random thoughts – Day 1,633 – (Friday) – ugh day

Evening birds with  no gutter access.

After a short and blissfully quick three days of the short holiday workweek, work day four was one of those days that felt like a month. And it wasn’t a slow and leisurely long day, it was packed with annoyances from start to finish that really put the ugh in rough. 

The minute I logged on to the computer at the office, a non-stop stretch of annoyances was launched. The first program needed required a sudden password reset. Of course, the password criteria are the length of a novel and can’t resemble any of the passwords already used in the past eight years.

There were annoyance edits on an ad that weren’t actually edits and were more philosophical commentary that served to do nothing more than delay the project unnecessarily.

There were more edits on another project that has already had so many revisions that the numbering system for versions was abandoned by the designer and letters were adopted instead. We’re up to version JJ at this point. If I suddenly keel over from a heart attack, feel free to blame the product comparison charts. Or passwords.

There was a short-notice ad request – with short being “we need this now” for an ad in an odd size for an event we haven’t sponsored before and an organization that still wasn’t clear even after three rounds of emails. This wasn’t even the banker making the request’s fault – it was delays from the organization that needs the check yesterday and the ad in five minutes. Please help us to help you, for crying out loud. It might actually be an obscenely short-notice ad request that kills me.

There was an abrasively worded email from a program admin, chewing out a list of us for not having signed into some program for months and giving us a deadline of 1:00 today to do so. I didn’t know I was set up on the program, and even better, have no idea what the program does, but I seem to be in trouble for not logging into it. And when I tried to log in today, after jumping through a few hoops to have the password I didn’t know I had reset, it turns out I can’t actually log into the program from my office computer until IT does something to it first.

Kiki coming in for some love.

Of course, the ad, the login, and a few other things that needed immediate attention were happening simultaneously, and not a single one of them was on my to-do list for the week, which was completely neglected today. 

To add to the fun it was cold in the office and I wore my jean jacket over a shirt and sweater most of the day. By 3:00 my head was pounding, especially after I accidentally logged myself out of a program I wasn't done with, which requires multifactor authentication through an app that doesn't refresh. Three times. At 5:00 I could not get away from this work day quickly enough.

At home, confused birds were scratching on the newly installed gutter filter screens that now cover the gutters they used to use as a playground. I feel a bit sad about that. I'm imagining their suddenly blocked access is the avian equivalent of my password issues.

Inside, Kiki was feeling affectionate and erased all the stress. She was chattier than usual and wanted to be petted and I was happy to play along. She is a good distraction from the stupid home laptop touchpad that is acting up. Thank you sweet Keeks, for salvaging all the crazy ugh days.