Is This Supposed to Be Survivor Island???
Today was my trial by fire at work. I either completely proved myself or completey flunked. I arrived at work to find out that I was going to be there alone today! No support help! Achhhh! And I am only a TEMP!! The other TEMP was taking a vacation (yes, a vacation!... I didn't know temps got vacations!??) and the guy I am temping for in the first place who just got back from a 3 week trip to Europe, decides UNEXPECTEDLY to take ANOTHER day off!!
Ok, day started fine, but by 11:00 it was already going completely haywire! Wouldn't you know it, but today of all days, when I was trying to hold the fort down by myself, all sorts of multiple worse-case scenario RUSH jobs came in!
Attorney #1: "I need this in 3 minutes!"
Me: "Well, I'm working on another rush right now, but will start your job asap."
Attorney #1: "Um, that won't work as we need to get this filing in"..
Me: "Well, let me see what I can do"... (huge Excedrin headache starting to pound behind my eyeballs)...
Attorney #2: "Can you print out 50 copies of this PDF ... and oh, by the way, convert it from Wordperfect to Word ... and oh yes, can you put it on pleading paper and line it up - I need this ASAP"....
Me: "No problem!" (Excedrin headache now morphing into Migraine)
Paralegal: "Can you scan this 100 page document and edit it for Mr. Borsini?.. and, oh did I mention, it's a rush?!".... (Now have a full blown brain aneurism!).
It was by then about 1:30 pm, and taking a lunch was beginning to seem like a pipedream... Someone walked past my cubicle with a limp turkey sandwich, and I had visions of leaping over the partition and pretending to fall on it, just so I could maybe glean a few crumbs to put into my mouth!
I was finally able to take a brief break at 2:35, and even then I felt guilty for leaving my post! Then to make matters more complicated today, I HAD to rush home during my lunch 'hour' as my paycheck didn't arrive in the mail yesterday as it should have, and I HAD to get it in the bank today or I'd go overdrawn!! So I dashed out and grabbed a cab to go up to my apartment. Ran up to the mailbox, found the check and instructed the cab driver to head downtown as I also HAD to go back to the doctor's office for a check-up of my sliced up finger! Figured if I took the cab, I'd make it all within an hour. WRONG. On the way from my apartment to the doctor's office, the cab runs into Friday gridlock traffic in downtown San Francisco!! As we sit there stuck in traffic, the meter is going up and up.... At $8, I decide to get out and walk the rest of the 4 blocks!!
Huff and puff my way there. Now, I am not a fast walker as I have completely flat feet, and pounding them on the cement pavement can be excruciating, no matter what shoes I am wearing. But I did my best imitation of a power walk and made it to the doctor's office in pretty good time. They told me earlier in the day just to 'DROP IN... NO PROBLEMO". Well, that's what I did, but then found an assortment of injured people in line ahead of me. Really considered leaving as it's just a cut finger, after all! It's not like I had my throat cut, even though at that point in the day I was so exhausted and stressed that I almost felt I was kneeling blindfolded in front of the Islamic terrorists with the rusty knife in their hands!
Finally, my turn to go into see the doctor. I expect her to put some Betadine or solution on my deep wound and re-bandage me. But she takes the bandage off, and the only comment out of her mouth is "I like your green top" before informing me that I was free to go...! I say, "Wait a minute... aren't you going to bandage me?".... I mean, yeah, let's just send this patient back to work to POUND on the keyboard with a gaping sliced index finger.....!! HELLO??? I mean, are they low on bandaids or something??
There was no bus directly back to work, and I didn't have any more money for a cab, so had to hoof another 8 blocks back to the office! By now, my flat shoes and my flat feet felt like they had BECOME the cement. To irritate things even worse, my shoes were now stretching and flip flopping off my heel! I HATE when that happens! Almost as bad as wet socks!!!
But before I went back up to the office, I HAD to find something to eat! I STILL had not had a thing to eat all day, and was feeling like I would have to make a Michael Jackson-like hospital pit stop for weakness or a blood transfusion!! I dropped into this sandwich place and placed an order for a shrimp salad on rye. "Lady, we are out of rye and shrimp salad" ... Oh geez. Ok, skip it. Dropped in at Walgreens and picked up a pre-made wrapped up tuna sandwich, which by this time of the day, was already limp. Then another pit stop was made to feed my paycheck to the Bank God.
And, of course, when I finally returned to work, there was all sorts of new and exciting mental challenges awaiting me at my desk! Some of these attorneys can be really demanding and not very friendly. They consider us people in the Word Processing department as some sort of common variety garden slug. We are just minions, peons, and slaves, only living and breathing to bow down to their commands. After all, THEY went to LAW SCHOOL! Well, LA DE DAH!! What I go through for my measly little salary! I thought 6:00 would never come!
