...for that means half of the first month of the New Year is already gone. At this point I’m willing to concede that the New Year is now simply “this year” and if you aren’t rollin’ on your 2014 plans by now, you’re running behind. Like me.
I didn’t expect the temp assignment I’ve been working since before Christmas to go on this long, but it has. I’ve got today off because the guy running the bookstore declared himself sick after a week and a half of a senior management woman coming up from Texas to “train” him. Much of this training consisted of morning panic attacks triggered by the slightest crisis, nonsensical orders barked by way of maintaining the appearance of control, etc. After a while, she would calm down, even laugh over the morning’s (very minor) stressors. Everyone else, however, was left exhausted. Too exhausted to do blog posts when they got home, for instance. And needing a day off once the Freak-Out in Chief left, for another.
The pathology of the modern American workplace and the poor, harried slaves who show up to make it happen is a subject to be mined for other posts. Suffice it to say I’m happy for this full weekday back in the only office that matters: mine.
Although I apparently wasn’t happy enough to hit the ground running once I got the call from the temp agency at 7:30 this morning. No, I wasted time goofing around the Internet. Reading about the latest school shooting, the beginning of the end for Net Neutrality, and some other things I’ve already forgotten about. I’ve 100 pages left of a book I’ve been reading and it’s due today. I should have been reading that, but there’s too much stuff on my office futon to sit and do that.
And then there’s the book I’ve been writing, the one whose title I’d thought to reveal today. So much to do, where to begin?
I’ll start with a shower. Then I’ll clear a space so I can sit somewhere. Then I’ll get back to finishing Chapter 21. I’ll outline some future blog posts, maybe even knock off a quickie by way of catching up, while I’m cooling my brains from the carnage I write about in the third act of...not yet. I still have to figure out how to do this announcement.
The main thing is to get started. And there’s no time for that like right now.
I didn’t expect the temp assignment I’ve been working since before Christmas to go on this long, but it has. I’ve got today off because the guy running the bookstore declared himself sick after a week and a half of a senior management woman coming up from Texas to “train” him. Much of this training consisted of morning panic attacks triggered by the slightest crisis, nonsensical orders barked by way of maintaining the appearance of control, etc. After a while, she would calm down, even laugh over the morning’s (very minor) stressors. Everyone else, however, was left exhausted. Too exhausted to do blog posts when they got home, for instance. And needing a day off once the Freak-Out in Chief left, for another.
The pathology of the modern American workplace and the poor, harried slaves who show up to make it happen is a subject to be mined for other posts. Suffice it to say I’m happy for this full weekday back in the only office that matters: mine.
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| You’ve got to be willing get your hands dirty. Then dirty them! Art Copyright © Matt Dixon. Go to www.mattdixon.co.uk and buy his 2014 calendar! |
And then there’s the book I’ve been writing, the one whose title I’d thought to reveal today. So much to do, where to begin?
I’ll start with a shower. Then I’ll clear a space so I can sit somewhere. Then I’ll get back to finishing Chapter 21. I’ll outline some future blog posts, maybe even knock off a quickie by way of catching up, while I’m cooling my brains from the carnage I write about in the third act of...not yet. I still have to figure out how to do this announcement.
The main thing is to get started. And there’s no time for that like right now.
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