I Wanna Be A Women's World Cup-Watching Warrior!!!

The uniqueness of this Women's World Cup is that because it's being held in Australia and New Zealand, the Matches are being played overnight.  There has been a couple Matches that started at 9 Central time (including the first two Matches the United States played), and Argentina and South Africa kicked off at 7, gloriously.  But most of the Matches so far have kicked off at 2:30 and 5 in the morning, with some midnight and 8 a.m. kickoffs sprinkled in there.

Don't know when exactly I became a whore for soccer, especially for global and continental tournaments, but I am.  And now that the Women's World Cup has gotten to the final Group Stage Matches where teams are either getting into the Knockout Round or not, it's getting real interesting.  And I want to see it, even if they start overnight.

The last Games in Group A have already happened: They kicked off yesterday/Sunday morning at 2:30 a.m.  Two more Groups finish with their Games at 2 (they're playing right as I am typing this up) and 5 this/Monday morning.  Tuesday's Group-enders are at 2 (the U. S. plays Portugal) and 6, Wednesday's are 2 and 5, and Thursday has the last pair of Matches for Group H that kick off at 5.

And I'm thinking: Why don't I go out somewhere and watch them?  I work this week at The Fourth Department, so I have to report at 8.  I could find a bar that it'll be open early enough.  The 6 o'clock Matches aren't too taxing; I wake up at 5, maybe cut out just before the Matches end and get to work on time.  And I can watch all of the 5 o'clock Matches without leaving early.  I'll have to find a bar.  The Black Hart said they wouldn't be open for Group Matches if they are on at odd times and the Match doesn't involve the U.S., but they will be open later this morning for Canada-Australia (and also, presumably, Nigeria-Ireland).  So, if they stay open for other Matches this week, why not?  I mean, YOLO, right?  I did watch all four Men's World Cup Matches at the Black Hart that one day, and I am pretty damn proud of myself.

Well, here are the downsides:

• The Black Hart might not be open;
• While I could get up early for the 5 and 6 o'clock Matches, I am saying up for the 2 o'clock Matches.  I can stay up past 2, no problem.  But can I stay up all night, watch Doubleheaders, then go to work?  Probably not.  And I nor my body are keen on going to bed early;
• I could fall asleep at work.  I have to tell you all that I haven't gotten any "re-education" at work yet for staying late in The Fourth Department.  I was able to get out basically after eight hours Thursday and Friday, so I hope that forestalls any intervention planned by my boss.  But I feel as though I am still in a tenuous position, and if he catches me slumped over my keyboard because I woke up at 4 in the morning to watch some soccer, I'm afraid he'll be all up in my business until I work only 40 hours a week.
• And, finally, there are my parents.  If they weren't here, I would probably do it, at least for one morning.  But I don't want to wake up and sneak out at 4:30 or 5:30 a.m., then have them ask why I am leaving so early for work.

So, although I want to be a Women's World Cup-watching warrior, it probably won't happen.  Oh, well.

Changes Coming To Lyndale, Big Changes

Just went to Caffetto to go through my receipts.  Hadn't been there in a couple weeks.  It was largely empty, which meant I could find a table, thank God.  There were times when I couldn't, and though I appreciate Caffetto having good business, that meant I couldn't find a table.  Caffetto is more a winter place than a summer place, though, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised I had a place all to myself.

To park, I nowadays park out on the street, about a block away.  It's free, although I park on Lyndale, which gets plenty busy.  The bike lane is another buffer from all the cars that whizz by, but I still am kind of scared that a car will hit me.  Also, it ain't the safest place.  I try to go there in the nighttime, which is often the right time to go down there and work on my computer, but there is an underlying level of unsavoriness which keeps my antennae up -- well, that and all the traffic.  And maybe trying to find a spot at the coffeeshop, which is more of nighttime place than a daytime place.

