way, but I’m a realist.