pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TWITCH, TWITCH Didn't have time today, but went to the gym anyway. Work can have a big chunk of me but, damn it, they can't have all of me and I want my five-day workout schedule back. I need it for my sanity. Have been literally about to scream all day and knew, if I didn't go pound the weight machines and elliptical cross-trainer, I was going to yell at the dean "Look, I'm a creative problem-solver. I'll figure out a way to do it with scant resources if you need for me to do that but gawdDAMNit at some point you have to give me at least ONE of the tools I need to do my job!" Frustrating month. The month of May (end of fiscal year/beginning of new fiscal year and all that this entails) always sucks, but this year the stress is getting to me more than usual—maybe because it's been such a stressful nine months in general. It didn't help that a faculty member showed up with a (surprise!) project that will cost (surprise!) $51,949.60 to produce and will tie up our in-house printer for a minimum of twenty-four days as we print his 1,074,000 (surprise!) impressions. (One guess what this will do to the other 67 projects that are already in queue.) You'd think it would have occurred to him to let us know this behemoth was in the pipeline. After all, he must have been working on it for months. I have a really bad attitude today and am in dire need of a vacation and my mouth hurts from my dental implant and I experienced road rage driving into work this morning after realizing that I really do hate the Ginger (which I wrote about earlier). I've had unpleasant break-ups—which ones are ever pleasant?—but have never hated an ex before. But I do. I hate her. And I am I seriously overdue for a day with no deadlines or commitments or people asking me to solve any problems or draw anything or volunteer anything or pay for anything or listen to them whine. I just want to float on the ocean—on any body of water really (but not with an electronic key in my pocket)—spend a day suspending in water, weightless. • Well that was nice. One of the editors just returned her signed annual review and said she didn't know if it was an appropriate thing to write under the employee's comments column, but that she wanted me to know that the way I run the department makes it very easy for the staff to do good work and she thinks I should be nominated for manager of the year. I thanked her and told her she probably had no IDEA how much I needed to hear that today. Sweet. I really like my staff and remain amazed at how devoted they are to this place, given the horrible staff salaries we are able to give them and the near-constant criticism from people who don't understand that it takes time to turn their writing into a quality product. I'm still not completely done with my budget for next year, but hope to finish it before the weekend so that I can actually leave work in the office for the duration of the three-day weekend (because I need to spend those days finishing that 1,200-page manuscript). Blah. Blah. Blah. See? Now I'm stressing myself out about my freelance work too. Think I'll stop and visit the baby ducks on the way home, get an attitude adjustment before I plop down to work on next year's budget. Maybe I'll stop at the store and buy a bottle of wine too, enjoy a glass as I work. Gotta call Computergrrl first though because she's been sick all week and may need me to head over there with some soup. All right. I promise to be in better spirits next time I write. 7:04 p.m. - 2005-05-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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