Addendum To: Once More Unto The Breach

And today was ... just fine, I guess.

I'm such a sucker.  My boss came around to our area only once, one of those cropduster, "What's going on?  What are you doing?" type of things he's prone to do.  So I told him, as vaguely as possible.  "Well, I'm going through the boxes, as fast as possible but I'm trying to be thorough."

And that's when he said something that, I'm ashamed to admit, lifted my spirits and, in fact, made me kind of glow inside.  "That's good, that's good," he said, and without needing any more feedback, he went back to do whatever else he needed to do.  From that point on, honestly, my day went pretty well.

I am a sucker because I felt better just because my boss, a guy who has acted like a dick for a lot of the project, gave me a slight smile and said, "That's good, that's good."  Four words -- a pair repeated twice, no less -- and a time where he wasn't yelling or frustrated or flummoxed, and I get all, "OMG, I'm so happy because you're so happy!"  I wish how I approach my day isn't dependent on how my boss feels.  But it does.  If he's happy, I'm happy, and if he's not, I'm not.  This is Stockholm Syndrome, is it not?  It's sick, and I do not like myself for not being happy independent of anyone or anything.  I'm just not wired like that, or at least I haven't learned how to do that.

Nevertheless it was a good day.  The distractions were at a minimum, I found some folders I didn't need to go through as much, I tackled two boxes (which is the most I probably could do in a day) and most of those are from early September, which are now very important to push through before it's too late.  I even had time to arrange the remaining boxes in chronological order, so that I made sure the oldest shots get pushed to the insurance company this week and giving us as much cushion as we need.

Now it's not all good.  The two big packets I wanted to deal with today I want another temp to do, but I think we can get past the problem that caused me to hold them for so long.  Also, I noticed that whenever comes toward me from my peripheral vision I tense up.  Either they are coming to ask me something, thereby breaking my concentration, or it's one of the temps looking for something to do.  The pipeline remains jammed up on my end, and I'm really scared that at some point during this project the remaining temps (there will be just The Two left) will come up and say, "We're done.  What else do you want us to do?" and I'll go, "Der, I don't know, count claims?"

Things still might turn south.  I have some other things I need to talk to my boss about, and he may not be all too happy to hear it.  But that can be saved for tomorrow.  I will take the quietude of today after having such a restless night.