she's
actual
size

There was a bad mood brewing all day.

It started when I woke up this morning. The cat was digging her claws into my leg, and I irritably kicked her off the bed. I looked at the clock and sighed; I'd slept far too long again.

A shower just wasn't appealing, so I decided to forego one today. I had one yesterday, and I could schlep through without one well enough. I didn't smell, anyway.

I didn't have much choice of food for breakfast, so I had ice cream instead. I dutifully did the dishes, since I'm trying to keep ahead of those this time. (Wonder how long that will last, eh?) I clipped my toenails and checked my email.

I felt terrible. I had the beginnings of a headache, but I couldn't find any aspirin. I went out to the car and took some of Dave's. It didn't help.

When I went to work, the bad mood crested. I checked the schedule for the week and realized that I was scheduled to work until midnight tonight. "What the hell?" I asked. The Assistant Operations Manager shrugged and went back to chatting with some new guy she's sleeping with.

The rest of the week wasn't much better. I wasn't scheduled for the days and times that I normally am. I waited and waited and waited for the operations Manager to come back from lunch. "Where is she?" I finally asked.

"She took the day off," said the Assistant Operations Manager. She went back to filing her nails.

I called and left a message on the Operations Manager's answering machine. "Look, I don't mind working eleven hours today," I said. "But I wished someone wold have let me know. Also, what happened to my hours for the rest of the week? Call me back at work, please."

After getting settled in at my desk, I realized that absolutely no data entry had been done while I was gone. None. Zero. Originally, I was supposed to help the Assistant Operations Manager with data entry. Now, I'm apparently completely in charge of it. Lovely. I'll be speaking to the Operations Manager tomorrow, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, the Assistant Operations Manager balanced her checkbook.

I got to work on the data entry that had piled up, and silently fumed. There's a new person working in the office on a part time basis. She's a driver, but she has managed to wiggle her way into a semi-permanent office position by doing marketing and graphics jobs for the General Manager. While she's great at design and marketing, she's horrible as extra help. She's arrogant and useless.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the fact that she ended up marrying one of my ex-boyfriends. Frankly, on that front I feel rather sorry for her.

While the phones rang and the radio blared, Useless Girl twirled around in her chair and looked at the ceiling. The Assistant Operations Manager was back on the phone with one of her fuck-buddies. I was trying to get caught up on data entry, but ended up answering most of the phone calls.

Then the Operations Manager called me back. "I know that we discussed this," she said. "The mechanic called off for tonight, and you were going to change your schedule so that we would have someone there with a CDL."

I didn't remember any of that, and I said so. The Operations Manager said that we'd discussed this with the Maintenance Manager. I obviously just didn't remember.

By the time the Maintenance Manager returned from lunch and some meetings he'd attended, I was ready to boil over. When I mentioned my schedule snafu, he shook his head. I had started to think that maybe I had talked to the Operations Manager about changing this week's schedule, and had just forgotten. But the Maintenance Manager confirmed my original reaction.

"The mechanic didn't call off until 5pm on Friday," he said. "You were gone by 4pm, so how could the Operations Manager have talked to you about it?"

How, indeed? I logged out of my computer and left the office.

I took my sweet old time at lunch, knowing that I would be at work for the next eight hours. I stopped at home to use the bathroom, and discovered that I had some between-period spotting. Great. Just what I fucking need.

(I really need to go do that whole girl doctor thing. I also need to do laundry. Maybe I can do both at the same time...)

When I came back from lunch I felt slightly better. I also made some resolutions while I was out.

In the next month, I will make an appointment for the girl doctor. I have a lead on another job, and I will send a resume to them within the next week. Also in the next month, I will box up those things that I will not need in the next nine months, such as comics and knock-knacks and whatnot - just so I have an idea of how much stuff I have.

What else will I do? I'm going to keep an eye on fares from Cleveland to Winnipeg. I am going to go see Dave in October again, come hell or high water, if only to save my sanity.