One of Those Days

Ever have one of those days where you feel the fates are conspiring against you? A day in which interruptions are interrupted by interruptions interrupted by interruptions (my head asplode) therefore making it impossible to accomplish anything? Such was my day.

First thing in the morning, Senor boss man hands me a stack of dusty old binders and tells me to set up beginning balances for our Vancouver branch. Let me remind you, I have little to no training in accounting. I am aware of, but ignorant to these "beginning balances" he speaks of. So I spend half an hour lazily staring at purchases and accounts receivables for the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and One. Reminiscing of those days of my 21st year, of youthful indescretions and when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

Then the mail came, signaling a downturn of events. First, a letter from the phone company. It seems they'd been sending us a discount for Internets which we had discontinued a year and a half ago. They want their money back and they'll break legs to get it. Twenty minutes on hold and they're pacified. But wait. What are these 1-900 chat lines doing on the phone bill? Ah our Vancouver branch employees, I suppose, get a little lonely during office hours. So I spend another 5 minutes on the phone reprimanding them and sending them to their rooms without dinner. These tasks, I would imagine, are well outside of my jurisdiction as I'm pretty sure I signed on as a Systems Administrator when I took on this job. Hmm.

The rest of the morning followed this unhealthy precedent. M had decided to give half hourly reports on his broken home computer, bringing the limp remains of his recently departed CPU fan (I was tempted to give him a shoebox so he could bury it out back) and lamenting Future Shop's warranty policy (he wanted them to cover a DVD-Rom drive he purchased elsewhere).

Lunch hour had its own set of interruptions. Mid pork bun, the receptionist asked if I had any D batteries. She wanted to test some kind of electronic device in her purse. Stifling laughter, I told her no, I didn't. I never found out what it was but only a couple things come to mind that use those batteries. She doesn't seem the type to carry a large flashlight around.

The afternoon pretty much played out as the morning did. Doing work I'm not supposed to be doing. Not doing the work I'm getting paid to do. The only item of note was the lecture I got from the VP regarding beginning balances and how they are set up. My eyes were glazed over and my head was set to nod. I don't recall anything during that period.

I have one week to go. One week and the ball starts rolling. One week.