Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Stick it to the man... But not really...

This weekend was essentially an exercise in debauchery... The drunken kind, which became my forte in college and the years immediately after.

Thursday night I went out to celebrate my interview with the firm I'm looking to join, and to just carouse and enjoy myself as a mode of decompression during the work week. It was a rousing success for the three of us who showed up.

Friday I worked, got off of work a little early when a mom no-showed for her visit, and so I then went to a friend's house for a little drunken get together she was having. (Momma had a date, and since my friends all know and adore momma, she came along to give up some of the details, and she enjoyed herself.) I drank sufficiently that an overnight (without the possibility of getting laid) was in order.

Saturday I got up obscenely early considering I'd been up until 5 AM the night before, worked a cursory amount, and then momma invited me out to dinner to meet this new fella. So I went to dinner, found him to be pretty charming, handsome for a gentleman of an appropriate age bracket to date my mother, and engaging. All in all, I approved.

By the time I got home from dinner, I was so tired from my previous nights outings, and elected to go to bed... Never in my life have I been so excited to go to bed alone. By 8:30 PM, despite still having my eyes open, my body was doing that jerking-to-stay-awake thing, and I resolved to myself that I was going to make it to 9:00 merely out of principle. I made it to 9:15, and then I slept for the next 13 hours. Proving yet again that I don't have the short recovery time that I once did.

Sunday I did the church thing, lazed around the house, chatted on the phone, and accomplished very very little. Momma had invited me to dinner at her house complete with her fella and grandpa. I again found her beau to be charming, and there was only one small hiccup which bothered me for a moment. It seems that this gentleman has a bit of difficulty with taking a compliment, but I'll let that slide as long as he's good to my mom. I left reasonably early under the guise that I was going to work on my paperwork... That paperwork thing didn't happen.

I toyed with the idea of doing it, knowing that even on the three day holiday weekends that paperwork is generally still due on Monday at 9 AM. I fiddle-farted around until I decided that it just wasn't in the cards and elected to go to bed.

Monday morning rolls around and I still hadn't started my paperwork by the time 9 AM rolled by. On an ordinary Monday, I'd have received roughly three calls by 9:15 if my paperwork was still out. I knew that there was nobody in the office at that point. But I also know that my office is famous for inane policy, which usually translates into someone having to go into the office and check-in everyone's paperwork packets by 1 PM on those few Monday holidays... Nobody processes it or does anything else with it, it's just a stupid thing that they do which inconveniences both the worker that has to go in and do the check-in process, and the rest of us who just want a Monday without answering to "The Man." Well, again, I toyed with the idea of doing my paperwork, but 1PM rolls around, and I find myself consumed with a personal call and can't be bothered with paperwork. By 1:15, when no one had called my work phone, I figured the deadline was 3:00 PM which I found absurd considering the workday ends at 5 and knowing that no one will be processing it then anyway, so I elected to skip the paperwork, and if I got a phone call at 3:15, I just wasn't answering. At 4:30 there were still no calls, so I called Traci to find out what was up with the paperwork situation. She noted that during a meeting I'd missed they had made the announcement that paperwork wasn't due until 9:00 AM on Tuesday. So all day long, I felt like I had been sticking it to the man saying, "Dammit, I'll get to that paperwork when I'm damn well good and ready." Turns out I was merely slacking like everyone else already knew they were entitled to.

So after visiting with momma for a bit today, I finally sat down this evening and cranked it out, because I'll be damned if I have to get up a few minutes early to print that shit out before going to the weekly staff meeting. So it's done, and turned in early for a holiday weekend, and I didn't get to stick it to the man quite the way I initially thought I was going to, but I still enjoyed the day a little bit more by just feeling like I was.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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