That might be changing, however.  The place I park in front of had been a uniform store, but it closed down (I want to say) about a year ago, maybe more.  But the property has been bought by this restaurant and business called Baba's Hummus.  I first heard of them during the 2021 Minnesota State Fair.  They were a new vendor there, and their Chili Baba was The Best New Food Of The Fair that year.  And they have redone that store to where it is about ready to open.  I hadn't been at Caffetto, or that area of Lyndale, in about ... oh, I want to say a month, maybe three weeks.  But the last I went to have coffee there, it was still a boarded-up dump.  I don't know how they did it, or how quickly or well, but it's a brand-spanking new restaurant and market.  So much so that I'm now scared I won't be able to park there anymore.  And then I won't be able to hang out at The Best Coffeeshop In The Twin Cities.

The place's grand opening, which was initially planned for the summer, then delayed to the fall, has now been brought back up to Saturday.  I will go ... to see if I can park where I usually park.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -2).  I portended black Days for the Lynx this screening Week as they faced two good teams (and one real good).  What do I know: They clipped Washington at Target by five Wednesday, then, in a Friday Night Game on ION, the squad went to New York City (Brooklyn, to be specific) and defeated supposed Superteam The New York Liberty (although Courtney Vandersloot did not play due to "load management") by five.  More amazing: Napheesa Collier did not play because she rolled her ankle.  (Rachel Banham was out injured as well.)  If I knew they would own the Libs, I would've stayed up for it.  Instead, I conked off just after Minnesota took a 22-17 after the First Quarter and woke up to see a Lynx player on the Free Throw Line up by five with 18.3 Seconds left.

And yet ... winning against two good teams (one of them real good) is the worst thing to happen to the organization.  They're now 12-13 in the WNBA.  That's seventh in the league, 2 1/2 Games better than Los Angeles for ninth place and out of the postseason, and there are several clubs below the Lynx who have no plans on making a playoff run.  Meanwhile, Las Vegas is 22-2.  They may go down as The Best Team In WNBA History.  The Lynx won't beat them even if they do somehow make it to the WNBA Finals.  As I have repeatedly said, they are much better off tanking and rolling the dice on getting, say, Paige Bueckers or Caitlin Clark in a Draft that, admittedly, is so loaded they should get someone good picking seventh.  But really, if you can't be champion of a league, it's best to be the worst so that you can get the #1 pick in the Draft.  You really, really don't want to be in the middle, where you're not good enough to be champs but not bad enough to get a good Rookie.  But that's where the Lynx are, and I think they're encased in amber as a member of the rudderless middle.

Then again, they do play three Matches versus the two best squads in the Eastern Conference: A pair at Connecticut this/Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening, then a Friday night rematch with New York at home.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  I reserve the right not to feel this way at a later time: At this point of the season, when there are teams so bad that you can tell they're mailing it in, you need to beat them.  Mercilessly.  Sweep them.  If you are of any worth -- if you are trying to prove to yourselves and to your fanbase that you can win it all -- you should be winning everything.  In baseball, winning two-of-three ain't enough.  I truly believe that ... right now.

What I know I will believe till the day I die is that you really shouldn't be losing a series to a team that has lost more than twice as many Games as it has won.  And you sure as shit shouldn't go 2-4 over a Week and be considered a serious team.  But the Twinks have been in kind of a tailspin since completed a sweep of the White Sox Sunday and beating Seattle in 10 Innings (both Games at home) Monday.  The Mariners are, like, Minnesota, bobbing around .500.  The Kansas City Royals, however, are 31-75.  And the Twinks have just lost the series to them in K. C.

I was unfortunate in catching the end of Friday's 8-5 Loss to the Royals in ten.  The Twinks managed to scratch in a Run, but supposed shut-down Closer Jhoan Duran loaded the Bases in the bottom of the Tenth and then coughed up a Game-ending Grand Slam to Bobby Witt, Jr.  And then last/Saturday night, once-solid Bailey Ober got shook down for six Runs in the first three Innings on the way to a 10-7 defeat.  Remind you that the Royals are 31-75.  This brings up a fear that I had two weeks ago and suddenly didn't have a week ago, a change of mind I should not have done: The pitching, which statistically was so good in the First Half, is cratering in the Second.  The Rotation's ERA since the All-Star break is over 5.  Great.

