The Simplest of Tasks

Isn't it amazing how quickly things can go from good, or even just fine, to a complete disaster? Take last night for example I didn't hit complete disaster, but I did find miffed, drained and bordering on chaotic, it's the same principle. More to the point I got to the stage where you wonder, at which moment, your day took the turning that ended up here.

My day started pretty well, yes I was at work all day, but I had been listening to podcasts while raising countless invoices, I'd had a run at lunch time and I got a moment to jot down some ideas for a short story. I did an errand after work which took less time than I'd expected, spoken to a good friend and then visited another friend with a new baby. I popped to the shop and headed home, set for a good evening. Then everything seemed to go to hell.

I tried to undertake what was supposed to be a 'simple' task, but I could not get everything to work the way it should. I knew it wasn't that hard, which meant it frustrated me all the more. The kind of frustrated you get, when you know you should just leave it alone or you'll make it worse, but you end up fidgety and uncomfortable when you do walk away. You have to keep going back, having another go, like when you were 8 years old and unable to stop yourself picking a scab on your knee.

Things went down hill from that point onwards. I had promised myself I would just do that one job and then I would sort out the mess in the house whilst cooking dinner and getting my bits ready for the morning, so that after dinner I could have a nice sit down. That's not how it happened. I had to give up on the 'simple' task to put dinner on, but I couldn't concentrate on getting anything done properly. Even when I was eating my meal I couldn't concentrate. I kept having another look, trying again, getting more and more worked up. I almost had a little cry. I boiled the kettle at least five times, but never did have a cup of tea, thinking about it, perhaps that's where I was going wrong.

Eventually I realised with a horrible sinking feeling that it was past bedtime, I had nothing ready for the next day and I needed to stop. It was only when I finally did sit down that it dawned on me, maybe it wasn't the, surprisingly difficult, 'simple' task that was bothering me. Up until that point my week had been non stop, my feet had barely touched the group, I'd gone from one thing to the next, to the next and everything had run like clock work. If one piece of the puzzle had slipped, everything would have gone awry and I wouldn't have been able to catch up with myself. So it was a really good job that everything had gone to plan and .............wait a minute. That 'simple' task had been the blade across my Achilles heal. I talked before about how important it is to have a sit down and take time for you. That's all well and good, but if it's built into a day that is perfectly timed down to the last second and something slips, either me time or your sanity, is going to get lost vey quickly. So there is another lesson that I have recognised, if not yet fully learnt.

In case you were wondering, that 'simple' task was to put a screen protector on to my new tablet to keep it all clean and shiny. What actually happened was I put it on upside down, approximately 45 degrees from straight, with several bubbles and some mystery fluff trapped underneath it. Having now calmed down and reflected though I have realised that what is truly important in all of this is I HAVE A TABLET! 

An Hour

I spent an hour today, a whole long hour, attempting to print one, single-sided sheet of A4. Do you know how many other things I could have done with that hour? I could have written at least a 1,000 words, probably 2,500 if I wasn't really fussed how good they were. I could have watched that episode of Glee that’s waiting for me on my digital recorder. I could have finished reading my book, gone for a run, made some soup, heck I could have cleared my in-box at work. Instead I spent a whole hour running backwards and forwards between various printers in my building in the vain hope that one of them would deem me worthy, by producing print job I’d requested.

It wasn’t anything particularly difficulty, as already mentioned it was a single-sided sheet of A4. I need it in colour and there were a couple of small logos included, all set up on page orientated to landscape. Really nothing too challenging and the black and white printer had no trouble with it. The colour printer on the other hand, oh no, this was far too challenging. The first printer was happy to print in colour, but for some reason, known only to it’s inner cogs and gears, the request to print landscape was simply beyond its grasp, I tried every setting my poor decrepit desktop offers me. I sent it to every tray on the printer with the paper set in every combination of positions, but it stubbornly refused to do anything except centrally print my landscape document on a portrait page, so not only was it in the wrong orientation, but it was also missing quite significant words from the left hand side of the text.

Eventually I could no longer face the whirring, clunking hunk of junk which was not only refusing to do as I ask, but also insisting that I needed to manually tell it everything was good to go by pressing the ‘online’ button before it would spew forth a single letter or punctuation mark. So I ventured downstairs to another colour printer.

I particularly hate this printer, we have a relationship which goes way back. Sure things started out rosie, and it was my closest ally in the office, zipping out clear, crisp copies of any documents I should need. As is the way of these things however the relationship soon soured, it refused to print except from the manual feed tray, which is a tricky bugger at the best of times, still we soldiered on. Until the fateful day I came down to find the manual feed tray broken, I tried everything to fix it but eventually I gave up and had to call in the big guns and ask reception to call for an engineer. However the engineer came, the engineer went and within five minute the manual feed was broken again. This cycle went on until I eventually gave up reporting the issue and printing in colour.

Never-the-less today I knew I’d have to go and try and re-kindle a relationship with my nemesis if I ever wanted my document printed. Let’s just say things did not end well and I still am without my solitary, sheet printed out. After an hour of trying and failing, I was forced to leave the office for a long standing appointment. Possibly fortuitous timing all things considered, as I had reached tipping point, the slightest nudge would have sent me over the edge and one or more useless pieces of machinery might have found themselves getting defenestrated.

I now intend to spend an evening in the calm, serenity of some sewing. I shall surround myself with the soft, forgivingness of my beautiful fabrics and loose myself in colour and texture. Just so long as the sewing machine doesn’t start playing silly buggers everything will be just fine..............