Hooray for Headphones

Today was meant to throw me off kilter. I am almost sure of it. Here is my synopsis.

1. It was cloudy. I woke up late because I was nice and comfy in bed. I didn't think it was really morning because it was too dark to be morning. Morning comes when the sun jumps above the horizon. Yeah, the seasons are changing, but not that quickly.
2. We had an unplanned fire drill. We have some remodeling going on at work to make a museum/break room. I heard some power saws working (which is why I now have headphones that cover my ears instead of ear buds), followed by a hissing. One of the workers accidentally cut the pipe that feeds water to the emergency sprinklers. Needless to say, my day was demoted from very productive to productive.
3. There was a coffee talk at work. This is a fancy term for get everyone in a room so the mucky mucks can tell where the company is heading in the next quarter. For most employees, this means catch up on emails. As a contractor, I was able to dodge the coffee talk, but I have the pleasure of sitting on the corner next to where everyone enters and exits the coffee talk. Headphones get another shout out here.
4. I had crazy requests come my way at work today. I generally am done taking care of those requests by 11:00, but today I wasn't done until about 1:30. I partially blame #2. The other part of the blame comes from the fact that they were odd requests that took extra time to take care of.
5. After getting into my groove working on the document that I was trying to get written today, I looked down at the clock and noticed that it was about 2:45. It started getting loud again because at 3:00, there was a beer bust. This was a fancy term for let's have a party while the contractors work. I realized that I hadn't dropped off my dirty silverware from lunch, so I walked over to the cafeteria. The beer bust had been moved inside due to a light sprinkling of rain, so they took over the cafeteria. There was Stern Security Lady, looking quite unhappy that she had to stand guard instead of participate in the beer bust (even though she is a contractor who wasn't invited). I told her that I wanted to drop my dirty silverware off (literally two steps around the corner, and then I would come right back). Instead, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed, and she shook her head. Instead of being able to take those two steps, Stern Security Lady shot out her upturned palm. I said a quick thank you and flashed a smile as I placed my gently-used fork into her hand (handle facing her, of course). She shifted her weight, cocked her head, and gave me a pained smile (with lips still pursed). I'm sure it didn't make her day any better that she had to hold onto my used silverware, but she could have at least spoken back to me. Or, better yet, she could have let me take two steps to drop off the soiled silverware myself.
6. Arriving back at my desk, I put on my headphones again (this is three, for those of you who aren't counting) because of the increase of traffic. Evidently beer is a popular commodity at work. After I got a bit more into my document, I realized that this was going to be a particularly sticky set of steps. I had to remove my headphones for about 30 minutes so I could concentrate and get everything straightened out. It gets hard to manually block out the increasing din of a beer bust down the hall.
7. About 4:00 I started smelling the beer in my cube. I got used to the smell of alcohol when I lived in Finland, so this didn't bother me as much. More of an annoyance, and something to put me on edge, fearing that someone would come barreling through my cubicle wall in a drunken stupor. I am sure this wouldn't happen at work where all the mucky mucks were, but my mind often plans for the worse. I was grateful for my double-thick wall for this reason, even if it is only seven feet tall.
8. About 4:45, I realized that I might actually be able to get my document done today. I started feverishly throwing the last few steps together with increased intensity, and by 5:05, I was done. I went to check the document back in so we could publish it, only to find that our system decided not to work. It had been so good for the past 2 days (but bad for the previous 43 or so). After waiting for ten minutes to get everything else wrapped up, it was still uploading. I was sick of it, so I figured that I will just let it stew overnight, read through it tomorrow morning with fresh eyes, and then get it out for review.

We will see what bumps tomorrow brings. And we will also see how I handle them. Crunch time is here, and I have a few deadlines coming up on Monday. I still have a good chance of getting it all done, but I keep forgetting that I have fewer days at work this week because of Labor Day.

Deep breath.

I can do this.

In better news, Sara Bareillis released a new album yesterday. Go check it out. I recommend Uncharted, King of Anything, and Bluebird. Of course, the whole album is good, and that is what I have been listening to on my headphones all day.