And yet they still lead the AL Central over Cleveland by 1 1/2 Games.  And they still have a favorable schedule ahead of them, at least on paper.  After finishing up with the Royals, they scoot eastward across Missouri and play vs. the moribund Cardinals for a three-Game set starting Tuesday, then come home for three against the once-flying-high-but-now-faltering Diamondbacks for a trio beginning Friday.  Interestingly, the getaway Match against the Cardinals is Thursday night, not afternoon.  So the Twinks will get in in the early morning and immediately have to go to Target Field to play against a rested D-Backs outfit?  Great.

#-3: United FC (Re-Entry!).  This isn't Major League Soccer play but the Leagues Cup, a five-Year-old tournament (only in its third true edition) that MLS is totally trying to make into a thing.  Don't know if it's going to work.  I question the motivation of the Liga MX clubs, who had to start their season June 30 through July 3, a mere Month after the previous season ended, because of it.  Plus all these Matches are in the United States.  It can be the designated home team all it wants, the home crowd likely will be against them.

That's what I gleaned seeing the Loons demolish Puebla, 4-0, Sunday.  (Aside: I would have loved to have bought a Puebla jersey after they lost.  It's like a souvenir!)  Bongokuhle Hlongwane and Emanuel Reynoso both braced.  Technically, MNUFC were the road team, which was weird.  Also, since MLS is treating this these Games as neutral-site Games, both teams get to have their Goal song played when they score.  Puebla scored late, but they had their Goal overturned on VAR.  So we Loons fans got the best of both worlds: We got to hear the Goal music of a team from another league in another country who probably will never play here again, and we still get to preserve the Shutout!

But everything fucking came crashing down Thursday night at Allianz vs. the Chicago Fire.  Bongi scored twice, only for the Fire to respond both times.  Then, Chicago took the lead in the 83rd Minute courtesy of a Header off Kei Kamara, who had a cup of coffee with the Loons and who, funny, became another Striker scoring off his former XI.  Right then and there there was a lightning strike within eight miles of the stadium, and so they had to delay the Match, and I couldn't fucking stomach seeing the end of another blown lead (actually two of them) because I knew they were gonna lose -- and they did, 3-2.

Like I said last Week, I didn't know if I was going to cover Minnesota United's exploits in this tournament.  I decided to revert to what I usually revert to: I won't talk about the Wins but will talk about the Losses.  And since they lost in choking fashion, well, I just had to slide the Loons to the basement of the survey.  Good news, if it can be called that: They say the MNUFC has already advanced to the Knockout Round.  We'll see who they face, and where, Tuesday, I think.

Party Fouls

Will be going to this big event soon.  I won't say that it's a disaster, but already one big thing has come up that I don't like and have to admit some fault in: A couple people e-mailed me over the past couple days if they can come.  They do this even though 1) I have given them a few e-mail warnings over the past couple months and 2) registration is already over.  These two people are lovely, but I don't know how much attention they've been paying to the lead-up to this event.  From what they are telling me, they don't know, for example, that there is now an admission fee for this party.

With that being said, these two people reached out immediately after I e-mailed my group, which was Wednesday.  I finally checked e-mails just now.  If I were more diligent, I would have been able to answer their questions immediately after they asked me.  I regret not doing my part.  In an effort to prevent that, I am trying to see if I have set up notifications for that particular e-mail account.  What would also help is if my alma mater specifically told registrants the deadline to sign up.

So I stonewalled one person who wanted to come.  Another person still wants to come, the day of.  I don't know what to do with her, so I gave her the e-mail of someone in the alma mater.  It would be kind of a disaster if the hosts (who really are in charge) are overwhelmed with people they didn't expect to be there.  I don't know what to do if you decide to come to this party the day of the party.  I'm not in charge of it anymore.  I volunteered to help, and this is what happens.  I have to learn my lesson next time.  But as much as I want to help, if I can't decide things on my own -- and I no longer have any decision-making power with these events -- what I am volunteering for?

Add all that that there will be scant few people I know there (probably a result of the attendance fee); that I'm going to a brand-new address I've never been to before; that I'm going to a city I've never been to before; that the party is going to be three hours which seems very long; and I will sheepishly ask people I have not met if I can take pictures of them for our social media ... and, well, I am not going into this with the best frame of mind.  I am expecting the worst, not going to lie.

