Sorry, Pollyanna...

(If you're just reading this to see how my dog is doing, my apologies for the upcoming rant--you can skip to the end for Sam news.)

Okay, I'll admit that there are some times during each month when I am a little more irritable. Right now I'm experiencing one of those times. But the world is just driving me crazy this week! Here are some things that seem designed especially to annoy me during these magical days:

1. Watch Alarms That Beep Every Hour. There are two people in the orchestra I play in who have these. You would be amazed at how carrying those little digital beeps can be; even when we're all playing full volume, including the powerful brass section and all the cellos and everything, I can still hear the BEEP-BEEP, BEEP-BEEP announcing that it's 9 o'clock. Or close enough, since one of the alarms is set a little fast, and the other is a little slow. I'm pretty sure the watch owners don't even hear the alarms anymore, and I'm guessing they might need to take pills every night at the same time. But that doesn't make their watches less irritating.

2. Politics at Work, Part I. I don't write about my job much here, and that's intentional. I don't want to offend anyone who might happen upon my blog, although I'm careful not to mention names or specifics, and I am not stupid enough to badmouth my job and my coworkers by name and get fired as a result. But it's just been one of these weeks. I've changed some of the details to protect...well, me, and also the innocent.

First we had The Door. There's a back door through the copy room that is an excellent shortcut to the bathroom, but it opens into the reception area of another department behind ours, and they really, really, really don't like us to use that door. Supposedly it's because, when the receptionist is not at her desk, someone has to get up and check to see if anyone has come in needing help, but I think they just don't like us disrupting them. Before you suggest it, they already have a bell to ring for service, but that's apparently not good enough.

I was chastised by said receptionist during my first week of work (here's how it went: she stopped me and said, "I don't know what you've been told, but this door is not a shortcut to the bathroom"--this was not prefaced with, "I know you're new, but--" or her name or even "Welcome!"...not that I'm still offended by that, obviously), and as a result I never used the door to cut through again. Plus, I forgot the code to the keypad to get back into our office. Oh, well. But almost everybody else in my office cuts through, so if I'm with someone else who goes that way, I'll go along.

Other than the obvious advantage of a shorter path to the bathroom, or an escape from assassins (I guess I shouldn't joke about that, considering I work for a government office--sorry), it's also convenient to go that way if you know there's a client or someone waiting for you in the front lobby, but you really want to brush your teeth before your meeting.

Yesterday I was with one of my coworkers who always goes that way, and I asked her what the code was as we were going through the locked door. The receptionist must have heard us, because she sent my friend an email saying she was sorry about giving her a stern look, but she had told "Angela" (we eventually figured out she meant me, and not the other girl in our office who also wears glasses but is named Angela) that it was not a shortcut and that I shouldn't go that way.

My friend and I rolled our eyes about that and agreed that everyone has to have own little their sphere of control, as she put it, within the building. In a formal, rigid administrative system such as ours, there are only so many places where employees, and especially women, can exert some influence over others. I've seen it every place I worked, but I'm still annoyed by it. This brings us to...

3. Politics at Work, Part II. This involves a couple of hours of overtime I worked last weekend, which inconveniently happened to fall on the Monday holiday, and were consequently worth more. If I had thought about it first, I would have just recorded the hours for Sunday and not worried about it, but my HR training kicked in at the wrong moment and I decided to ask someone connected with our timesheets about how to properly record my time. This triggered all sorts of alarm bells, because apparently I can't work overtime without authorization from my supervisor--not that he minded. The timesheet person interrogated me briefly over why I had worked overtime, what I was doing, and why I couldn't finish it in my regular hours. Not that she necessarily needs to know this. At all. She even said that, but then she kept asking questions.

To make matters worse, the reason I hadn't managed to get my work done during the week is that I was helping one of the big bosses with a project that isn't really my job (okay, it's not my job at all--it was my immediate supervisor's job in her previous role, but because she had done it the last time and she's not in the office right now, somehow it fell to me and not to the administrative staff who directly report to this person--not that I'm complaining). I don't really feel I can say no to that level of authority, and besides it was kind of a fun project and I really don't mind helping out. I want to demonstrate to my present employers that I am a helpful and friendly employee, who gives the impression that she *can* be bothered! But it was a time-consuming task, especially since more revisions kept coming back to me for several days, and consequently I had to take home my actual work that needed to be done by Tuesday. When I told the timesheet lady why the overtime was necessary, she told me that next time I should say I was too busy to work on the other project. Yeah, right.

But I just nodded and smiled. In my head, I was shouting, "Sphere of influence! Sphere of influence!", to remind myself that she was just exerting her power where she could, and it wasn't really about me or my two hours of overtime, and therefore I should not pelt her with paperclips.

4. Irritating, Inconsiderate, and Annoying People. I don't mean all people--and of course I don't mean you!--but wow, there are a lot of crazies out there. There are the people who live in my complex and let their dog run around without a leash, and he seems to see the patch of grass in front of my particular condo as his own personal crap depository. The problem with that is, I take Sam out there to do his thing, and I'm afraid others may believe I am the inconsiderate pet owner not picking up after my dog (not true!--I have a bag dispenser on the leash so I'm never without one).

Then there are bad drivers, who fall into two categories: too fast, and too slow. The too fast ones always seem to be right behind me, and I'm forever following the too slow ones. I suppose everyone feels the same way, because there's always got to be someone going faster than you, and someone slower you'll catch up to. Oh, and a third category of general stupids: people who wander between lanes while talking on the phone and smoking and drinking coffee and putting on lipstick.

5. All right, that's enough grinching it up for one night. If you work in my office and recognize yourself, accept my sincere apologies, and you have permission to complain about me on your blog all you want...as long as you get my name right!

Oh, and if you're just tuning in for a Sam update, he seems to be feeling better! He has been peeing with much less difficulty, since I'm sure you want to know that, and has had no further accidents in the house. I don't want to jinx it by celebrating too soon, but I think the cheapest option may actually be working this time. Thanks to all of you for your kind words.