hurt

10-28-09

What a crazy day yesterday. Work has been mostly mellow, aside from the occasional idiot. Yesterday, I had gobs of reports to accomplish, and I was in a groove. I was getting them done in record time. I was quite pleased with myself. Then the boss decided to have some kind of a stroke.

We had recently changed up this one report I do. It is the biggest one I do, and take forever. It is complicated in terms of how many steps there are. It essentially tracks the amount of sales per customer or customer grouping and gives a profit margin along with information on the amount of credit given.

The boss doesn’t know how to do the report, and clearly doesn’t even know how to read it.

Mostly the report is for looking at the top maybe 100 customers as they tend to get incentive credits when they have a high volume of sales. Anyone under that point is just other customers that sure, we are happy to have, but they are not high priority in terms of this data.

So the boss comes to me and says to me, look at line 1438. Yes. That would be the 1438th customer on the list. Sigh. I pull it up. Never you mind that I was still in the midst of all the other reports and statements and everything that makes the last Tuesday of every month hell day for me. Oh, sure, boss, let me drop everything to look up this customer. He starts questioning the profit margin. It is basically an error code in Excel. He is confused. There are about 20 in a row of this, and then beyond that, the percentage is back. Are you fucking kidding me? The man is nitpicking part of the report that isn’t looked at???? So I look at it, point out the reason for the code is because these are 20 customers that did no sales and we only issued them credit, hence the formula can’t give a true figure. That shut him up for a minute.

Then he comes back. It is 1:15.

He tells me that our customer, UR’s numbers on the report look wrong. I ask him how so. He says they have gone down. Ok, what does he mean by that. Everyone has gone down. So he says something about that their total doesn’t match this other total. I ask what total. He doesn’t know. I am not making this shit up. He says something about someone else having looked at the ranking report and that they compared it to their total and it is off. So I ask how much is it off. He says he doesn’t know. It took every ounce of strength to not yell at him. I point out that I can’t find the discrepancy if there is nothing for me to look for. I did find that there were two of the UR branches not listed in the group total (some big customer that have multiple braches are coded by hierarchy and the total comes in as one instead of 500 different branches. These were two branches that had never been coded). It was about $200K. So I ask if that was the difference. He doesn’t know. He asks me to run some kind of sales report. I point out that I need more info on UR in order to do this since you can’t run it on analyst number or customer number unless I had all the numbers. It was like I was explaining my job to my 4 year old. Blank stares. I repeat myself. Deer in headlights still. So I sit there, silent. We sit this way for 2 minutes. No joke. Finally he goes. I knew this was not over.

He comes back and essentially has me call this one chick to code the two stray branches and he wants me to redo the whole ranking report. It is now 2:10. So I politely ask him if I can do it first thing in the morning since there is no way I can finish it before I go. It takes at least an hour. He freaks out saying he would like it before. I told him I would see what I could do. I was pissed.

So I did one small section and I sent it to him. I told him I would do the rest once he verified this info. I wasn’t about to spend my time redoing something that wasn’t necessary.

I was pissed when I left here.

I got home and proceeded to scrub the kitchen to get out my angry energy. I was also heading over to my parent’s house, and I was sure I would have to deal with Luna backlash having just uploaded all the pics. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to as my dad never saw the pictures. Not that he won’t know soon enough, but still.

Ken organized our desk and it looks good. We are going to IKEA this weekend to see what kind of under the bed storage boxes they have. It is coming along nicely. I figure we have a couple more weeks left to get it done since I need to decorate for Christmas soon.

Dinner at a table has been nice the last few nights. Sure, it is just a folding table we pull out, but it is awesome. I like that we don’t watch tv while eating and that we are all there. The boys are still not sure about it, but they seem to be going along with it.

No walk last night. Too dang windy! Plus, by the time dinner was ready and we had eaten, it was too close to bedtime.

