Fit to work

"One out of four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. Think of your three closes friends; if they seem OK, then you're the one." - Ann Landers

I am contemplating going back to work. I don't want to go, but I really should. My job isn't that bad, I am sure someone would love it. Unfortunately it's just not me. The people I work with are lovely I couldn't wish for better colleges. Although jokes when the heating is off, again, don't always go down that well.

I've been off for a fortnight, viral exhaustion. Get a virus, add a bunch of emotional stressors, lack of sleep, bad eating and boom you find yourself whacked out. It's not just that though.

I'm being stalked by the black dog and lately he's been hanging around, not for a game of fetch. I wish I could put my finger on what attracted his attention, but that's the problem isn't it. If the cause was obvious, the symptoms would be much easier to deal with.

I am lucky, I have a great counselor, an amazing family, fantastic friends. I know that balanced food, sleep, exercise are important. Sometimes though it doesn't matter how hard you fight, how hard you try, it still creeps up on you. Drags you down.

So I am contemplating going back to work, but I am nervous. I am nervous about adding something extra to my week. I am nervous about where black dog might lead me, who I might become. 

Computer says NO

"Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy." - Joseph Campbell

So for what feels like the twelve thousandth time, this morning I dragged myself to work only to find my computer wasn't working. It is Monday, I got out of my warm comfortable bed to face a mean cold world at 7am. Despite the dark, greyness of this mornings winter dawn I still wrenched myself out of the house and negotiated the commute to work, the commute where other people are allowed to drive on the same roads as me. I made the choice between parking in a free spot and walking for ten minutes, or parking in a paid for spot and not walking. Actually that decision was made for me by the other people who are allowed on the roads making my journey ten minutes longer than it should be. I then sacrificed myself to the harsh fluorescent lighting, the unpredictable temperature fluctuations and soup of other peoples post-Christmas germs that is the office. Only to once again spend an hour and a half trying fruitlessly to login to my computer.

It took 35 mins for there to be any sign that IT recognised that there was a problem. I tried calling myself, but the line was constantly telling me all operators were busy, which suggests other folk were reporting the same thing. It wasn't just me who couldn't get logged on, but every fellow desktop user in my team and doubtlessly that means every desktop user in the organisation. Generally the laptop users, mostly consisting of those who manage the desktop users, do not have this issue. Their laptops rarely fail to allow them to do their work, this makes it quite difficult to manage relations between the two groups. It is an unfortunate truth that human beings find empathy difficult, especially when they have no experience on which to hang that empathy.

Of course the biggest issue we face is the demoralisation of the workforce due to this on-going issue. I believe if my maths is correct I alone have lost nearly two working weeks since August 2012 due to these continually occurring issues. I don't always go in to work with the Monday morning blues. Sometimes I am all game face and ready to go, but that rarely lasts longer than half an hour into one of these little "moments" our IT system likes to have.

With no solution on the horizon however I suspect I am going to have to learn to live with it, perhaps acceptance can be located at the bottom of yet another cup of tea.

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..............