Let Us Never Speak of This Again
The human body can take only so much punishment. Do you know how far yours will take you until it shuts down?
A friend of mine and I were close to finding out yesterday. Having stayed up the night before all night to watch a movie (see previous A Forum for the Freak in All of Us), my friend and co-worker (I will call him Logan) were pretty beat yesterday. However, having known this was coming, we prepared ourselves for the upcoming workday with Red Bulls and other caffeinated drinks we hoped would keep us at least moderately coherent through the hours.
What we weren't expecting were the myriad seemingly planned and coordinated attacks to breaks our souls, bodies and spirits as we trudged towards the end of the day.
The first for me was the Lunch that would never end. Driving downtown to eat with a man I had met once who wanted to help me with my education, I followed piss-poor instructions, drove around in the driving rain for a good hour and finally found the restaurant (where the group had started eating and rightly so). A terrible stomach ache persisted throughout the lunch, dividing my attention and probably making me look like a twisted imp while I smiled and laughed at his jokes and personal history.
The lunch went on for hours, and finally, when I felt my guts would burst, his wife said, "Oh, but you must be needing to get back to work." I smiled (rather painfully, it must have seemed, and so it was) and said yes, so sorry, but I must get back to work. I excused myself, said goodbye to the other guest (an up-and-coming law student who seemed about as smart as a bag of hammers, thank you George Clooney) and his wife and drove back to work.
The fates must have had it in for me. As soon as I got back to work, Logan and I were whisked away to one of the many job sites our company had where we were building a product. Being the paperwork men, Logan and I rarely visited these sites but were always interested. Well, this time, the powers that be decided that they wanted us to "Feel the Pain" (no joke, that is a direct multiply repeated quote straight from a superior's mouth) and wanted us to stay "For the Long Haul." For the next two hours, we stood around, looked stupid and did nothing, having been given no directives but told to stay. For the next hour after that, we hauled trash. For the next two hours after that, Logan went shopping while I got on my hands and knees and vacuumed areas that were quickly dirtied after I moved. Then for the next two hours, we did odd jobs and ends that could have easily been done by someone else there who was wandering around and doing what we were doing when we originally got there.
We were tired. We were hungry. We spent half an hour looking for caffeinated beverages only to find all the snack bars were closed and the vending machines broken in the whole building (We finally walked to another building and bought some Mt. Dews). I kept laughing deep down inside myself at how cruelly ironic this was that the one day I decided to stay up all night, we would be called on-site and with no prior warning required to work overtime at jobs that weren't ours doing crap someone else could do better.
Well, around 11 p.m. we were finally let go and Logan and I headed home. By the time I got home, I was so tired I could barely make it up the stairs to my house. Getting up this at 6:30 a.m., I thought the world had increased it's cruelty by making the morning come too soon. There, it's done. But I want to say that neither Logan nor myself ever gave up nor did we complain (directly to the boss). I am rather proud of myself for not quitting my job and throttling my boss, because by 8 p.m. last night, I arrived at the conclusion that I was fully capable of cold-blooded murder.
I hope you have enjoyed this recounting of the longest day of my life in recent history. Now let us never speak of it again.
A friend of mine and I were close to finding out yesterday. Having stayed up the night before all night to watch a movie (see previous A Forum for the Freak in All of Us), my friend and co-worker (I will call him Logan) were pretty beat yesterday. However, having known this was coming, we prepared ourselves for the upcoming workday with Red Bulls and other caffeinated drinks we hoped would keep us at least moderately coherent through the hours.
What we weren't expecting were the myriad seemingly planned and coordinated attacks to breaks our souls, bodies and spirits as we trudged towards the end of the day.
The first for me was the Lunch that would never end. Driving downtown to eat with a man I had met once who wanted to help me with my education, I followed piss-poor instructions, drove around in the driving rain for a good hour and finally found the restaurant (where the group had started eating and rightly so). A terrible stomach ache persisted throughout the lunch, dividing my attention and probably making me look like a twisted imp while I smiled and laughed at his jokes and personal history.
The lunch went on for hours, and finally, when I felt my guts would burst, his wife said, "Oh, but you must be needing to get back to work." I smiled (rather painfully, it must have seemed, and so it was) and said yes, so sorry, but I must get back to work. I excused myself, said goodbye to the other guest (an up-and-coming law student who seemed about as smart as a bag of hammers, thank you George Clooney) and his wife and drove back to work.
The fates must have had it in for me. As soon as I got back to work, Logan and I were whisked away to one of the many job sites our company had where we were building a product. Being the paperwork men, Logan and I rarely visited these sites but were always interested. Well, this time, the powers that be decided that they wanted us to "Feel the Pain" (no joke, that is a direct multiply repeated quote straight from a superior's mouth) and wanted us to stay "For the Long Haul." For the next two hours, we stood around, looked stupid and did nothing, having been given no directives but told to stay. For the next hour after that, we hauled trash. For the next two hours after that, Logan went shopping while I got on my hands and knees and vacuumed areas that were quickly dirtied after I moved. Then for the next two hours, we did odd jobs and ends that could have easily been done by someone else there who was wandering around and doing what we were doing when we originally got there.
We were tired. We were hungry. We spent half an hour looking for caffeinated beverages only to find all the snack bars were closed and the vending machines broken in the whole building (We finally walked to another building and bought some Mt. Dews). I kept laughing deep down inside myself at how cruelly ironic this was that the one day I decided to stay up all night, we would be called on-site and with no prior warning required to work overtime at jobs that weren't ours doing crap someone else could do better.
Well, around 11 p.m. we were finally let go and Logan and I headed home. By the time I got home, I was so tired I could barely make it up the stairs to my house. Getting up this at 6:30 a.m., I thought the world had increased it's cruelty by making the morning come too soon. There, it's done. But I want to say that neither Logan nor myself ever gave up nor did we complain (directly to the boss). I am rather proud of myself for not quitting my job and throttling my boss, because by 8 p.m. last night, I arrived at the conclusion that I was fully capable of cold-blooded murder.
I hope you have enjoyed this recounting of the longest day of my life in recent history. Now let us never speak of it again.
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