Today I leave work a little early to get over to Bobby’s speech and language evaluation. Should be interesting. I hope he isn’t too nervous. Of course, these are specialists and they know how to get kids comfy, so we should be ok. Plus, with Dax there, I think he will feel even better. We are meeting Ken there since his class ends at like 2:30.

Apparently I pissed off Karma or something. I have a couple of fantastic days, and mention it out loud and all goes to shit.

I am going to work now. I think that personal stuff is frustrating to me right now and I don’t even feel like writing it down.

Ok, I am going to try to map it out.

I am tired of people telling me I don’t understand. I am tired of being told that because I am in a long term relationship that clearly I have no recollection of what it was like to be alone and sad. I have a memory that scares Ken because when I can really remember something, I can actually practically transport back to that spot and be as upset or happy or angry as I was in the memory.

My relationship with Ken hasn’t always been perfect. Yes, we were always meant to be, and I truly feel that in my heart, but let’s face it, we have had issues. When we started dating, Ken was never around. He flirted with other people, he didn’t come over to my house when I was afraid a strung out ex boyfriend was going to kill Jenni and I. When I moved in (and subsequently out of) my apartment, he didn’t help. He never stayed at my apt. He didn’t tell his mother I moved in until she called us out on it. He made bad decisions in hanging out with a co worker only a month before our wedding. He still to this day, doesn’t seem to know what time to make the check in call in the morning. Sure, all bad things. But the thing is, we work through all of it. I can get frustrated to the point of tears sometimes when I get home and my house is a mess. I wish he could pitch in more, but we work through it. By the way, I know I also get crazy psycho. I was clingy when we started dating. I had fights with his ex wife. I have done plenty of crappy stuff. We have a relationship. We work through tears and arguments. I have had situations with him that sure, some of my friends may have not gone through. But I trust their insight. Even though they may not have had the exact situation happen to them, they have dealt with pain and frustration and anger and sadness, and they can in fact, help me.

I am very pleased that people come to me with their problems. I love being their email shrink. I take great pride in knowing they trust me enough to tell me all of it. I know that they don’t always take my advice, but that is ok. I don’t expect them to use it all. I am kind of like the confessional that also is the Devil’s advocate. I try to present both sides of the coin because let’s face it, that is the only proper way to solved something.

So when people get on me, tell me I am siding against them or telling me that I just have no frame of reference on their issue, I take offense to that. I have not always been happy in love. It doesn’t fucking matter if it was yesterday or 15 years ago. It all still counts.

There is a Scrubs episode where Carla is telling Elliot and Keith that their issues are not special. They tell her she is so wrong, that she doesn’t get it. Carla, who has been part of a long term relationship with her idiot husband who is sometimes more married to his best friend, who has a kid who also is the best damn nurse in the hospital, sure, they are right, she has no life experience to be able to offer some advice. I feel for Carla. I am not her by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that I have lived through things that allow me to say I understand.

Look, come to me and tell me you just killed a guy, I may not know how to respond. But tell me the boy you love isn’t communicating the way you need him to, yes, I get it. You are worried that you will be alone forever? Been there, and even to this day, I worry something will happen that Ken will trade me in for someone younger and uber hot, and then where will I be? Ahh, yes, self esteem, my old friend. I, too, can feel despair. I have stories to tell, and emotions that I have felt that yes, make me qualified to comment on other people’s problems.

A friend of mine told me something super hurtful this morning. It was harsh, and honestly, I had a hard time coming back from that. It made me feel as though I should just be happy that I have Ken and the kids and not to bother anyone else ever again. Probably one of the meanest things anyone has ever said to me. Look, I can take criticism. I know I don’t always say the right things. The comment actually was derived from ongoing pain in my life, and I was shocked.

People say I don’t understand what they are going through. I worry that perhaps no one understands me.

Ok, clearly I was venting because I don’t even know if any of that made sense.

What is boils down to, is for the first time in a long time, I have felt like a useless friend.

On a totally unrelated topic, Dax grew like 3 inches in the last few months. Bobby, only about an inch, but man, those kids are getting big!