Friday, March 27, 2015

A Day in the Life



Can you believe it?  I almost forgot that today Trish from Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity is throwing a blog event where we all see get to share a day in our lives with each other.  I'll admit, upon seeing her introductory post for the event, I thought, "That's so much fun!"  Followed shortly thereafter by, "Oh crap, a day in my life is soul crushingly boring!" 

That said, I don't want to be a "taker."  If I'm going to be a creepy voyeur into the other bloggers' days, the very least I can do is offer up one of my own.  I wish that I could think of a clever way to do this that would make my life seem, less, you know, soul-crushingly monotonous, but I cannot.  Alas, I am left to pick one soul-crusher among many. 

I guess I could pick this past Monday when my day started at 1 AM because I was still on call for work.  My department supports lab computer systems for rather a large rural Pennsylvania health system.  My job function is a step below IT, and it's a good job with great co-workers, but it definitely is as boring as it sounds.  Except for when you're on call and awake at 1 A.M. trying to solve a problem that could probably have waited until a decent hour, then you kind of wish it was more boring. 

So, on Monday, I rose but I did not shine at 1 AM, then went back to bed, then rose again around 4 AM, and then went back to bed again, and then rose yet once more to the sound of my pager's song (Say, are you doctor?  Why no, I'm actually a time traveling 90s drug dealer, thanks for asking.).  So by 7 AM I was already up for the day.  The end of my tenure on call was in sight (Hello 8 AM!), which was obviously like a siren call for all the unsolvable problems of the lab technology world.  I kept working until 10 AM trying to solve the unsolvable, even though my actual workday doesn't start until 1 PM, so that 8 to 10 AM window is really when I should be (and usually am) reading The Martian (or some other bookish equivalent) over a delicious and nutritious breakfast of either lower sugar oatmeal or cold cereal with chocolate in it (depending on just how healthy I think I can force myself to be on the given day).

Having sacrificed my reading hours to the cause, I shuffled my weary bones off to work with some disgruntlement. Especially, after witnessing my adorable little cat doing what cats do so well.  She's doing the same thing now.  Jerk.


Aww, so cute.  Still a jerk.

Working from work is way better than working from home, if you don't count the travel time, the ridiculous parking situation, and, you know, having to wear socially respectable clothing.  I mean, at work, I have two monitors instead of my tiny laptop screen, and there are also co-workers there who amuse me and take me for walks before I get the chance to inflict grievous head injuries upon myself while dealing with the support structure of a certain major lab information system.  What more could a person ask for, right?  So, there's the 8 or so hours of monotonous working punctuated by random emotional outbursts and profound disappointment when that thing you totally thought would fix somebody's problem totally doesn't, meaning you pretty much wasted a good half of your workday only to call someone up and disappoint them by admitting that, at the end of day, you haven't the foggiest clue about why they're getting that obstructive computer error. 

There it is, the workplace, about 15 construction projects ago.

Then, with all the satisfaction a starving person feels after gnawing a tree branch, the first post on-call workday draws to a close (not with a bang but a whimper), and I report home for...you guessed it...TV time!  Monday's feature of choice was Downton Abbey, of which I've recently become a fan (Behold the grammatical correctitude!  Punctuated with sentence fragments full of made up words in a badly placed parenthetical expression!  English teachers continue to spin in their graves with only the briefest of pauses!).  We're working our way through season two of Downton with the help of our newly purchased Amazon Fire TV stick which is, indeed, way better for TV reception/general entertainment than a seashell (thank you Fire Stick commercial!). 

After the token moment of TV, it's off to get ready for bed.  I, being a great multi-tasker (bwahahahaha!) use Monday night's getting ready for bed time to continue memorizing 1 Peter 2 for my Tuesday morning prayer group/Bible study.  Actually, I think the descriptor I was looking for above was "great procrastinator."  It's not like I didn't have a week to memorize.  It's just way more fun to memorize things while you're brushing your teeth and partly in a coma.  So, with Bible verses freshly committed to memory (hopefully), I stumble off to bed where I manage to read barely a page of the poor neglected Martian before the lost sleep of the night before returns to claim me and another day in the life is complete.

Ergo, so is this post.  Sorry there aren't more pictures, but master procrastinator that I am, I totally forgot to even write this until about noon yesterday.  Now you'd better hurry on over to Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity to have your soul re-inflated with some other blogger's day that is actually interesting. Thanks for tuning in!

