Ah, work. When it's quiet, it's -- pardon the pun -- dead. When it's busy, it's a blind panic. It's always the way that when Liis leaves for the day, the work comes in. It's just the scheduling of incoming regional eskies, IVF, hospitals, warfarin patients, etc. Surgeries are closing down for the day and everybody wants to head home ASAP.
When things don't happen, people brainfart. That's life. You don't get what you want when you normally get it, you kick up a stink. When immediate consequence could very easily be legal action or media involvement (privacy leaks, etc), everything is polarised. Everyone's either a softcock or a ballbuster, and in my position, I am required to be a wench. It's a perk. You should see Liis when she gets foul -- it's seriously hot when she gets angry, it's fucking brilliant, since she's the cutest most kindest most adorable little thing since Scott Baio. But I digress.
This job, like everyone else's, is exhausting. I'm the one who handles all your disgruntled messenger-shooting abuse. I try my damnedest to make things right and get results. I pride myself in getting things done, being reliable, with Liis and I tag-teaming to keep the weekend face of the Results Department clean.
There's been minimal staff turnover for the weekend, which, IMHO, is fan-fucking-great. Working weekends, we are on skeleton staff, so the troubleshooting is handled by us, from go to whoa. Liis takes the Saturday day shift, I take the night. She used to take the Sunday arvo shift, and I used to take the Sunday morning shift, but she's dropped the Sunday due to University/Internship commitments, so I've got all day Sundays now. We work like a well-oiled machine, and our complaint rate is a the size of an ant turd in a football field.
So when Dr... Billymabob phones up at 9.59pm to ask where the courier is to pick up an urgent blood sample from his house, I put down my bag and promptly quash hopes of getting home on time. See, Dr Billymabob is a very very very very important inhouse pathologist. He has a lot of sway, and he has a tendency to send heads rolling for the tiniest things. He's a very prominent doctor, inhouse and in our community. So this collection is a critical sample. If collection doesn't happen, it doesn't get to the lab to be run through the night with results for him in the morning. If I neglect this call, it comes straight back to me in the morning.
I COULD'VE let the phone ring and headed home, but it would've bitten me right on the arse in the morning. I hate it when people palm work off on other people, but I especially hate palming work off on myself, LOL. That, and it was 9.59pm - I had one more minute, I'm anal like that.
After much calling around and ego-stroking, I didn't get things sorted out until 10.35pm. I called a cab for myself the moment things were sorted, dropped off work for the lab, and headed out the door at 10.41pm. The regular cab pickup bay for our company was conveniently located in the furthermost darkest corner of the entire lot, and I waited there until the cabbie pulled up just past 11pm. I didn't get home until 11.20pm - nice work. I'm a workoholic, with obvious allowances, I have a chronic case of Workohol. It gives me purpose. But it also hits hard to know that on Saturday nights, when C's at M's, nobody really gives a toss when I get home or how I get home. Rightly so, since I don't want to be coddled, LOL. It's just another piece to add to the reality of leaving M.
I'm exhausted. I don't know why I'm blogging right now. I hopped on MSN, AIM and YIM, and nobody's on. Actually, I lie. Old mate Ralph in ye olde Englandtowne was on, but I was too exhausted to hold a decent conversation, sorry Ralph. The rest of the world is hanging out or sleeping, and anybody I do want to talk to have their own lives to lead.
Then I get to get up in five hours to do it all over again... I shouldn't have agreed to taking ten hour Sundays permanently. M and C will pick me up once I'm done at work, so I do the mum thing as soon as work's done. This, and 2 hours (if I'm lucky) on Wednesdays, is/are the only times I have alone.
God, I hate the vein this blog has gone in, but I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I'm missing people and old memories. I've written four posts today that I've pulled and dumped, the crux of each post being loneliness. There's not much else on my mind, really. I write and write and write, I post, I read, and I loathe the words I've written. I'm not big on 'bleeding hearts' posts, and I have serious issues with whinging and/or looking vulnerable. Fingers crossed I let this one stay.
Something to look forward to - if all goes according to plan, BroGonzo will be getting his superawesome Gonzofist tattoo this weekend. Keep your eyes peeled, it's going to be JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS.
I've decided that I'm going to put in annual leave for Saturday, May 7. I don't care about losing the extremely generous loading, I am going to take the weekend off to attend Grogblogging II. It would be most awesome if I could go with other Sydney bloggers, but at this point, I need to hop off the mousewheel, even if only for one night. Misha, that invite goes out to you, too.
