9:10 a.m.

How is it possible for a day to be going so wrong, when I've only been here for an hour and a half?

I showed up bright and early today, all rested and happy after a leisurely and peaceful weekend. Brain and body both perky and alert from the extra hour of morning sleep. Venti latte in-hand, ready to face the challenges of the workplace.

That lasted an hour.

Now I'm elbow-deep in the remnants of Thursday's and Friday's disasters, facing a new round of whiny e-mails about how people on the road can't get into the network and wondering if they expect me to be doing something about the VPN, fending off calls from the phone people who are insistent that the "urgent" network changes we need to make and that they notified us about five weeks ago really need to be done soon, e-mails from Buehler who wants me to handle some of his tax and accounting stuff while he's out of town (not going to), rebooting servers, etc., etc., etc.

9:11 a.m.

Okay, that was yesterday. The day didn't get much better from there but I'm happy to report that it was marginally but noticeably better than the days I had last week.

This morning, so far, hasn't been painful. I've been here for an hour, gotten some significant stuff...if not done, then on other people's desks for review, making it all SEP for a little while.

There are distinct empty spots on my desk. This means I'll have time to get to the long list of things that really, really needed to get done last week but that I wasn't able to address.

Friday I sent Bernie a long, bitchy e-mail about how Things Must Change and about how neurotic client behavior is causing most of our Issues. Monday morning he sent back a note saying that I'd promised not to quit before the end of the year.

I wasn't quitting. I was bitching and moaning. I pointed this out to him. We had meetings for an hour or two, putting me even further behind on my schedule but he wanted to say that if the client bails on us because we were desperately trying to meet their needs on a schedule 1/8 the time-frame than we normally require, then good riddance.

Anyhow.

Last weekend? I did essentially nothing. For two solid days. It was lovely. The weather was gorgeous and I got out in it a bit, but mostly I piddled around the apartment, playing with things, reading things, and generally letting the stress of the work-week evaporate.

I'm pretty sure there was a reason I started talking about that, but I've already forgotten what it is.

Mood: Dieting and crabby because of it.