It’s Sunday afternoon, isn’t it? Dammit. Can I have more time off please? Can I perhaps trick Gene into letting me be a stay at home dog owner? This past week off was really lovely (even though in my heart of hearts I would rather have been in Las Vegas, dammit) and I am so not ready to return to work. This coming week is a 3 day work week (viva Black Friday!), which is great but Year End is lurking around the corner. I think the 4 day weekend (the only one that my employer believes in, BTW) is a trick to get us all to think “Ahh, four day weekend! Life is awesome! Work is awesome!” so it’s easier to smack us in the face with a Year End shaped 2 by 4 (2×4? Regardless, I’m going to end up bruised and wood chips out of my teeth).

Thursday, I drove Gene to a doctor’s appointment and guess what I did while he was there? I drove to work (which was literally across the street from his doctor’s office) so I could cobble together a client’s file because I forgot to tell anyone about it. Actually, that’s a big lie. I remembered, I just didn’t feel like explaining to anyone why we do this; the answer is

:: shrug :: “I dunno”

And my boss Belinda does not like that answer. If it were up to her we would do no extra stuff for clients at all. Admittedly the file is pretty easy to put together (although I suspect it would take Broomhilda an hour and 47 phone calls to me to figure it out) so really the client  should do it her own darn self but… well, the client more or less screamed for this file earlier this year and so I do it for her every week.

(Freaking weekly payrolls).

The good news about this week is that I will be so crazy busy that hopefully I won’t have time to complain, even to myself. Or maybe I’ll show up tomorrow and get fired for not telling my team about the client with the file, or the necessity of running a report every day to tell us who we need to nag about their payroll. Hmm. Yeah, I should probably have done that. I also think I didn’t tell anyone about running empty payrolls when clients don’t need a preexisting check date.

Oh boy! Now instead of dreading returning to work I’m also super anxious about it. YAY. (Speaking of anxious, my search for a therapist hasn’t gone anywhere, so good luck to me with finding a doctor who’s nearby, accepts my insurance, has evening hours and can deal with my effed up schedule for the next 120 or more days).

(Then again, if I get fired then I will be less anxious and my schedule will open up tremendously).

1) The word “stuff” makes me think of the word “stuf” as in Double Stuf Oreos. Mmm. I have also tried the Trader Joes version, the Joe-Joe, which is also good. I wonder if I can talk Gene into making a return trip to Trader Joes on Saturday after we drop the dogs at the groomers? Mmm. The problem is is that there is another hippie grocery store across the parking lot from my office (and a good 20 minutes closer than TJs) so we’ve been going there instead. (Yes, the Target boycott is still in effect).

2) And yes, I still miss Target. Mostly for the frozen Cokes.

3) I sped-read all three Hunger Games books in about a week and a half. I had barely finished the first one (which I borrowed from the library) before I went ahead and ordered the second and third books for my Kindle (or, my Kindle app on my phone and on White Dog). So good. The first movie comes out the day after my birthday in March so I think there’s a pretty good chance I am going to force a certain husband of mine to attend a midnight showing 😉 (OK, maybe not).

4) And yes, if you haven’t read them, you should. For no other reason than to get the taste of the Twilight saga out of your mouth. (Ptooey).

5) So, remember what I wrote last night about ‘working off the clock to make myself feel some peace’? Yeah. So I did that tonight, worked until 6:45 (only the last 45 minutes were off the clock of course) and felt amazing until I got home and sat down and it all crept in. I had four tasks to complete. Finished one of them (they got to go first because the client called and read me the mfing riot act), got about 90% done on another (just have to pull the trigger once I verify that the client understands that they will have to pay ~$200 for us to amend a tax return), and glanced a little at the third. The fourth, arguably the biggest, remains untouched. Boss returns from her trip on Monday so maybe I’ll luck out and manage to get it all done tomorrow.

6) Fumbling towards getting back into therapy. My old therapist is rather booked up so I have left a message with another doctor, whose specialty is Life After Infertility. What’s making me crazy isn’t really the infertility thing, but it’s always there anyway. What I really want from therapy is for someone to say “Hmm, yes, your work situation is awful. Quit immediately and get a job folding tshirts at Kohls.” Doctor’s orders, right?

7) It’s not that I’m eager to work for minimum wage, but spending my work day folding tshirts and organizing stock at Kohl’s sounds so relaxing. No one would ask me how questions, no constant phone calls, emails, etc. I could probably pretend to be mute. I would never wake up at 5:30 in the morning for weeks on end worrying, “Did I remember to put the blue shirts next to the brown pants?” Is it wrong that my idea of a happy place is envisioning an entirely tidy dressing room at a department store? What if I point out how much I hate to clean at home?

8) My team lead said something fairly rude today to Broomhilda and my first thought was “Aww, crap, I’m going to be alone with Broom for an hour or so later today and all she’s going to want to do is bitch about that.” I was right. I had an hour off the clock to try and get Huge Things Done and instead I had to help her out with her crises and listen to her complain about what the team lead said. I could have finished another item off my to-do list of To-Doom if it hadn’t been for that. Ugh!

9) For the record, I think team lead was about 30% in the right and 70% in the wrong. Tomorrow’s his last day and I’m not sure why he picked today to be the day to get all leader-y and why he picked that particular topic to be the Hill to Die On. As of tomorrow by about 5:30 our team will be down another member (down to 5 from 6, originally 8, members), and with it goes about 30% of the brain power. Look at it this way: Not counting Boss Belinda, I’ll be the most senior member of our team.