Some days, you're just sort of out of sync with the world, you know?

First, I got dissed by someone on the Webstrainer forum--another of Mother's Little Helpers got snotty with me when I pointed out that nagging (I didn't use that word) for a progress report every two weeks was counter-productive when you'd been told, clearly and repeatedly, that it was a project that would take months--not weeks--to complete.

This individual has always given me that feeling--you know the one--the one that says that even though you only "know" each other from a public forum, they don't actually like you.

I dislike them now, as well. I always dislike people who push aggressively to get themselves awarded public recognition. The forum is a volunteer gig--if you think you're entitled to some kind of medal for hanging out there, you're quite wrong and should shut up and go away.*

Anyhow. He dissed me. I checked myself over carefully but aside from a minor feeling of irritation that a grown man (I've seen a picture) could be so childish as to behave in that way on a public forum, I found myself undamaged.

Then Newboss Anais came over with the Argonut Assembly schedule--the timetable for the annual meeting. (Did I mention that? It happens every 18 months or so and is happening in mid-September this year.) It seems that with less than a dozen in-house Café employees left to make a show, they can't give me a bye this time** and I'm on tap for the whole affair.

That means from "after work" on Thursday until 9 or 10pm (or whenever I can sneak out).

From 8:00 am on Friday until 5:00 pm. (I turned down the offer of a free! ($10) ticket to an optional event, a baseball game Friday night.)

8:00 am on Saturday through the dinner and big party--say 10:00pm (or sooner if, again, I can sneak out).

A meeting I don't care about with people I don't like at 9:00 am on Sunday until 1:00. Then helping with the clean-up until whenever that's done.

My actual part in the festivities, for the record, runs from 2:00 on Friday to 4:30 on Friday. 2-1/2 hours. The other 30+ hours I'm basically just window dressing. Part of the crowd scene. I'm one of the Noises Off.

NewBoss Anais kept assuring me how interesting I'd find it all--with that shamefaced look people get when they have to make you do something stupid and they would rather not but they have to.

For the record, aside from firmly declining to be treated to a baseball game I could not care less about seeing, I was cooperative, even amiable about it all.

I didn't fuss or mutter or roll my eyes or indulge in any of the other childish behaviors I'm prone to*** when I'm being made to do something I don't want to do.

I also declined to be paid for the hours.

Yes, seriously.

With what I'm earning an hour at this place these days, what difference would it make? Based on my recent experience with the bonus, it would all be eaten up in extra taxes, anyhow. I'm on salary, too. I don't think NewBoss Anais realized it but you really can't pay salaried people for extra hours.****

I got, instead, something of much more interest to me--a couple of comp days. I plan to use them getting caught up on the freelance work I won't be doing while I'm making like a stage prop.

Sheesh.

I'm awfully glad that Rapunzel and Pippi are coming to town before the Assembly. I won't have to worry about being too tired to have any fun!

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* I know I'm in the minority on this one. Most people seem to be very keen on awards and medals and recognition.

I'm not unusually modest or anything. I'm actually highly egotistical. There are maybe a handful of people in the world whose good opinion I value. Other than them, my opinion is the only one that matters to me. I certainly can't be bothering with the opinions of the five billion nitwits on the planet.

(I also have an abiding suspicion that people who tell me I'm wonderful are just too stupid, or too nice, to know better, or be honest.)

I also think that "recognition" you have to force out of people instead of it being a spontaneous gesture of appreciation is hardly worth having.

** Last year my attendance was limited to one day and a dinner that evening and even that felt interminable, in spite of me leaving the dinner table to "step down the hall" and taking myself home instead.

*** It's different. My desk is not a public internet forum.

**** If they pay you, then it means you're hourly, not salaried, and they can't work you more than 40 hours a week without paying you extra and I'm a moron because I just realized that 34 hours of extra salary might actually have been worth having not to mention the idea that in the future I could, with a clear conscience, work a 40-hour week and then walk away from it regardless of what was left undone. Except that I wouldn’t and there's no reason pretending I would.