Lowered Expectations

It's funny what a really, phenomenally shitty week can do to your perspective. If you remember (and how could you forget given all of my self-pitying and whining?), last week was pretty awful. It was like this:



This week, I'm pleased to say, is nothing like last week. In fact, I would say that this week is the good twin of last week except for the fact that while last week was phenomenally horrific, this week isn't especially good. It's as though my expectations were lowered to such an extent that so long as no one pokes me in the back of the neck with a flaming twig, I'll consider it a fantastic day. Let's look at the facts shall we?

Work has not been overly stimulating or interesting lately. Mainly I've been filling the hours with some mindless data entry. Ages ago, the IT folks were tasked with creating a database in which one person, we'll call this person HQ, could have a centralized database to contain all information regarding independent contractors for all of the company's contracts and projects. IT doesn't take this very seriously so I've had to double enter items into this database from a pre-existing one since the two cannot communicate. As you can imagine, the task is as thrilling as it sounds.

See? There I am, typing away.

When not busy with this riveting chore, I've been dealing with the usual. You know, stupid people and shit I don't care about.

Both those things seriously happened this week. I received an e-mail from a freaking project manager of all people, stating that she was asked to obtain a specific object from a specific group of people and she wanted to know how to do so. Apparently, the concept of "contact said individuals and request the necessary object" is not something this person could even begin to wrap her mind around. Instead, she had to contact me, in an office at least 500 miles away, to intermediate. I feel like I am red tape in this instance.

And a person I shall call NWCW (short for no-worker co-worker) is going on vacation for Thanksgiving. I get to hear all about her excitement in between her personal phone calls and e-mails and I also get to hear the apology she loves using at every opportunity: "sorry, my mind is already on vacation!" It should be noted that when she gets back after the holiday, she will be using the other standby of "sorry, my mind must still be on vacation!"

At home isn't any more exciting. I've taken the week off from the gym and, while I have picked up Jane Eyre, which I am thoroughly enjoying in tandem with some Adam Dalgliesh novels, I've mainly been drinking red wine and watching boring television.

As you can see, it isn't like this week has been unicorns, rainbows, and diamonds falling out of the sky. It has been mundane, long, and uneventful. But because of the nightmarishness of last week, it seems like a gift. In fact, the only negative part of this week has been the overwhelming amount of suspician that has been with me all week, just waiting for the bad to creep up and ambush me. Hopefully it won't. But just in case, here is what I look like as a pirate, so step off bad stuff!