peevishness, with photos for distraction

Oh, yay, I’m just starting to write an entry about how cranky and peevish I am feeling, and what do I hear? Drumming in front of the Art building across the way! I know, I know, some people find drumming inspiring. I find it irritating as all fuck, especially when I am trying to get some work done and it’s basically right outside my window. I have no idea WHY there is drumming going on outside the Art building — and actually now that I think about it, I’m sure it’s really outside the Music building which would make much more sense– but it has been going on every fall for as long as I’ve been here. And it never fails to get on my very last ragged frayed nerve. 

Like, oh, everything else this week.  I am particularly annoyed at my coworkers. Specifically Aggravation Receptionist, of course, but I’m also annoyed at Miss Artsy. And I really do need to let that go, but I do love to hold a grudge. For pretty much EVER. It’s kind of a co-grudge against both of them. We were all off Monday for Labor Day. Mr. Organized took off the rest of this week to go to Arizona and visit his partner’s family. He scheduled this trip ages ago, so Mr. Organized is not included in my peevishness. After he scheduled this week off, Aggravation Receptionist, who cannot let anyone else take time off without attempting to interfere with it, decided she needed to take a couple of days off to go to Florida and visit her sister and brother-in-law. Her brother-in-law fell off his roof awhile back. He was power-washing it and tripped on the power-washer cord. I honestly do not know who in the hell power-washes their roof, but it’s typical AR family behavior with typical AR family results. (I apologize to anyone who actually does power wash their own roof, but I would like to know why) (He was pretty seriously injured, so I really should not jeer. But it is just exactly the kind of thing that is constantly happening to the Drama Family.) The fall off the roof was quite some time back so it was not an emergency situation and she did not have to go now, but she wanted to include Labor Day in her time off. Very understandable, but we kind of have an unspoken rule that we don’t take vacations at the same time, leaving the office understaffed. She asked Miss Artsy and I if we were okay with being by ourselves (just two of us means that there will be times, like lunch, that only one of us is here, and that is NOT good. We AVOID that when at all possible) and I said if she could take Friday and Tuesday that would be a lot better than Tuesday and Wednesday since it wouldn’t completely overlap Mr. Organized’s vacation. Of course she couldn’t manage that, so it was just two of us Tuesday and Wednesday.

(It is beside the point that if she HAD taken Friday, I probably couldn’t have gotten off myself and gone to Charleston. Shut up. I’m busy being mad and resentful and don’t have time for rational thinking.)

Okay, so sometimes it is just two of us. Because there are only four of us to begin with, and it’s pretty impossible to not EVER have more than one person out at once. But two whole days of just two of us, when classes have just started and students are trying to drop and add classes before the deadlines… IT’S BUSY. This would not have been a big deal in the summer, but it kind of is now. And really, Miss Artsy and I would have been okay by ourselves. As we were okay by ourselves Tuesday. 

But Wednesday….NOT okay. Miss Artsy is taking a poetry class on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. It lasts an hour and she takes her lunch for it, and that is fine- I think it’s great she’s taking a poetry class. No problems there. However, on Wednesdays her child has piano class. Two weeks ago she put it on our shared calendar – she has to leave at 3:15 every Wednesday. She also emailed us all and said if there’s a conflict, she can get her husband to take their kid to piano. She actually did this last semester too, and it worked out okay most of the time. But. BUT. Last week she discovered that her kid cannot stay in the school library from 2:15 until 3:15 anymore, which is what she did last semester. So now she has to leave at 2:00. Which is what she announced she had to do yesterday. I was already dreading being alone from 3:15 till 5. And kind of hoping this constituted a conflict so maybe her husband could do the hauling about. Apparently it did not. 

So I was alone half the day yesterday and it sucked and I had to answer the phone and I HATE answering the phone and I’m awful at it and I never know where the hell anyone is and I can’t transfer without cutting people off and waahhhh waaahhh waaahhh!!! And people keep sneaking into the office and I can’t fucking see them because my office is out of sight of the main door and no amount of pointing the "see receptionist in next office" sign directly at my office will get people to actually come back to my office instead of walking in the main door and just standing there by the empty receptionist desk. Besides the fact that I’m BUSY, dammit, and I really don’t have half a day to devote to answering the phone and signing forms and telling people I don’t know where anyone is. 

I do, however, have half a day to write a whiny OD entry about how peeved I am. 

Anyhow. I do really need to let this go. But apparently I can’t.  Miss Artsy didn’t ask me if I was okay with her leaving at 2, which I find annoying, or offer to see if her husband could pick up the kid. She also could have picked up the kid and brought her back here until piano class time, which isn’t until a quarter of 4, for fuck sake. Her kid is 11 or 12 and is incredibly well behaved and quiet and just sits and reads a book when she’s here. I think Miss Artsy is making a statement about what can happen when Aggravation Receptionist decides she’s going to be off at the same time other people are already off, which honestly does happen a LOT. And she feels like she does half AR’s work even when she is here, which is pretty accurate. Besides the fact that Miss Artsy is losing it and looking for other jobs. 

WELL, it’s hours later. I looked up and discovered it was 4:00 and time to go home — I’d had to work through my lunch because Aggravation Receptionist had to go to the doctor on her lunch break and was late. Oh, what a surprise. She’s got yet another mysterious excruciatingly painful ailment that last week was kidney stones but this week is not kidney stones and it’s mysterious and requires yet another round of endless impromptu doctor visits and missed time. I think Miss Artsy is objecting to AR’s never-ending parade of absences, but I resent being the one who paid for it yesterday. Now our actual boss, the very sweet-natured and non-confrontational Ass’t Dean, has told me he’s going to have to crack down on AR’s sick and vacation time because she is completely out of both and really should not be allowed to miss any more time without consequences (AND SHE’S NOT SICK!!! However we did have a laugh over how, if she actually DOES die of one of these ailments, she can have "I told you I was sick!" inscribed on her tombstone. And we can get a new receptionist! Okay, I laughed silently to myself over the second one.)  And hewas worried about how it was JUST ME yesterday for half the day. So at least he knows there is a problem which is apparently snowballing into a bigger problem. And, haha! I look like the responsible and mature one. 

Okay. I will let this go… I will let this go… I will let this go….. and as a reward for anyone who actually made it this far (or who had the sense to just scroll and skim), more Charleston pictures:

The Tellis Pharmacy sign – and reflection. Sadly it is closed— it’s been there forEVER. Two elderly sisters have run it for something like fifty years- I think their father started it. It’s on King Street, near Broad, and is little and old fashioned and adorable. And their old neon sign is the best. But I guess all that didn’t add up to making a living. Or maybe they just want to retire. 

The creepy yet fascinating little head above John Calhoun’s door:

Pretty plant with odd leaves on the Battery:

Real live gaslights:

Flowers in the gorgeous overgrown Unitarian Cemetery:

Evening street: