Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

If you don't see me...

At work we have one of those computerized calendars with everyone's schedules so you can see when people are free for meetings and so on. My offically scheduled hours are 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. I usually get in around 7, but I don't like having to go to a meeting before I've had a chance to check my messages and drink my coffee (yes, we have people who schedule 7 am meetings. We have people who schedule 6 am meetings.) Likewise, I often leave closer to 4, but I like having the end of the day unbooked so I can tidy up my desk (this is a joke...my office looks a manila folder factory exploded).

Our fiscal year ends tomorrow, and in July I need to write staff reviews, work up objectives for next year, and do an inventory project that involves reconciling data from six different (and incompatible) sources. And I need to do my usual work, and cover for some vacationing people. In July, my days tend to end at 5:30 or 6, plus the work I bring home, plus weekends. (A couple years ago I brought my inventory stuff with me to a wedding. August 1 is a hard deadline.)

I'm not bitching (I know too many people who work my July hours all the time), though it's a bit of a bummer to be so busy when I really want to be outside playing. I'm really just mentioning this in case I don't find time to blog for a few days. I don't want you to worry that I've been hit by a bus or something. Not that you would, but I'm feeling self-important. That's what happens to me when I work senior executive hours, I get a swelled head.

Unrelated...the emergency vet was for one of our rats. We thought he had a bad respiratory infection and maybe a stroke, but our regular vet thinks he's actually had a spinal cord injury. He's doing ok today...not great, but ok...and we appreciate your good thoughts. Thank you.

I had two frustrations at the emergency vet. One was a family who were there with a pregnant german sheppard who was having a tough time, and it was clear from the conversation that 1. the father was also their dog, 2. they were not intending to breed, and 3. they didn't have a plan for what to do with the puppies. I wanted to throttle them for not having those dogs spayed and neutered. I think any animal owner who neglects to neuter like that oughta have to spend a day seeing shelter animals being euthanized.

The other thing that bothered me was that when the vet finally came in to our exam room, he excused himself and left in the middle of what passed for taking care of our guy four times. Now, I understand triage, and if a cat had come in after being hit by a car and he'd blown us off I'd have understood, but one of the times he left it was to write up the medical history form on the sheppard, who by that time was (in the vet's own words) doing great. I can't help but think that if we'd been there with a dog in respiratory distress who'd suffered two seizures he would have given us a bit more attention, but we were the "just a rat" being fit in between "real" patients.

Now I'm all cranky again, just like I was last night. I think I should go to bed now, or I'll be too tired for Fiscal New Year's Eve tomorrow.

Posted by Nic at June 29, 2004 09:38 PM