It has been one hell of a week, and it's only Tuesday.
I'll start by saying that I knew it wouldn't be a great week to start with because my boss is out of town so I'm working a lot. Not only that, but I'm in charge of making sure everything gets done and runs smoothly. Normally, that isn't a problem for me, I've been in management, juggled multiple projects, am very organized (shut up, I *am*. When I want to be.)
But I am super stressed because I don't want anything to go wrong. I've had zero experience being the person who runs the show in this job. Usually it's, "here's a list of houses, go take the pictures." Now it's, "here's a giant list of houses, you need to sort them and prioritize them and get them all done, and don't let any of them go late." I like to know what I'm doing and have a system. I like to have time for a trial run of the system. That wasn't happening. Trial by fire, baby!
My way of dealing with that? Do everything. Yep, I try and get every last stinking house DONE and out of the giant list. Then I know it's all ok. Everything is then done. Can I do that? Not and remain sane. But my over-achiever, super-power work ethic kicks in and I try. It's incredibly stupid, but I cannot stop myself. Seriously, I can't.
I try and figure out how much I can do in an hour to budget my work time. Makes sense, right? But that gets thrown all out the window when suddenly you drive somewhere crazy. Seriously, the one house the GPS and my mapping program said was IN Greeley. I drive to Road O (that is a real road, people, I'm not making this up) and the GPS says, "turn right to off road and continue to address." On the screen? A vector off into space. So yes, I did enter the wormhole and arrive at my destination in record time! It was awesome! I bet you didn't even KNOW that Greeley had a wormhole, did you?
Well, damn, it doesn't. Turns out, after getting out my handy Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer, I only had to drive another 15 miles east from the alleged wormhole to find my objective. That was more than an hour for one. stinking. house.
And if that weren't enough, guess what else? Flat tire.
That was yesterday. That is OVER, I told myself this morning. Today is a new day!
A new fucking day, I should have said.
Yes, today was lovely too. To start, left my GPS at home. Discovered that only after dropping the girls at play practice all the way across town.
Next, I got my paycheck in the mail yesterday and needed to get it in the bank asap. Well, since I got it yesterday afternoon and really needed it yesterday morning, my bank account was over-drawn by $20. Crap. Well, guess what, they won't cash your check if you don't have any money to cover if the check were to bounce. Crap again.
I ended up at one of those vanpiric check-cashing places. It would cost $30 to cash a $400 check. I couldn't wait for the bank to clear it because I needed gas NOW (see above story about driving all over hell and back yesterday.) I bit the bullet and went ahead.
It took the inept cashier person an HOUR to cash the check. She had to enter this. And enter that. And what was she supposed to click on now? Oh, better ask. Co-worker left? Well, I need to call then. What is your phone number again? Oh, the computer says the number's wrong. Oh, that's because I put it in wrong even after you told me four times.
I wanted to grab her and shake her! I wanted to say, "for fuck's sake, we are talking about $400. You people swindle people at 800% interest. You have the spare cash. I'm pretty low risk. Just give me my fucking money!"
Finally got money which led to getting gas which led to working. Whew!
The girls decided they needed to bicker non-stop. Then Stella proceeded to tell me off about how much she hates this job. Apparently I want her to sit in the car being bored and either freezing or roasting all day. If I really cared, I would get back one of my old jobs. Keep in mind:
- she hated those jobs too
- she didn't go to work with me yesterday, she got to play with her friends. All day.
- today, we'd done two houses when she started her tirade.
- she has at her disposal: books, drawing, writing, coloring, music, games, knitting and audio books. She couldn't do any of those things because she either didn't want to or didn't bring them, despite me telling her to pack/bring them. It's all my fault that she wasted over an hour this morning and she couldn't pick up a bag that was already packed. When I said we had to leave or be late to play practice, her play practice - that was right when she was going to put all the good stuff into her bag that was already packed. It's my fault
- yes, she HAD taken her meds.
So, to sum up my week:
Tire - flat
Bank account - over drawn
Gas tank - empty
Kids - cranky
Mom - stressed
Beers drank - one (yes, only one, not two, so I wasn't drunk)
Well, that's not really my week. All of that has been remedied other than the stressed mom. I think I should apply more beer.
Angela, if you read this, know that I don't blame you. I am anal-retentive about everything going right and stressing myself out. I know that. It's not your fault.
Moms reading this, yes I know my stress is contributing to my kids' stress. I'm VENTING. I write all the stuff down here rather than duct-taping the children to the wall. It works for me. I have never duct-taped children. Though one time Stella did tape herself into a chair with electrical tape. But I told her not to do that ever again. And she was sad that she couldn't do it anymore. She's weird.
The end.
This is your friendly reminder to vote. All you do is click, which takes you to the website where you then do nothing. Or you can do something, but you don't have to do something. It's easy. Thanks :)
Anonymous | July 25, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Have had weeks like that. hope the rest of your week gets better!