When Work Cuts into My Blogging Time

  Aside from my usual coy obscuring of text, this was the scene in my cubicle at work, about three hours ago.  The time: 9:30 PM.

I worked from about 8:10 AM (I was a little late) until almost 6:45 PM today, without a lunch break.  (I ate at my desk, food that was ordered in to celebrate someone's birthday. I never quite figured out which person was the birthday girl.) When evening came, I went home for dinner and two hours of tv, and then went back to the office until 11:45 PM. 

That brings my total overtime to 10 hours in four days  It actually doesn't count as OT, but I'm told it unofficially turns into a bonus at the end of the year.  Okay, fine.  I can live with that.  Didn't I mention that this is the highest salary I've ever had, by far?

On the other hand, $66 in NSF fees hit our joint checking account today.  Payday came a day too late.  The refi was supposed to go through before the trip to Disneyland, not two weeks after.  It's done now, but the money is still in the future.  John supposedly covered the shortfall yesterday, but apparently something else came through after that - probably the AOL charge.  And so it goes.  Maybe the bank will take into account my direct deposit and the big new mortgage they signed us up for, and let me off the hook for the $66.  I hope!

So anyway, I was at the office all evening instead of blogging all evening.  The good news was that, except for a momentary visit from someone on the cleaning staff, I was alone and undistracted by extraneous people and tasks - and I had my iPod with me.  I sang along with the Beatles for two hours.

The bad news is that the only reward for my dedication - the knowledge that I got the work done - eluded me.  There are discrepancies.  I'll have to finish in the morning.

Dang.

It's been a Hardy Day's Night, and I've been working like a dog...

And someone told me today that the person who used to do this horrible, hurry up task before I arrived used to do it in two and a half hours.  What a horrifying statistic!  It takes me every bit of two days, which really means parts of three days, to enter 261 pages of numbers into Excel.  J. confirms that she really was able to type it in that fast, years ago when the report was less than half as long as it is now.  She says I should not even try to make comparisons like that, but this other guy is always (half-teasingly) giving me grief about it.  Well, guess what.  After 30 years of typing with two fingers - despite a touch typing course - I'm never going to be able to do 10-key data entry, and let my fingers fly as they pick out numbers like 1,061.47 off a page printed in 7 point type.  My boss knows this, and is okay with it, but the pressure continues.

The world is treating me bad...Misery!

(Is that enough self-pity for you?)

Now you know why I choose not to give the name of my employer, or too many identifying details.  I have no beef with the company.  Really, I don't.  It's the best job I ever had.  But sometimes I have to vent.

See, it's bad enough that I spend three hours putting together an editing a blog entry, and end up getting only 5 hours of sleep.  It's not healthy, but at least I'm doing it because I enjoy it.  But if I'm going to spend my evenings in my cubicle instead, even that awful schedule is going to look like langorous luxury. 

Clearly, I'm going to have to set limits on how many hours a week I'm willing to spend on a list of job duties that keeps growing longer. 

Good night.

Karen