Busted, cold dusted, hot dog, with mustard.

I find in my line of work it can be a saving grace to be able to keep my sense of humor about me. Yesterday I'm pretty sure that laughing at people instead of throwing my hot coffee at them saved my job. My sense of humor being what it is, not everyone thinks the same things are funny as I do, but that's ok because keeping me happy is really what it's about.

How can I be effective and helpful if I'm not happy, or at least laughing (at people)? I can't, so I take care of me, which is really for their own good anyhow.

Yesterday for instance, I was feeling a bit cheeky and grouchy all at once. (I'm tired. Very very tired) It's an interesting internal combo, but the end result is a healthy sense of entitlement, and inner monologue statements like "I don't feel like working. They're lucky I'm even going in today, so if I have to go I'm at least going to be comfortable"

I didn't really think my outfit was that bad- to be sure, it was comfortable; VERY comfortable which I guess should be a clue- but I got a lot of comments on it. Comments that were mostly tempered, because most of the time the commenter would show up or notice my presence, I would have my hand in the middle of their piece of equipment or their database on my screen and noone really wants to piss you off too much just then by asking what the fuck! you are wearing. I actually highly doubt that many of these people ever speak that directly anyway, regardless of whether or not you are currently buried elbow deep in the $10000 camera they have abused which is now filled with rattling plastic broken pieces you are fishing out, even though you're not really a repair tech, but the actual repair tech has emailed you that he thinks you can do it and you should totally go for it, because it's only like 6 screws just be careful with the chip. So for those people who told me that my outfit was sure something, I had a big smile ready with a chipper "I can't think of anyplace else I'd rather wear it to"

However for those few bold souls who really went all out in their admiration of the chutzpah they thought it took to wear that outfit to work at the prestigious NSI (I constantly remind these people, I don't work here and so am outside their stuffy dress code rules) I had a special little treat on deck: The Zombie Song! No less than 4 times yesterday did I sing to someone about how "All I wanna do is eat your brains!" That sort of thing really separates the wheat from the chaff, lets you know who is ok or not. And also indicates when you're probably getting a little burned out, because you have such little regard for peoples potentially bad reactions that you do things like sing Zombie Songs to people who no way in a million years are going to have any idea what you're talking about. Sometimes though, I just crave that look of "Does Not Compute" that you can see go across someone's face. The blank stare, followed by the wrinkled brow, followed by the inevitable "um, ok. I have a patient to see" and exit stage left! I know when I'm going the extra mile with it at work, at customer sites especially, that it's time for a little rest.

But as I said the cheeky side of the burnout phase can be helpful. It helps me laugh and make my point effectively, rather than boil when I get SOS notes from users like "PLEASE ADVISE!!!!, OUR ROUTER IS FAILING AND WE CANNOT TRANSMIT IMAGES" On bad days, responses can vary from the desire to send back a nastygram about how someone shouldn't have purchased the busted ass budget router I told them would crash under their projected network load, to the ignoring/binning of the email because this can not possibly be considered my problem. Yesterday however, his message reminded me of an SOS telegram, and needing entertainment I thought it would be fun to play back. So I responded with:

"GET A NEW ROUTER.
IN THE MEANTIME MOVE THE IMAGES MANUALLY.
PROCEDURE DETAILED IN MANUAL I GAVE YOU"

and I was *really* hoping he'd get it and write back in code, so we could continue the game because it seemed like it had potential to be fun. No dice -at least not yet- although this customer's local IT person did see where I was going with this, so at least it wasn't a total loss. It is occasionally nice to have someone with whom to share enjoyment at the bewilderment of others.

zzzzzzzzz. ok back to the grind for a bit. I'm "wfh" today so there is potential for more fun and games.