Thursday, February 25, 2010

Shadow On The Things You Know

Preface: How many Technology/Cars Hate Me --> Thank God for Coffee/Wine posts can I have before the blogosphere stops reading? Hopefully there’s no limit because... there doesn’t appear to be a limit on me breaking things and then going to beverage therapy.

I’m in a post-partum of sorts. I’m really crabby lately and I know that it’s a result of dance ending and not yet finding the activities I need to fill that void.

I’m working on a grand plan that includes adult ballet classes (YESSS!), running a 6k this spring and a 10 mile race next fall (God help me), and starting up a new blog that focuses on Gen Y feminism instead of the random hodgepodge that I’ve been accumulating here. This planning, in conjunction with THREE reunions with Madison friends in the next four weeks, is helping me come through the fog.

What is not helping is the constant roadblocks I’ve been hitting at work. I can’t get anything done- and not for a lack of trying. If it’s not changing client or internal direction, it’s technology laughing maniacally at me as I try in vain to save my work while my screen flickers ominously at me. Can nothing work, ever, when you need it to? Is there anything more absurd than knowing that I am the technology coordinator, so when stuff like this happens, I am to contact myself for help?

Yesterday, when Excel quit for the fourth time as I worked for the sixth hour on the 12th draft of a project I had naively assumed would take 30 minutes, I calmly rebooted and grabbed my coat. Blasted Neil Young ‘Birds’ as I drove to Caribou, letting myself cry exactly six tears before I sucked it up, yelled a few choice words at the technology gods and then started warbling along to the music to calm my nerves. Josh, the sexy-only-because-he-caffeinates-me-barista, made me the single most delicious Medium Half Caf Soy White Mocha I have ever had. When I said no whip he looked at me and said “I mean, I REALLY think you look like you need whip cream today.”

I wonder if it was the dried mascara or the dried printer toner from a trouble-shooting gone wrong all over my hands and new cardigan that tipped him off.

4 comments:

Emily Anne said...

I feel your pain. Only, my pain stems from copyright infringement claims. And, instead of coffee, I choose vodka. Hope today is better.

Shannon Beth said...

I've had those days!
I think it comes with the territory of working in an office.

It's like it's in the teeny tiny fine print when you sign on the dotted line, accepting employment within any office environment.

I'm pretty sure I've seen it before:

Accepting the terms of this employment may result in numerous technology failures, which ultimately, at the end of an extremely crappy day, will lead you to want to quit your job and go home to watch rerun episodes of the O.C. because it is the only thing that does not require you to think any longer.

There might be more to it, but the print got too small to read. I believe there was mention of a technology hell.

Maybe you should consider working with animals or something?

Unknown said...

1. Thanks for keeping the posts coming - great distraction!

2. Agree with Em - Vodkashots?!

Gina Marie said...

Ahahaha yes, ladies. At least we're all in it together.

Shannon- I think if my computer would work, I could be really happy at my job. And truth be told, I might be better at small IT tasks than the veterinary field. Scary, but true :)