Last week I brought work home every night. A report. It was a hard one. Not all of them are. But this one was. And there was a deadline.

And on the heels of that deadline, is another.
And another.

All told, I have to crank out 2.7 reports per week, over the next four weeks, in order to make legally mandated timelines. This is in addition to my other caseload duties. Understand that I'm not whining or complaining about my job. I love my job. I have an important job. And I believe I am really good at my job. I'm just laying out a little context.

So. Friday I am putting the finishing touches on the report summary, which is often the hardest part for me, of writing reports. Although I am pretty good at synthesizing all the information in my head, and coming up with what I think are solid conclusions, my brain doesn't always use language-as-we-know-it as its primary synthesizing tool.

It's hard to explain, really. And it's not like I see lights and hear bells and feel compelled to dance the funky chicken while wearing my husband's underwear, because that would be easy to explain, if not defend. It's just..well...hard to explain.

Anyway. After I spent a few hours translating the summary from the Language of My Brain to the Language of Human Consumption, a co-worker stopped by to talk about some evals that we are working on together. In the middle of this discussion he interrupted himself to ask my thoughts on the recent memo from administration, announcing that next year's budget calls for cutting two full-time soshel werkrs.

I hadn't read it.
I felt like I'd been punched.

Seniority-wise, my job is safe.
Quality-wise, that remains to be seen.

Several times per year I become so swamped and drained and pulled in many directions, that at the end of a given day, I am bereft of further cognitive capability. Sometimes I wonder how I make it home safely, on those days.

I currently am in the midst of one of those "times." That being said, I'm having a hard time visualizing how I will be able to take on another half of a full-time job next year, without someone getting hurt. Namely, me.

But the human spirit is stronger than we think. When I was a kid and we ran out of toothpaste, my mom would invariably say: "There's always one last squeeze in the tube." Oddly enough, over the years that statement has always held true for me, no matter how dire the tubular circumstance. ::And sometimes aided by a pair of scissors.:: And while said phenomenon always works to my benefit, it never seems to go well for the tube.

I am now the tube.

And then there is the issue of two cohorts who could* be out of jobs, come June, which I'm trying not to think about. There are also some related dynamics that I will not be discussing here, but that also add to the stress and emotional discomfort.

Needless to say, I've been more than a little distracted over the last couple of days. This weekend I had every intention of catching up on some blog posting, while my 2008 Intendments are still rattling around the Synthesizers. Orphans.

Friday I came home from work and took a picture of that flower up there, and had every intention of posting it as Eye Candy. In light of the emotional hazing I had endured that day, the sweet little flower just didn't fit into my world as I knew it. So then I had the idea of the captioned pig, to set the tone. Then I played outside. Knit some knit. Drank some wine. Then rinsed and repeated for Saturday.

And now the pig thing seems kind of dumb. But dumb happens. As does rambling.

As for now, my sweets, it's yet another gorgeous day (a weather pattern that I'm finding almost annoying at this point), and I need to go hunt some Cakers Gone Wild. Then maybe take up some knitting on the porch.

And then some writing on a report.
Sometimes stress pays the rent.

*The whole situation will be fluid until June. Even though the threat is real, I would be very surprised if they cut two full-time spots.

Labels: I Work Too, Now You're Whining