Here are two analogies that describe my job, especially right now:

(a) Let's say that oh, 12 to 50 to 100 times in a day, someone comes over, throws up in my bed, goes, "Oops! I made a mistake! Can you fix it?" and skips away. It's not so much that oops, you made a mistake so much as oops, 50-100 people per day made mistakes and then WE have to be the ones to fix it. This is just getting ridiculous. But like everything else, there's nothing we can do about stopping "Oops! I made a mistake!" "Oops, I made a mistake!" "Oops!" "Oops!" "Oops!" Seriously, we can't possibly have a way for these people to fix their own oopses?

(b) Let's say that I start out the day with a cup of emotional juice that is...oh, maybe a sixth of the cup full because at this point I don't recover a super amount of juice when I go to sleep at night. I don't have much to give any more. Every time someone has a question, they take a swig from the glass. By halfway through the day, my cup of juice is empty. And yet, people will not stop coming by and taking a drink. I am in negative numbers of emotional anything by the time I can get out of here. I despise the words "I have a question," “I have a QUICK question” (they never are) and the word "question" in general. I flinch when I hear it, which is 50-100 times a day. I no longer care. I am more of an introvert than I thought because I am just drained the hell dry a lot by onslaughts of questions, which are all the worse when I or everybody don't know what the hell people are talking about and they won't stop hounding us.

I had to do errands after work today and was all “God, must there be so many damn humans EVERYWHERE?!” and I say this during the least populated time of the year. I get so drained here.

(c) I think all of us are really tired of being asked weird questions we don't know the answer to, and we get in trouble somehow regardless of what answer we can give anyway.

(d) That combined with "I'm siiiiiick!" = my cup empties even faster in a day.

(e) Another thing that empties my cup even faster: being nitpicked about every tiny thing.

*sigh*

Though on the good news side, I told my boss about applying for the other job and she high-fived me immediately. We also had a good conversation about shifting my workload to things that are more suited to my actual skills in life, and possibly taking me off of public service for that workload. (Though between "siiiiiick," someone being out for five Mondays in a row in January, and an upcoming maternity leave, I don't think that'll happen because we'll be drowning again already.) That was a lovely chat.

She also said she thought I was doing better at customer service, so let's remember that come review time. Then again, I wonder if that's because (a) since our office move the incoming population has been less people and less crazy, and (b) a lot less people pass through the service area to overhear me and stare at me when I'm in the hot seat, so it's just less exposure to every time they don't like how I talk or whatever.

Anyway....suffice it to say that I really enjoyed the one hour of chatting at work and the rest of the time I just wished people would stop asking us things. Even my coworkers who are more tolerant of that were really sick of it by 3:30.

In other news, the Festivus pole I ordered got canceled--they ran out--so while roaming around town trying to figure out office presents (I ended up going with cheap island calendars since nobody’s getting any from Hawaii this year and that’s the next best I can do), I ended up getting a solar lightup candle thing and some duck tape, and making a duct tape sleeve to put over the candle. Voila, Festivus pole that stands on its own and is small enough for the desk. So there’s one pleasant accomplishment for the day.

Oh, and I finally heard from Mom about the boat party she went to on Saturday: it was apparently kind of a bust and they only had like seven boats at it that were "kinda cute." I don't feel so bad about missing that now.

In other news, let's finish out with some Deep Thoughts I've read in the last few days.

"God is incapable of preventing the bad things from happening. God relinquished this capacity when God established physics. For whatever reason this was necessary in order for the universe to develop its own, personal, independent consciousness. Without the terror of mortality and the cruelty of natural sin we wouldn't have free will and God would remain alone - or, worse - a puppet-master, a child playing alone in a room full of toys."
If this gives you reason to abandon God - go for it. Process theology has proved to be a dead-end for most of the church."

What's process theology?

I think that would explain a lot, really. There's a God, he just doesn't have the control we think a god should have. He can only intercede sometimes.

I also read this Cracked article, I'm specifically referring to #1: "In Fiction, Unlike LIfe, Every Problem Has A Clear Solution." Damn that real life!

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