November 5, 2017 –
It’s been a week. We’ve had awful weather – rain on Hallowe’en followed by snow. We’ve had snow every day of November. Apparently we’ve had more snow in the first 5 days of November than we had in all of November 2016. It’s now -15C plus the windchill. So it’s -23C if you stand outside. Sure, it’s fine for the first minute or so. Any longer and it’s just plain cold. I just finished shovelling the driveway for what seems like the millionth time. That’s a slight exaggeration. But, when it’s this cold you want to do anything else except be outside. Even the dog just does his thing and then turns around to head back to the house.
Work was a series of lows – sitting around and waiting while others rush around to get things prepared for a few meetings. It’s not what I saw myself doing. I thought I was going to be involved in things – not just reactively sitting at my desk only called upon to cut and paste from Word to Excel and then email documents. Oh well, it’s the tale of my life……
The ultimate work low came when I was told “these are final” and I PDF’d everything and sent it out. I got up to go to the washroom only to be met with a loud scream coming from my boss’s office, “No! No! Nooooooo!” I ran in and asked what was wrong. She told me that she wanted to look at it one more time. I apologized and said I should have known that by now; after all, we’ve been working together for over 6 months and she wants to see everything. I apologized again and said that we could send out a revision – something we both hate doing. She actually said that to me too.
I walked out of the office and sat at my desk and waited to hear where I screwed up. But, in all honesty, how can you screw up when you’re taking a document and then converting it? But you just never know. Mind you, it’s not like I sent the wrong documents or sent confidential documents to the wrong person. True – I should have known better.
But nobody died. It’s kind of the bar for my life now. I keep hearing clichés every time something happens – life is too short / nobody died / it’s not the end of the world / don’t worry be happy. I’m wondering if this is how it is as we get older or if it’s just me or if I’ve finally realized that those clichés are true. Nothing matters anymore except for the fact that we’re on this side of the dirt.
I don’t know when I started developing this attitude. Perhaps it was when I lost my job last year. I realized that no matter how hard I worked I could be easily replaced. Perhaps it was while I was looking for a new job. I realized that there were countless others out there just like me. Perhaps it was when my brother died. I realized that life can end at in a moment.
I just don’t know. All I know is that I sit here day after day and wonder if this is how the next chapter in my life is going to read.
Diary of a DOW 