But it did, and TGIF, as now I'm sitting here into my 3rd glass of my own version of Jesus Juice, my Ballatore!!
Ok, day started fine, but by 11:00 it was already going completely haywire! Wouldn't you know it, but today of all days, when I was trying to hold the fort down by myself, all sorts of multiple worse-case scenario RUSH jobs came in!
Attorney #1: "I need this in 3 minutes!"
Me: "Well, I'm working on another rush right now, but will start your job asap."
Attorney #1: "Um, that won't work as we need to get this filing in"..
Me: "Well, let me see what I can do"... (huge Excedrin headache starting to pound behind my eyeballs)...
Attorney #2: "Can you print out 50 copies of this PDF ... and oh, by the way, convert it from Wordperfect to Word ... and oh yes, can you put it on pleading paper and line it up - I need this ASAP"....
Me: "No problem!" (Excedrin headache now morphing into Migraine)
Paralegal: "Can you scan this 100 page document and edit it for Mr. Borsini?.. and, oh did I mention, it's a rush?!".... (Now have a full blown brain aneurism!).
It was by then about 1:30 pm, and taking a lunch was beginning to seem like a pipedream... Someone walked past my cubicle with a limp turkey sandwich, and I had visions of leaping over the partition and pretending to fall on it, just so I could maybe glean a few crumbs to put into my mouth!
I was finally able to take a brief break at 2:35, and even then I felt guilty for leaving my post! Then to make matters more complicated today, I HAD to rush home during my lunch 'hour' as my paycheck didn't arrive in the mail yesterday as it should have, and I HAD to get it in the bank today or I'd go overdrawn!! So I dashed out and grabbed a cab to go up to my apartment. Ran up to the mailbox, found the check and instructed the cab driver to head downtown as I also HAD to go back to the doctor's office for a check-up of my sliced up finger! Figured if I took the cab, I'd make it all within an hour. WRONG. On the way from my apartment to the doctor's office, the cab runs into Friday gridlock traffic in downtown San Francisco!! As we sit there stuck in traffic, the meter is going up and up.... At $8, I decide to get out and walk the rest of the 4 blocks!!
Huff and puff my way there. Now, I am not a fast walker as I have completely flat feet, and pounding them on the cement pavement can be excruciating, no matter what shoes I am wearing. But I did my best imitation of a power walk and made it to the doctor's office in pretty good time. They told me earlier in the day just to 'DROP IN... NO PROBLEMO". Well, that's what I did, but then found an assortment of injured people in line ahead of me. Really considered leaving as it's just a cut finger, after all! It's not like I had my throat cut, even though at that point in the day I was so exhausted and stressed that I almost felt I was kneeling blindfolded in front of the Islamic terrorists with the rusty knife in their hands!
Finally, my turn to go into see the doctor. I expect her to put some Betadine or solution on my deep wound and re-bandage me. But she takes the bandage off, and the only comment out of her mouth is "I like your green top" before informing me that I was free to go...! I say, "Wait a minute... aren't you going to bandage me?".... I mean, yeah, let's just send this patient back to work to POUND on the keyboard with a gaping sliced index finger.....!! HELLO??? I mean, are they low on bandaids or something??
There was no bus directly back to work, and I didn't have any more money for a cab, so had to hoof another 8 blocks back to the office! By now, my flat shoes and my flat feet felt like they had BECOME the cement. To irritate things even worse, my shoes were now stretching and flip flopping off my heel! I HATE when that happens! Almost as bad as wet socks!!!
But before I went back up to the office, I HAD to find something to eat! I STILL had not had a thing to eat all day, and was feeling like I would have to make a Michael Jackson-like hospital pit stop for weakness or a blood transfusion!! I dropped into this sandwich place and placed an order for a shrimp salad on rye. "Lady, we are out of rye and shrimp salad" ... Oh geez. Ok, skip it. Dropped in at Walgreens and picked up a pre-made wrapped up tuna sandwich, which by this time of the day, was already limp. Then another pit stop was made to feed my paycheck to the Bank God.
And, of course, when I finally returned to work, there was all sorts of new and exciting mental challenges awaiting me at my desk! Some of these attorneys can be really demanding and not very friendly. They consider us people in the Word Processing department as some sort of common variety garden slug. We are just minions, peons, and slaves, only living and breathing to bow down to their commands. After all, THEY went to LAW SCHOOL! Well, LA DE DAH!! What I go through for my measly little salary! I thought 6:00 would never come!
But it did, and TGIF, as now I'm sitting here into my 3rd glass of my own version of Jesus Juice, my Ballatore!!
posted by LADYGOLD at 10:50 PM
