Most days just come and go without distinction.
Other days, however, seem to have a real purpose, demonstrating something akin to focus in their pursuit of their goal.
Today was the second kind of day.
The day’s purpose? To piss me off.
It actually began working toward that goal even before I woke up, as in the moments before I realized that the music I was hearing was actually my alarm going off, I’d been dreaming that I’d woken up in the middle of the night and had just gotten back into bed.
So waking up after having just convinced myself that I had hours to go before I needed to get up was a lousy way to start the day.
Things really got going, though, once I got on the road to head to the all day meeting.
There are a lot of stoplights between where I live and where the meeting was, and I was stopped at each and every one of them.
That would have been bad enough, but what made it more irritating was that most of the time they were green when I was stopped, simply because people just don’t seem to be able to comprehend the fact that they can actually proceed when the light is green.
I’m sure the fact that it had snowed yesterday, even though today the roads were all clear and it was mostly sunny out, added to the slowdown, though I’m not entirely sure why that would be.
But eventually I made it to the conference center where the meeting was being held and the real fun began.
And when I say fun I mean hours and hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair trying to stay awake while I listened to incredibly boring presentations.
The “team-building” exercise consisted of having to pick a number and walk over to the table with the corresponding number. Once there, each team had to paint on a canvas. The individual canvases were part of a larger mosaic issue, and the point was to coordinated with the teams working on the connecting canvases to ensure that the big picture turned out right.
I don’t know how the big picture turned out, as they were likely unveiling it during the post-meeting reception, which I didn’t stay for.
The group I ended up working with consisted entirely of people who actually worked with each other, so, as usual, I was the odd man out. I simply picked a portion of the canvas to work on, painted in silence, then left as soon as we were done.
So much for teamwork.
The rest of the day consisted of more presentations, some of which had a few interesting and entertaining moments, but were boring for the most part.
At one point some guy, an employee, got up and did a ventriloquist act, an act which garnered a few laughs, but for the most part was sort of embarrassing.
Most of the laughs actually came from our VP, who was a good sport and got up on stage to help out with the act.
Throughout the course of the day I developed a headache, which only got worse when I left.
I’ve been to this particular conference center several times before for other meetings and one of our holiday parties, but when I was leaving I inadvertently took a different exit from the one I usually do and somehow got a bit lost.
It took me a while to get back to familiar territory, but even after that it was slow going because it was now the middle of rush hour, which made my head throb all the more.
During my drive I was trying to switch lanes, but I wanted to get ahead of a particular car before doing so. The car in front of me kept speeding up, making me think that I could accomplish my goal, but just as soon as there was almost enough space for me to squeeze ahead of the other car the car in front of me would slow down. This went on for several minutes, until finally the car ahead of me suddenly slammed on the brakes, forcing me to swerve into the other lane behind the car I wanted to get in front of in order to avoid an accident. Once I was in the other lane the car that had formerly been ahead of me sped up to match my speed in order to prevent me from pulling back into the lane ahead of him.
Eventually he floored it and crossed into the lane ahead of the car in front of me, essentially stealing the spot I wanted.
There’s no other explanation for his behavior other than that he was simply fucking with me and trying to piss me off.
And let me say that he succeeded in that goal.
Eventually, even behind the car that I hadn’t wanted to be behind, I got to a point where traffic was moving along pretty briskly.
However, as frequently happens, we hit something of a lull, forcing us all to slow down a bit. Even after things started speeding back up, though, I found that the person I was behind was the kind who, once he looses momentum, is never able to regain it. So even though there was nothing really stopping him from doing so, he never really sped back up.
And of course I was trapped behind him as the much more rapidly moving traffic whizzed continually past on either side.
All I really wanted to do at this point was just go home, but I was actually on my way to the cooking class.
Even with the various delays I arrived at the high school where the class is held a couple of minutes early. I was a little concerned about the fact that there were no cars in the parking lot, and that the entire campus gave the impression of a ghost town. I approached the doors, but there were no lights on inside, and a quick, pointless test of the doors informed me that they were locked.
So apparently once again the fact that it snowed yesterday caused issues today, even though the roads, as mentioned, were all perfectly clear, and all evening classes were canceled.
Even though I really wanted to go home, I was still a little annoyed by the fact that the class was canceled. I can’t see any legitimate reason for doing so. Even at its worst, yesterday’s “storm” wasn’t all that bad, and a good portion of the snow it left behind had already melted today.
So I called Kathleen, who had called me on her way home from the airport to let me know that she’d probably be late for class, to let her know that she didn’t even need to show up at all. I was glad that my timing was such that she hadn’t left the house yet.
And that, in a nutshell, was my day.
As mentioned, the day seemed to have a purpose, and I will say that it accomplished that purpose quite skillfully. There was really no one thing that I had to contend with, but instead there were countless small things that had a cumulative effect much greater than one one majore hassle could ever have.
So, despite it all, I can’t help but feel a little admiration for such a well-organized effort at pissing me off.
Still, the fact of the matter is that over the years my patience and my tolerance for annoyances have been pretty well eroded away, so I can’t help but wonder why God/The Universe/Whatever works so hard to piss me off when it really doesn’t take much.
Ah well. At least I’m home now, and for this pay period I’ll have a big fat check filled to overflowing with overtime.
Well, filled to overflowing with overtime before the various taxes gut it.
In any case, that will about do it for this entry. I may or may not be back with an additional entry later, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting if I were you.
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