I went back to work last night just to check up on something. Fuckin' stupid of me.
OK, first of all, I didn't spit any attitude toward my supervisor yesterday morning when I went into work. It's not as if I slept any better, although I think I got, like, four hours of sleep due to reporting for work two hours later than I had to (I was filling in for someone). I just went up to her and told her I had to leave earlier than I would have (and, BTW, after looking at my timesheet online, I had to leave about 45 minutes earlier than I would have -- long fuckin' meeting). I just ... well, it didn't behoove me to pick a fight with her.
I didn't realize at the time that not picking a fight was the right thing to do. I forgot that, as unfair as some of accusations levied against me, there are many parts of the job I was doing that I did not know, and so I had to ask her to help me. It's a particularly grating part of my workday, needing help for something, not being able to hold my own. But I need to do my job, and it wouldn't have helped if I popped off to her only to come crawling back to her five minutes later to ask how the fuck do I do this.
And still I found the job/workday, at least on this day, overwhelming. For my particular shift, the very last thing my supervisor asked me to do was ... well, I'll be vague again ... there are some forms that were held back, in a way, because of ... something, but as soon as we get corrected information, we can send those forms into the lab so its specimens (usually piss samples) can finally get tested. I am to put these forms into a pile, print out a cover sheet, clip them all together, throw them into this plastic folder, then leave them in a dropbox just outside the lab. It's supposed to be the very last thing I do on this shift.
But ... well, sometimes I'm not a stickler for checklists. Also, I was mentally pre-occupied with getting out in time. In Thursday's meeting, my boss told me to leave because he was told by his bosses that no employee is to have overtime. I had to leave at a certain point, so I packed up my things, disinfected my area, and said goodbye ... and I threw that folder into that dropbox, like, some time in the chaos at the end of my day.
But, uh ... did I really drop off that folder? That thought struck my brain like a goddamn thunderbolt as soon as I was on the highway. And I couldn't shake the feeling that I, like, left it on the file cabinets I was working on, or on my hard drive, or on my chair, or somewhere besides the dropbox. It would be like me to do something as scatterbrained as that, doing everything except the last, the easiest and yet the most fundamental, step of actually giving the lab people these forms so they could run the tests. I imagined them bursting into the department, yelling at everybody there, "Where's the book?! Where in the hell is the damn book?!?!" and the people working second shift there getting all frightened and then getting frightened further because they couldn't find that book of forms either. Then my supervisor comes in the next morning and sees it in, like, the wastebasket somewhere, and she'll go, "Unforgivable Wetness, he fucked up again!"
Yesterday evening I couldn't shake the possibility I simply flat out forgot that part. So after dinner I decided that, some time in the evening (after night fell and after listening to the Major League Soccer Quarterfinal on satellite radio) that I would tell my parents that I had to dash back to work because I forgot to do something, get in my car, fucking drive back down there and check that dropbox to see if that damn yellow folder was there with the forms and that cover sheet in it, and if heaven forbid it isn't, I'd march back to my desk to retrieve it. I actually spent 75 minutes of my Friday evening out and about because of this, but I had to make sure.
For the record, when I came back into the building and peered at the dropbox, I didn't see anything. So I went to my desk -- and said hi to the filer who was working there -- to make sure I didn't leave it anywhere. I didn't see it, so if my gifted and talented lizard brain deduces correctly, if it ain't there, and if it ain't at the dropbox, the lab already took the forms and ran the urine samples. It can't be anywhere else. Well, there is the shelf above the monitors where I put my desk and hat ... and shit, I could've walked into the bathroom with it and left it there, and if I did I should just do the right thing and resign. ...
But assuming I did the right thing the first time, I wasted a chunk of my night just to make sure I did one simple step. I wasted gas, and I put more wear-and-tear on my car, and neither thing I had to do, turns out, if I just trusted that I did my job instead of second-guessed myself. I had to make a mini-night of it, so I decided I would eat Taco Bell before coming back home. You see, the fast food restaurant is removing some items in a couple weeks, and I'm sentimental, so I'm going to try and eat as many of these soon-to-be-put-down items before they're gone for good. My preferred TB location, connected to a gas station, was closed early because of, get this, a software upgrade. Just my fucking luck. I went to another gas station where gas was cheaper, so I decided to fill up almost all of my tank and get a pop, then went to another Taco Bell to order. Anyway, I spent 75 minutes last night out-and-about when I really didn't have to, all because I'm so scared I can't do my fucking job at work that I convinced myself that I didn't do one of the simplest tasks of my job.
Maybe I really need to find a new line of work.
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