Addendum To: Political Fundraising Is Costing Me My Dream Gigs

Yeah, so I haven't heard back from the production about working the week of the Gopher Game.  I think they found someone because it took me a week and a half to reply back to them.

One saving grace, which I noticed at work: In my position in The Fourth Department I have to e-mail a lot of people.  Well, I got out-of-office e-mails from, like, four people.  That's never happened before.  It makes me think that a lot of people decided to leave work early this week and maybe come back Monday, or more like Tuesday.  Could that be the case here?  Possibly.  But it could also be wishful thinking.

(shrug)

Political Fundraising Is Costing Me My Dream Gigs

This may be a pipe dream, and so holding onto it may be increasingly pathetic, but I still want to be a sportscaster one day.  No, I'm not doing much to turn that dream into a reality.  What I do do is remain on the periphery.  I still get jobs helping around production trucks, mainly for Vikings Games but I have done the Twins, Golden Gopher football, and the Wild.  It makes me think I haven't completely wasted my journalism degree.  And maybe, just maybe, if I hang around and prove my worth, maybe I can latch onto something permanent.  But like I said, I'm not going out there and grabbing the opportunity by the horns.  No, I'm waiting for someone to ask me out of the blue, "Hey -- have you ever thought about doing this full-time?"

As such I am far from full-time now.  I am at-will.  I can be fired for any reason and for no reason.  And I don't have to be hired back, either.  Now, I have been hired for ... golly, I think it'll be two decades this upcoming fall, and I like to think it's because I'm a good person and a hard worker.  But I'm under no illusions that it could all be taken away without a trace.  I would be totally heartbroken.  But that is how the job, or the gig, is right now.

Traditionally, I have been asked if I can work through e-mail.  Some time before the event -- for big ones it'll be months in advance, but other times I've been asked the week of -- I get an e-mail asking if I am available to work a Game, or several days leading up to the Game.  I usually say yes.  In fact, there has been only two times where I have told the production team I cannot work for them ... and now that I think about it, both assignments I had to miss because I was on a big vacation that centered around my sister: I missed a Twins Game many, many years ago (which may have been the last one I was offered until I worked on back in September) to attend my sister's destination wedding in Siena; and I missed the Vikings' epic comeback Win over Indianapolis back in mid-December for a family vacation to Hawai'i centered around my sister's doctorate graduation.

I have, thankfully, been asked back to work.  Not to say I think ill of them, but my paranoid side always thinks that if I reject them once, they may not feel the obligation to reach out to me again.  But they have despite me telling them no.  Would they continue to reach out if I don't say anything to them at all?

---

I've gotten a bit more politically active after Trump and the Republicans cheated their way to winning power in 2016 (and they did, don't lie, they did, shut up).  After that I stepped up my ... well, I really shouldn't say activism, but I put my money where my mouth is by giving cash to Democrats and Minnesota members of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party.  Citizens United should still be banned, but until we can ban it, we have to use it, I'm afraid.

The downside to willingly handing over money to politicians who need money in order to advertise in order to win and gain or hold onto power is that they bombard you, incessantly, with political appeals.  I have gotten so many of these goddamn things, and now, most of them are from campaigns and people I did not give money too.  Once you donate, you get put on a list, and these campaigns sell those lists to other like-minded politicians (I'll never get a missive from a Republican, thank God) because frequently, that's the only way they keep making money.  Then those fucking people bombard me with political appeals.  I get them by the hundreds each day.  Still.  Even though this isn't an election year.  One night, when I was tired, I decided not to check my e-mail.  That stretched to several nights in a row, and when I finally got around to checking my e-mail, I had a thousand unread ones.  And then I got caught up with too much stuff and yadda-yadda-yadda, I now have 40,000+ unread e-mails on my main e-mail account.  I have an older e-mail account that has, oh, God knows how much.  I am now years behind on both, and as much as I try to unsubscribe, I'm sure at least 85% of the e-mails I get nowadays are from politicians trying to hit me up for money.

I should sit down and go through them.  I really should just delete them all.  But most of the time I'm so distracted with other things that I let it metastasize, and when I do confront my inbox, my eyes glaze over.  There's a fucking blizzard of these appeals, and it's gotten hard, pretty fuckin' hard, to find the non-spammy e-mails ... such as the ones from the productions asking me if I want to work for them.

