You ever have one of those days? You know the ones. The alarm clock doesn’t go off, you have terrible traffic coming and going to work and work itself is no joy? Those days where it seems like the world is conspiring to annoy you? Like there is some guy, somewhere in a control room in front of a bank of monitors coordinating everyone. I can almost picture it…

“OK, team one he’s in the shower. Give him time to get to the soap then cut the hot water. Team two, proceed to the kitchen as planned. Empty out the coffee canister – no, wait, leave almost enough to make a cup but completely empty the creamer. When you are done there, hide his keys. Oh, and hide his left shoe while you are at it. Yeah, the freezer would be a great place.” “OK, he’s turning out of the neighborhood. Team one, do you have the lady in place to back out of the bush? Great, standby. Here he comes. Cue bush lady. Ready…annnnnd NOW! Good work people! It looks like he spilled his weak coffee. Awaiting visual confirmation. Have bush lady go ahead while he cleans that up and have her stall in the middle lane of 85. We still have time to create a solid traffic jam if she steps on it. Team two, he’s almost at the toll booth. Did you remember to remove all the change from his truck? You left him one quarter? Nice touch. Good work, team two. Wait, the microphone is picking up music. Someone get XM on the phone and have them turn off all his channels except the country & western stations and Howard Stern. Make it quick…”

I’m telling you, they are out there. And, man, did that guy earn his money today. It was truly one of those days. And, you know, I knew it was going to be very early on but I went on anyway so I guess I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I’ve learned that there are certain signs that will tell you it is going to be a rotten day – or at least that there is a high probability it is going to be a rotten day – if you only pay attention. If the very first thing you hear when your alarm goes off is the voice of the traffic guy and he sounds like he’s in a panic or if he uses the words ‘overturned’, ‘tractor trailer’, ‘interchange’, ‘acetone’ and ‘fire’ all in one sentence, you’ve been put on notice. When you get out of the shower and go to dry your hair, only to find shampoo still in it, you’ve been warned. If the toaster sets your toast on fire – and I mean actual flames, here – consider yourself admonished. If you see any of these signs, do yourself a favor and take my advice: Rinse that shampoo out of your hair, dry off, fish your PJs out of the hamper and put them back on, extinguish the toaster, turn off the alarm and crawl back into bed. And stay there too. Tomorrow is a much safer place, get some rest.

And remember a few posts back when I said I was looking forward to getting back to work as the holidays ended? I hereby recant. In fact, isn’t it St. Swivens day or something next week? I should probably take the week off. In general, I like my job. I really do. But there are those days like today where I wonder… I’ve got both marketing and sales mad at me over the same project. I normally don’t get too worked up over office politics. I don’t like ‘em, but they are mostly just amusing. Not this, though. And from the “no good deed goes unpunished” department, the project that has everyone so stirred up isn’t even my job! I am preparing a big presentation as a favor for marketing. Sales is mad at me because they don’t like the direction it is taking. Never mind that I am only doing exactly what marketing asked me to do. And marketing is mad at me because I agree with sales on some of it. Never mind that sales does happen to be right sometimes. I am about to hand the whole thing back to them and wish them both a happy St. Swivens day!

And then there is this one account executive who is, well, rather zealous. The truth is, the guy is really pretty nice and he means well. I actually like him but, when he gets on my nerves he does it completely. He caught me in the hall today and we had a conversation that went something like this (as close to verbatim as I can remember):

