It was hard to get up this morning. Kate (my diabetic wife) had spent the better part of two hours trying to fight off a persistent low blood sugar, which meant it was after midnight before we got to sleep. We both woke up feeling exhausted and defeated. It was not a great start to the work week.
It's been months since I've had anything resembling a normal workload at my job. It gets busy every now and then, but never for more than a day or so. I always find myself with time to kill, and it inevitably makes the days feel longer than they are.
When I arrived at work today, one of the ladies up front told me that our network was down. I shrugged and continued the graceless amble to my desk, devoting most of my energy to not dropping the breakfast sandwich and medium tea I was clumsily balancing. Once safely at my destination, I sat down in my chair, unwrapped the sandwich, and remembered how busy I had been on Friday.
The other graphic designer had been away, and job after job had been placed in my tray. I had given it my best effort, but I had run out of afternoon before running out of work. As such, I was unsurprised by the stack of paperwork that had spent the weekend patiently awaiting my return.
I eased the dripping tea bag out of my cup, replaced the lid, and took a slow sip. I wanted to make the most of that brief moment of quiet, because I knew that I would have to get my ass in gear once the server came back up.
But the server never came back up. Not for me, anyway. Most of my coworkers got full functionality back by noon or so, but I spent the entire day without access. I was forced to abandon my to-do pile, filling my hours with easy, non-crucial tasks. And you know what? It wasn't half bad.
Maybe it was the tiredness, or the fact that I knew none of this would matter to me in a week's time. But the part of my brain that wanted to freak out about how far behind I was falling just sort of closed its eyes and took a nap. I spent the morning in the production area, weeding vinyl graphics and waxing nostalgic with the production manager. He and I have worked together for four years, and it's been a fun and easygoing relationship. I'm going to miss him, and it sounds like he'll miss me, too.
I spent the afternoon alphabetizing old paperwork to be filed. I've gotten quite fast at this. It's one of those weird skills I have that doesn't really amount to anything in the real world. It's sort of like how good I am at Guitar Hero.
I tried restarting my computer probably once every half hour, to no avail. At about 4:00, the boss asked me to write down my system password on a sticky note and put it on my monitor. He told me the IT guy would be logging in after hours in the hopes of determining why my machine so desperately refused to connect with the rest.
It's probably just an introvert like me.
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