I knew this was going to happen.  But I wasn't diligent enough.  The first time I missed reading an offer to work was for a Wild Game late last year.  This one was offered via text.  Hey, did you know that when you give money to a campaign, not only do you give them permission to e-mail you to kingdom come, you give them permission to text you to kingdom come as well?  They're not as bad as the e-mails; at worst I get about a dozen a day, and many of them seem to come from the same "phone number," so any new messages from that same source is collated together and presented to me as just one long series of texts from the same "people."  But there still are so many that I ignore them.  I did not see a text from a crew person asking me to do this Wild Game.  I found it months later when I was going back through months-old texts from politicians that I couldn't be bothered to deal with (the e-mails, not the politicians, although they're also one and the same) at the time.  I profusely apologized for not getting back to her.  But I haven't been asked to do a Wild Game since.

I have finally gotten around to doing quick searches that will filter through only any e-mails that have the name of the league and "Minnesota" on them, thereby increasing the chances that I will see only offers to work.  And I found one either yesterday or earlier this week.  Unfortunately, it was for a Gopher football Game back in November.  I didn't see it for eight months.  I want to e-mail the person and apologize to her, but that would be so goddamn awkward that I don't want to jeopardize future employment with the network she works for.  

So just now I did those searches again, and I got another one.  It was for the Golden Gopher football team's season opener against Nebraska.  It's on the Thursday just before Labor Day, just like Minnesota's season opener in 2021 vs. Ohio St.  I was able to work the several days leading up to it.  Back-breaking work, but the money was too good to pass up.  And beyond that, I used my paid time off at work to work the Gopher production.  I was double-dipping.  And I have few regrets.

I thought that I could be offered a similar position this year.  I waited and waited, but I hadn't heard anything.  I believe I was asked a month before that Game against the Buckeyes, and so that was the reason I did a search in my inbox just now.  And wouldn't you know it, I saw that e-mail, unread, from Wednesday, received around noon.  I e-mailed the person back -- oh, around 11 p.m. last/Thursday night.  That's a gap of a day and a half.  That previous Gophers football gig from two years ago?  Someone e-mailed me late at night, and I responded overnight, around four hours later.  I have lost jobs to people who responded to the crewer faster than me.  I hate that, and I directly blame my tardiness in finding and responding to those e-mails on the firehose of campaign donation appeals.  If they weren't there, I would have seen that e-mail faster than I did.  Simple as that.

So I e-mailed the person saying yes, I am available and interested in working.  I didn't apologize for essentially ghosting her.  But I would if it ensured me this job.  But this person had a whole day and a half to find someone else.  Pray that I still get to work this gig.  I need to make some fucking money, man.

It's Getting Dangerously Hot Out Here

I think we're moving through the hottest stretch of weather we've had this summer, or at least the second-hottest.  Heat indices through 100 -- not as bad as places in the South and West that have suffered under this "heat dome" phenomenon, but that climate change-triggered air is moving this way.

It's not great for taking a nap in the car.  Tried yesterday at work, but I don't think I fell asleep.  Since it's going to be hotter today, the chances that I can get a cat nap in today are even worse than they were yesterday.  Which means I should head to bed real soon.

Going to a movie in this heat, like I did last/Wednesday night (saw the latest Mission Impossible ... great set pieces, but I don't quite get the plot, so I don't know how this flick is getting universal acclaim)?  Great idea.  Going to a soccer Match, like I will tomorrow/Thursday night, in the middle of a Heat Warning?  Not a great idea.

I feel as though when it's really hot outside, it gets dangerous.  I don't just mean that people may suffer from heat stroke.  I parked at a Kwik Trip so I could eat a Subway (concession prices are just too expensive now), and a few parking spots to my left I saw an SUV with its hood popped open and its passenger seat crammed with, supposedly, the driver's possessions.  Guess is he doesn't have a place to rest his or her head, and so he sleeps in the car, but now the car is giving him or her trouble.  It's a lot better at night, but when the thing you rely on for both freedom and shelter is giving you problems, the hot weather seems to make it much worse.  There were a lot of people crawling around, too.  It's a summer night, around 10:30, but the heat makes people do dumb things, violent things.  Maybe the guy whose car conked off was going to lose it and shoot people.  Hell if I know, it's America.