Him: Hey! Greg! How are ya, man?!?! (he’s in sales so he uses lots of exclamation points)
Me: Good, thanks. And you?
Him: Good. Did you have a good holiday?
Me: Yeah, I did. I actually…
Him: (interrupting) Great, so listen. Remember the ISSA show you spoke at last year in (I forget what city he said; I’d spoken at a lot of those type shows last year) ?
Me: Uhhh, yeah, I think so. What about it.
Him: Well, they loved you, man! They just asked if you would be able to speak to their group again in the near future!
Me: OK, cool. I can do that. Whats the topic?
Him: Dunno yet. When can we do this? I need to give them a date.
Me: Well, that depends. What is the topic?
Him: What’s that matter? I just need to tell them when, not what. We can work that out later.
Me: Well, um, no, we kinda can’t. I can’t give you a date until I know what the topic of the talk is going to be.
Him: Why not?
Me: Well, if it is on a subject I’ve spoken on before we can do it any time. If it is on a topic I haven’t, I’ll need time to prep.
Him: Prep? All you need to do is throw a couple of slides together. C’mon, when can we do this? The sooner the better!
Me: No. It is more than ‘throwing a few slides together’. At least, if you want it credible and not mind numbing it is. Doing what you are suggesting is the best way to be sure there won’t be a third invite. I need time to do research and to do more than a couple of slides, not to mention time to go through it a few times and get comfortable with the material.
Him: Oh, come on, even I could get up and talk for an hour without all that prep. Quit sandbagging. How about (he throws out a date)? Will that work?
Me: You may be able to get up and talk for an hour, but I want to actually say something and I don’t want people rolling their eyes at me like they do at you. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got work to do. Call me when you have a topic and we’ll talk dates.
Him: (to my back as I walked down the hall) Aw, c’mon, man. So, can I tell them we’ll do it on (whatever the date was)?
Me: (without looking back) Not if you want me to actually show up.

Sales guys are from Mars, Engineers are from Venus…

Then I tried to schedule a service call for my laptop with Dell. It is done via online chat with an actual dell person. The first one made me go through all this completely unrelated stuff then remotely sent a BIOS upgrade that wasn’t needed (it was the same version I already had and had TOLD him I had) which rebooted my machine…the machine I was chatting with him on. So, when it came back up I had to start all over with yet another rep and explain the problem in detail to them. He subsequently sent the SAME BIOS upgrade that the last guy had – that I had told him the last guy had and that I’d told both of them was unnecessary – which again rebooted my machine severing the connection. The third rep I got on the line wanted to take control of my machine but I refused to let him. So, three hours later (and right through lunch time) I got them to schedule a service call for the exact problem I told them I had when I first contacted them. It is a known issue and I’d already troubleshot it and told them what was wrong. Oh yeah, and during all that I got word from my wife that AT&T had cut off my home phone over an unpaid balance. That balance is for a long distance bill that is in dispute. It is a non-regulated service so, even if I’d just not paid it they legally can’t turn my phone off for it. But that wasn’t the case. I’d spoken to them several times and was waiting for them to research it and get back to me.

Then there was the commute back and forth to work. It was especially charming today. I spent a combined total of almost 4 hours commuting. The worst of it was that so much of it was caused by stupid drivers. Down this one heavy stretch of road I was watching with frustration as EVERY cycle of the light people were blocking the intersection almost completely. And, because they were doing that for 4 or 5 consecutive lights and because those lights are all within about a half mile stretch, it effectively shut down that section of road. And did any of these brain surgeons figure out it they’d just stay clear of the intersections so traffic could actually move we’d all get out of there faster? Noooo. They most certainly did not.

Oh, and my XM radio was messing up. Both of my favorite stations were clipping in and out. The country and western station next to one of them worked fine. Well, as fine as a country and western station can be, anyhow. All of it was just too much on the drive home. At one point I realized that I was so distracted that I didn’t have a clue where I was. I stopped and studied my surroundings for a moment and realized that I was on highway 29 not two miles from my house. It is a stretch of road that I am on twice a day. I’d just sort of driven on auto-pilot for the last few miles while I brooded. When I got home I had to sit in the driveway for a few minutes just to get my attitude right before going in the house. Fortunately both kids were in great moods and cheered me up a bit rather than testing my self control. =o/

And for the coup de grâce, this is the second time I am writing this little missive. The first time through I spent a couple of hours and it was a little less bitter…then my machine crashed and Wordpress ate it, previous saved version and all. Talk about irony. If I were a drinker, this would be one of those three martini evenings. I can promise you this: the next time I find shampoo in my hair outside the shower, I’m done. I’m taking my own advice and calling in sick. And if I ever find that control room with that guy in it, well…

/g