The roads were fine, even perfect, on the drive in. With very little slowing down on my part I got to work in about 35 minutes, unheard of for a Monday but very understandable if other workers heeded the weatherpeople's advice and telecommuted instead. Funny enough, those working from home included my boss! so I e-mailed my request, to which she okayed.
There have been two really arduous snowstorms this calendar year. The first was forecast as 3-6", and I got 4. The next was 5-8", and we got a bit over 6. This one was shifting all over the place in terms of amount, track and timing. Eventually I think the meteorologists said between 4-9" (wide spread, I know) and the Twin Cities was going to be part of the worst of it. But the blizzard was coming later and later, and the amounts expected kept getting smaller.
This storm did not come in as predicted. I left at a quarter after noon with the sky dry and the roads as clear as when I came in. It finally started precipitating a bit before 2 when some forecasts said we would start to get rain (turning over to ice) in the morning. That made me regret my decision to leave after only four hours. Nine-hour days suck, even if I'm spending much of my time working on the Internet. In retrospect, I could have pushed my day to six hours, but since that's more than four, I would have had to build in an extra hour for lunch, so instead of 12:15 I would be leaving at 3:15. The roads would have started to be slippery, but at least I would have had to make up only two hours instead of four, and so I wouldn't have to wake up at 6:30 this morning. But I have to remind myself that I didn't know at the time that the snow was coming in late. Plus it's better to be safe than sorry; I heard that there were a lot of accidents during afternoon rush. Finally, I told my boss I would be doing only a half-day; I really couldn't e-mail her again saying, "Yeah, on second thought, I'll stay a little longer ..."
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OK, anyway. ...
I did some work during my abbreviated workday, I think. But I saw that the two other people I am working for also didn't show up for work. That gave me an opening to do something I forgot to do -- like, a month ago.
Don't want to get into specifics, but I remember those forms I have not received in a few weeks, the ones I thought were the thrust of my assignment? I had saved some of those because I needed to add other documentation to them. I couldn't do it when I got them because I did not have access to the website where I get that documentation for a week. When I finally got that access, I totally forgot to go back and print out the documents to the forms I had been saving. And it slipped my mind until my quick meeting with my boss last week where she indicated a change in direction for my duties. She told me to send an updated spreadsheet, and that's when I noticed that the red rows were for forms I had not finished yet.
The thing that has screwed me up is that these forms, with documentation, are supposed to go to these two people who were not at work yesterday/Monday. But they are the ones who gave me these forms to begin with. Since I had not been receiving any of these forms from them in the past three weeks or so, once they see that I left them these forms (with documentation) from way back when, they're going to go, "What the hell? He was supposed to give these to me weeks ago!"
And yet I couldn't just keep them or throw them away. I had to give these back to them (well, one of the two; I was keeping four forms, and all of them were supposed to go to one of the women, not the other); I just didn't want to be caught slipping them into her inbox because she might get mad. So, on Friday, after the meeting with my boss, I was going to print out the documentation and slip it into her inbox at the end of the day. That way, she (and most of the floor, actually) will be gone by the time I give these forms back, so there would be zero chance at confrontation.
But for crissake, one of the women there (actually the one these late forms are supposed to go to) actually stayed till 6, just like I usually do. She never stays that late. In fact, I believe she comes in early so she could leave early. Well, not on Friday, so I had to abort my plan and think about something else.
That something else was presented to me when the snowstorm compelled her and the other one (who sit next to each other; both women needed to be out of work for me to feel secure enough to drop these off) to stay home yesterday/Monday. I could print out the stuff, staple it to the forms, and hand them in. She will get them this morning, hopefully before I come in. And therefore I hope she won't be too mad when she realizes I have been tardy in returning these forms. And I hope to Buddha that these aren't too late.
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