23 comments:

  1. You made a normal day sound fascinating! Love this post! How terrible that you have to keep getting up in the middle of the night. Ugh. I did Monday for my day too. It's not very exciting...

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  2. You made a normal day sound fascinating! Love this post! How terrible that you have to keep getting up in the middle of the night. Ugh. I did Monday for my day too. It's not very exciting...

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  3. I hate it when I don't get my reading time in ...

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  4. Ugh, it seems like you should get the day off after being on call all night.

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  5. I enjoyed reading about your boring day. My daughter works in IT at a company in Japan so I understand your frustrations.
    I think our cats sleep just to mock us.

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  6. Hmmm..well, I've been married to a IT guy for over 30 years. I feel your pain. Our days of his being on call are pretty much over now, but oh my goodness. So many years of it. So many. LOL

    Love your kitty picture. Yes, that is what they do best. And honestly, I loved hearing about your day. Memorizing scripture after an on call night should get an Oscar. :-)

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  7. I loved reading this so much. My husband tends to field similar activities in the middle of the night and on into the morning with his work. Luckily, my days are more regimented and happen in daylight, but I feel ya.

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  8. Your day had me exhausted before 8AM and I'm not sure I would've been able to go in with that cat looking so warm and sleepy. I hate when I don't get my reading time in but there are sometimes days where my brain can only handle TV! Hope you got a decent night's sleep!

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  9. Yikes, I'd be exhausted if I had to take calls during the night when my body wants to sleep. You go girl!

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  10. Oh, how I hated those nights I was on call. I never got a good night's sleep then. I don't envy you your early start to the day. I do, however, envy the life of your cat--and mine. They don't realize how lucky they have it.

    Your post, by the way, wasn't boring at all. Thank you for sharing. :-)

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  11. This makes me so happy to never have been on call.

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  12. You totally nailed making that sound fun and interesting! Just having that day on top of an interrupted night of sleep would make me a little crazy.

    Joy's Book Blog

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  13. I loved your comparison of the relative merits of "working from home" vs. "working from work"--it sounds like the day you've documented had plenty (too much?) of both! You made it entertaining to read about, though--and much shorter than the real day was, I'm sure :).

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  14. Well, your writing style definitely added a lot of personality to your day!! I love your note about being a creepy voyeur and not being a taker. Glad you shared your day. ;)

    I think I might like working from home occasionally but I actually like putting on respectable clothing every once in a while. I'm not sure I could ever be part of that "no pants nation."

    Thanks for sharing your day Megan! :)

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  15. Oh man, being on call in the middle of the night? I would not enjoy that! I guess since I'm the editor at a small paper I'm kind of on call in weird hours -- if news happens, someone has to deal with it -- but normally that doesn't happen at 1 a.m. Thanks for sharing your day, I thought it was interesting!

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  16. What a pretty blog! I like the color scheme. And I love your clever wit and great sense of humor.

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  17. It might be boring to live through, but you made your day pretty fun to read about! By the way, not having to wear "socially respectable clothing" is one of my very favorite things about working from home. Except that it then becomes SUCH a hassle to ever leave the house, since I get out of practice with buttons and zippers and such... :P

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  18. I forgot about this too and just posted mine today - I love reading about everyone's day and wish I would have taken pictures too!

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  19. "So, there's the 8 or so hours of monotonous working punctuated by random emotional outbursts and profound disappointment when that thing you totally thought would fix somebody's problem totally doesn't, meaning you pretty much wasted a good half of your workday only to call someone up and disappoint them by admitting that, at the end of day, you haven't the foggiest clue about why they're getting that obstructive computer error." I get you. I totally get you. Especially on the random emotional outbursts. ;-) Hope you're enjoying The Martian...it's one of my favoritest books of the year (all 3 months of it).

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  20. If someone calls me at 1 am, they better be bleeding! Your day sounded very interesting. I think our days are interesting to other people. Thanks for sharing!

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  21. Ooh I would not be shining at 1am in the morning either! It sounds like your job can be frustrating, but I really enjoyed reading what your day is like and your sense of humor in relating your day made it doubly enjoyable! :)

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  22. You may think your day was soul-crushingly boring, but I found it (or at least your summary of it) totally entertaining. As always, I love your writing and sense of humor. You always make me smile, Megan!

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  23. Hey fellow Pennsy girl! Nice to meet you. Computers I knew it! but healthcare is the same here.
    Glad you're enjoying Downton Abbey, and I also ja'dore my Firestick. Catching up on The Wire and hannibal when I can. Nice to meet you Megan :)

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