The fever is supposed to break tomorrow/Friday.  The weekend is supposed to be gorgeous, which is great because my alumni club is having a huge event Saturday afternoon.  Just need to survive the heat today.

They're Leaving ... Soon

OK, to be honest, neither my boss nor my supervisor "came down" on me for my work yesterday/Tuesday.  Still could, though, especially since I stayed an hour over.  But until I have, like, actual news to share with you on that front, I should give my drama (at least on that) a rest.

Uh, in the meantime, I am going to reveal that my parents have told me they are leaving the house ... in a couple months.  I haven't kept track of how long they summer here and when they leave, but it feels as though they are usually gone by Labor Weekend.  It doesn't seem they are doing that this time around.  Which is fine; again, they are still in good health, so any day they are free to go wherever they want on their own is a blessed day for all of us.  And like I said, it's good to have them around, even when I sometimes wish to have the whole house to myself.

But since they're here now, I can't feel like I can, say, stay out after work five days a week if I want, or, for this particular summer, leave and watch a Women's World Cup Match at midnight or 2 in the morning (this is all contingent on a bar willing to be open then; there were many more pubs open for the men's World Cup last Year in another example of sexism, and I say that even accounting for the awful Game start times because the WWC is being held in Australia and New Zealand).  I also feel as if I need to be sneakier when it comes to buying things.  For example, there is a laptop pillow (you use it if you want to work on your laptop on your bed, like I'm doing now while blog posting this) I'm thinking of buying, but I'm not going to if my folks are going to take the package that's left at the front door and bring it into my bedroom because Mother will start asking questions as to why am I buying this stuff.

On the other hand, at least I have clarity as to how long they'll be here.  I also want to purchase a USWNT soccer jersey.  It's probably best I buy it online, but I want to purchase it through Nike, which I think will deliver it directly to my house.  That would mean that package will be found by my folks and that will mean Mother will start asking, "What's this?" but I really want to buy and wear it during the Women's World Cup, so that will be something I will just have to bite the bullet on.  To the good, I know that I have at least a month of dinners waiting for me, and that will be money I don't have to spend eating out.  To the bad, I will need to wait at least a month before I bring my whore girlfriends here to touch my naked body.  But at least I know when.

I won't count the days.  But I will prepare.  And the day they leave will be a day I have mixed feelings ... like I usually have, with nearly all things.

Not Starting Off This "Work Faster" Plan On The Right Foot, And I Don't Give A Fuck

I am always prepared for the worst at the start of the workweek, but yesterday/Monday was, I swear, the most work I had in The Fourth Department.  It's a Monday, so it's going to be busy with stuff over the weekend (and I keep telling my boss that of the five days of the workweek, I most likely will be staying late the longest and the most often on Mondays).  But yesterday, for some damn reason, the forms and the crap just kept coming, and coming, and coming.  So did the weird stuff, the "Oh, this isn't ours!" or "Hey, I needed to call you because I don't understand. ..."

What happened was something that is, if I am right, unprecedented: I left after ten hours at work with stuff I still needed to do.  This isn't like my first weeks back there figuring stuff out.  I know what to do now, but I didn't have time to do it ... well, maybe more like I didn't want to stay there for half the day.  At any rate, I left stuff there that I will have to pick up this/Tuesday morning.  No easing into the day for me, no sir.

And considering that this week I am supposed to start working faster so as not to rack up overtime, going my self-determined maximum of ten hours the first day probably won't look good in my boss's eyes.  And you know what?  I guess I don't give a fuck anymore.  I busted my ass back there yesterday.  I tried keeping up, but the lab kept giving me stuff, and there were answers that weren't straightforward, and I had to deal with all of that shit, because that is what I am supposed to do.  Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I really don't want to be back there more than I have to each day, but I want to do a good job.  I want to do my work correctly and completely, and then I'll worry about speed.  I think that's the right way to go, and the worst case scenario of what usually happens when I do things the right way happened yesterday.  It is what it is.  You want me to do a shitty job instead?

