Three Days from ...

Have more on my plate the next three days than I've had in any three-day period since maybe 2008 or so. So busy. So much to do, so little time, and so little compensation for it.

But I'm not complaining. Well, technically I am. Perhaps I mean to say, I'm not ungrateful. The stress that comes from having a job is so much more preferable than the stress that comes from being unemployed. I have to keep reminding myself that.

I've been battling a mucousy cold over the past ten days. I've also worked 12 out of the last 14 days. That's about eighteen hours of OT all totaled, which I get paid for, which basically results in a transfer payment to Target for the girls' school supplies and fall clothing next month. But I'm getting the hang of the myriad of policies and procedures at the new place, and I'm beginning to earn some juice amongst both workers and management. And my desk is finally reaching some stage of manageable organization.

I had a wedding Friday night which wiped my tired and sick butt out. Had to work five hours Saturday, then got home and mowed the lawn. The wife and I took the girls out for ice cream, then she went out to the movies with her girlfriend. I had my ice cream at home watching the campy 1957 flick The Cyclops. Began reading Haggard's Allan Quatermain. Then I passed out at 10, and slept straight until 9:30 the next morning.

Spent Sunday resting up for my three-day tribulation. Stayed horizontal as much as possible. Bed, couch, tub. Read my Haggard, read some of Benedict. Read a quite intriguing Philip Jose Farmer book about Doc Savage. Did some necessary laundry, but that was the extent of my domestic chores. Spit up a lot of phlegm. Yes, it's the little details that paint the prettiest pictures.

Monday I have to learn how to navigate this hand clock thingie at work. 122 employees went off time cards the Thursday past and expect to be paid properly this Wednesday. Otherwise I'll have a line of unhappy worker bees outside my office door. So I need to calculate all those hours and compensate for the confused who couldn't master the fine art of clocking in and out via a biometric hand reading. Plus I've commissions to figure out, schedules to clean, folders to fill and files to file, overtime reports to run and a phone to answer, one that rings four to six times an hour with people needing fires put out.

Then I have to rush home and sign my name to thirty papers writ in an ancient, foreign language. That's right, we've refinanced the home a second time within two-and-a-half years. Though we'll be penalized in some obscure way which won't be revealed to us until we try to sell the darn thing, we now have some monthly breathing room, to the tune of about $300. At least on paper ...

Tuesday my company is sending me to the airport Marriott for an all-day seminar on Hiring and Retention. Great, but extremely poor timing. This effectively cancels out any progress I've made organizational-wise over the past week or so. I've always said that if I did nothing but sit silently at my desk from first thing in the morning, by lunch time I'd have four hours of new work to complete by five. I also want to type up my notes for the day for the bosses so I can show them, well, that I can do that sort of thing.

Wednesday is payroll day, where I have eight hours to make sure 122 people are properly paid. That's assuming all the info from the various departments gets to my desk by 10 am, which so far has never happened. It's a stressful, headachy, ulcer-inducing bimonthly event that I'm learning to dread. For one thing, I can't do payroll at my desk because it's too in-the-open. Remedy: do it at my boss's desk, with my boss's never-ending ringing phone, with my boss's never-ending parade of people with fires marching in and out like some mid-to-lower-level ring of Dante's hell.

So I'm going to be struggling. Then, relief! Blessed relief! Well, that won't really come until next weekend.

Fortunately I did some noodling on the laptop Sunday afternoon and have two reviews for those of you interested in all things bookish. After that, I have no idea what to write, so I'm begging for the Great Muse to throw a bone or two my way.

Enjoy the next couple of days. I will, but only when I'm journeying into the heart of darkness with Macumazahn or into the heart of Christ with Cardinal Ratzinger.