I meant to write this yesterday, but the fact that I didn’t is evidence to the kind of day that will be described forthwith.
Yesterday just sucked. Nothing in particular, just the whole day, I should have been aware of that from the giant sucking sound I heard in my dream just before I woke up, that of course wouldn’t register until later. 5:30, the alarm goes off and I hop out of bed, rather bleery eyed, and get my work out clothes on and proceed to torture myself on the elliptical trainer for a good 20 minutes. That in reality should have been the second sign that the day was going to be bad, not that the workout was bad, nor was working out, its good for your health you know, just the fact that I was up at 5:30 racing my heart out on an elliptical trainer.
Wednesday is the day I have a staff meeting at work. In the past it has been at nine, sometimes ten, sometimes we wouldn’t have one at all. It was all perfectly fine by me, we, meaning myself and my coworkers, soldier on week in and week out accomplishing tasks ahead of schedule, under budget and with better outcomes than most other groups at out institution. With the beginning of the new year, the boss made a change to the staff meeting schedule, eight o’clock. Normally eight o’clock would be okay, I might be less than human acting at that unforgivable hour, but it would be okay, because I work in a creative department and we are forgiving of people who are running 5, even 10 minutes late. While that might not be the best business practice in the “real” world of the working, it’s accepted practice here. That and every time I have to be at work at 8 a.m. I have the misfortune of getting caught behind every slow, silver haired driver, school bus, accident, or police barricade, although police barricades are becoming exceedingly rare.
I rush, I hurry and by my watch, freshly synchronized with the main office clock, I am 3 minutes early, and what a relief. I drop my belongings in my office and grab my chair as the meeting is beginning. Everything is fine. That is until after the mind numbingly boring meeting, when my supervisor comes into my office, closes the door, as an aside, that is never a good thing, and proceeds to tell me that the boss had mentioned something about my tardiness. This was definitely a portent of the bad day. Rather than argue, which would have utterly futile, I accepted what was said and promised that I would work on making it in earlier to work next time. The issue that I take lies in the fact that when we have scheduled a meeting for, say, 3 o’clock. The boss will walk up and down the hall letting everyone know that “We are meeting now.” and after emerging from my office I see that the main clock reads 2:55. That coupled with my office clock reading 2:55, my computer reading 2:55 and my cellphone reading 2:55, makes me wonder, am I tardy or is the boss early?
It could be said, Jered, how do you know your clocks are in sync? My friend they all get their time from the government. The cellphone receives the time via the cell tower, which is mostly like provided by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. The clock is an atomic clock, which receives radio updates again from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and my computer clock updates the system time in a similar method. So either the government is out to get me, or the boss is always early.
I could continue bloviating and embellishing, but I’ll save that for a good day, when there are more joyous things to speak of. Just be aware that yesterday was just a day.