And I have been trying to tiptoe around this particular issue, but maybe I need to be a bit more direct.  I cannot even frickin' fathom how the two other people who work in that position can face the workload I got yesterday, or any typical Monday, or a typical day period, and get through it all in eight hours.  I don't believe it -- unless they're cutting corners or not paying attention to detail or doing things I was taught not to look past.  I am trying back there.  Goddammit, I am trying back there.  But if my boss has determined that those two can do the job in eight hours that I "have trouble" doing in ten ... well, shit, maybe he needs to find someone else to do the job.

The only upside to all my frustration yesterday is that neither my boss nor my supervisor were at work.  I don't know if I could work through everything I worked through and also dealt with their prying eyes and their judgement.  But both of them certainly will be at work today/Tuesday, and my boss will fucking look at my timecard and see ten full hours and figuratively throw up his hands.  And when he or my supe starts implementing this stupid fucking "plan" while I probably am playing catch-up with the bullshit I had to leave yesterday, I will literally throw up my hands -- and maybe throw some other things, too.  I know what he's going to say, and I know what he's about to do this week, and I cannot take how he wants me to now work back there as anything less than an attack on my character.  I haven't done one goddamn thing wrong, but he thinks I have, and I resent that, I truly do.

The Week Where I Get My Manhood Fuckin' Taken From Me

So I sent that e-mail to my boss, right?  Well, my boss replied to me as soon as he got in that Thursday morning and I read the goddamn thing as soon as I got in an hour later than he got in.  You know what he said?  "Good -- I'm gonna put you on a plan!"  And he wrote down a list of benchmarks of decreasing amounts of overtime starting this week.  Fuck.

He has never done something like this, specifically write up a plan to fix something that he says I do wrong.  This is very micro-managing of him, and the fact that he is micro-managing me now really upsets me.  More than that, I feel as attacked -- no, more so -- now with this "plan" than I did with his initial e-mail dressing me down for just doing my work.  Because I am doing my work -- to the best of my ability, and yet as fast as I can do it while paying attention to detail and trying not to screw it up.  It's impossible on most days not to go over eight hours.  I don't know how the other two do it, but if they are finishing within eight hours, they may not (and again, I mean no disrespect) do it as well as I do.  I take pride in my work, and that takes time.  Never more time than need be, but many times it takes more than a typical day.  And my boss is attacking me for it, and thinking it all can be done in a way that doesn't force the company to pay me OT for my honest work.

I think, deep down, what I hate most about this stems from the first step in implementing this "plan": My supervisor is supposed to talk to me about what I can do to shorten my day.  She is the one who taught me everything I know in The Fourth Department, and I still go to her when I have questions I can't answer, which on some days is more than once.  I think I follow what she has taught me.  Anything else is a matter of style and does not, in any way, lengthen my time at work.  So what else can she teach me?  And is there really anything I have forgotten that she needs to re-train me in?  At the risk of sounding arrogant, I say no.  But she is still, at the direction of her/our boss, going to nitpick over my approach and routine and style, and that pisses me off the most.  As long as the work gets done, I don't think anyone has the right to leer over my shoulder and criticize me for how I do it.  And anything she does call me out on I think will really upset me.  It's a "back off, leave me alone" type of deal.  I hope I don't lash out at her, but I think that's going to happen, and now I have to watch my temper at someone who is also just doing her job over something over which I already feel very defensive.

So I will have to deal with that bullshit.  In the meantime, my boss tossed out the possibility that there just may be work that I don't have to do at the end of the day.  I find it irresponsible to just leave work because I'm approaching eight hours.  The information needs to be asked for, and once it's given, it needs to be sent to the lab, posthaste.  There are clients who want to know what's going on, and that's money.  I'm making sure they're happy.  I'm doing my job.  Leaving it for the next day will not make those clients happy.  Moreover, knowing the pile of work that comes in every day, work that carries over from the previous day pushes the work that comes in the morning to the afternoon, and the work that comes in the afternoon gets pushed to the next day.  Again, if this is not a problem with the other two, well ... maybe they're better at this shit than I am.  Maybe I need to find another line of work.  Because fuck knows why I need to be subjected to this humiliation I'm about to walk into.

God, I fucking hate this job.