Frustration

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right? Occassionally, I seem to have a day, like today, when it seemed from the moment I woke up, I was destined to have a "bad day", it was almost like a premonition. You wake up late, get out of bed, and boom - you realize you forgot to pick up your clothes from the cleaners the previous day, so now you have nothing to wear to work! So, as it is you're running late, so you have to go through your stash of new shirts (since everything else is at the cleaners), and then open it up, and have to iron it. You suddenly realize that you forgot to charge the electric razor, so now you can't shave and have to use that old razor you have for emergencies, but because you have gotten so used to relying on the electric one, you don't have any shaving cream. So you try to make do (necessity is the mother of invention), and use soap instead, but then you nick yourself in like five different places. In the meantime, since you're already running late for your meetings this morning, your phone starts ringing off the hook. Finally, after fighting your laptop to shut down so you can take it to work with that presentation you've worked all night on, you make it out to your parking lot, only to realize you can't find your car, because you couldn't get your designated parking spot, as you came in late the previous night, and due to the really narrow space you were designated, you couldn't get your car into the spot after your neighbor had already parked and no other regular spots were available. As you try to make your way out of the apartment complex, the friggin' remote for the gate is not working, so you have to step out of the car and punch in the codes, and then realize your gas tank is running on empty. The phone is still ringing away, you're not even bothering to pick up after all, and that annoying voicemail thingy's just beeping away. Now, you make a dash to the gas station, praying the car won't stall before you get there. Finally make it there, and then decide you should take the feeder roads instead of the freeways because its shorter. Well lo and behold, you get stopped at every single signal. You're blood pressure's just rising and road rage is slowly but surely creeping in, and right then, you see a call coming in from your boss, now you can't ignore the call. So you take it, and guess what? Priorities have changed, the meeting is postponed because one of the major client's systems are all down, go into disaster recovery mode, and co-ordinate all efforts to bring client systems back up. Every minute is precious, the CIO at the client site calls and of course in no uncertain words reminds you that systems are down, and patient lives (and doctor's livelihoods) depend on these systems. So in your agitated state of mind, you remind yourself to remain calm, and explain to the customer that we're doing all that we possibly can to bring things back up quickly, and in your mind you're thinking, I'm not even in the office! The traffic lights are all still f*****g with you, and you're just going ballistic. The phone's still ringing, how peaceful life must have been before cell phones were invented. Just then one of your friends' calls you up, to get over life crisis, that has to go the back burner for now, I got enough crises of my own to resolve. You finally make it in to the office, assess your situation, get things cranking, whip up all your people into action, all the while fielding half agitated customer calls asking for explanations and ETA's. How do you get them that answer if you dont know it yourself? Just when you think things could not get possibly worse, and you realize you're still helpless, you call up the support vendors, and are told oops, customer has not re-signed maintenance contract, so will not be supported. That's when all your pent up frustration and anger comes out, because now you have your own whipping boy, the support vendor who's customer we are. So after a 15 minute shout out with the poor support guy (who is of course just following his guidelines), you decide to go over his head, and call up the top dog at said vendor's company, after much cajoling, some promises to make sure that I will do whatever it takes to make customer resign contracts, some empty threats on my part to take our business elsewhere, vendor top dog gives in, and agrees to provide support this one time for the sake of on-going relationships and to try to get the few carrots which I probably won't be able to deliver on but dangle his way anyway. Things finally start working late afternoon, and you're feeling good now, things just might work out your way. So you sit down to eat a much deserved lunch at 330PM, and the sandwich that you have just had delivered to your office, fall out of your hands and lands on the carpet...
(No I don't believe in the 5 second rule)

Anyway, such was my day today.