I can empathize with you because I've had those periods of time when you seem to be in a stuck mode, stupid things happen to frustrate you, or "test" you, you feel like you are pushing a mountain, etcâ¦

I now know that those feelings pass and it seems at one point for no apparent logical reason, some doors are finally opening and multiple pending issued get resolved.

I sometimes check to see if mercury is in retrograde but this is not happening till thursday afternoonâ¦â¦

Yeah, and part of it is my underlying mood. We have had a stressful couple of months here and perhaps if I wasn't already gritting my teeth, these few annoyances would just have me rolling my eyes instead of kvetching at everyone on GW!

Hang in there Sue...this too shall pass!

And another thing. You know the box you check off when you want notifications of posts to be emailed to you? Yeah. That's not working either.

This is certainly the right place to air out your mood. You might try screaming into a wad of clothes in your closet. That can feel pretty good, too. Stress is cumulative and it sounds like your cup is running over. Have you ever watched any of America's Funniest Videos on YouTube? Sometimes, watching a few minutes of those will get me laughing or at least smiling. I hope you find less stressful times ahead. :-)

There, there...that's why we're here. You have every right to be annoyed. We all need to vent our frustrations sometimes. BUT you don't want it to drag you down. Particularly to a point that makes you do something inept.

So, take a deep breath, shake it off, and try to imagine the best in everyone you come in contact with for the rest of the day.

Thanks! We are taking a trip to Sunny Isles Beach, FL, in less than two weeks and I'm counting the days. I mean, who could be cranky in a town called Sunny Isles Beach!?

"I sometimes check to see if mercury is in retrograde but this is not happening till thursday afternoonâ¦â¦" I hope this was supposed to be funny because I laughed! :)

I don't have the patience for stupid people (a trait which I unfortunately seemed to have passed onto my son) and when they are snarky, even less patience.

One kid with norovirus and the other with strep? Poor you, you have my sympathies. Hope everyone is on the mend. We know the norovirus and it is not pleasant to go through. I hope no one else got it.

Sue...at least you work for yourself. I sit across from, and therefore can't avert my eyes, a train wreck and one of the most incompetent coworkers ever but because she is a champion brown-noser management thinks she is the 8th wonder of the world and the president of Mensa. It's more excruciating than finger nails on a chalk board!!

Hey, how about a thread on horrible coworkers and bosses...hehe.

Wish I were joining you in sunny FL---enjoy and decompress! Hope the kids are better!

Thanks, kids are almost all better. Fortunately these are the ones who are old enough to fend for themselves for the most part (18 and 21). The 21 year old (w/ strep) even took himself to the dr. on Sat. when both parents were unavailable! DH, DD, and I have to go out of town for a gymnastics meet this weekend though, so the three of us are holding our breath (and the doorknobs and faucets in my house are dripping with Lysol!).

joaniepoanie, you just crack me up.

I can just see the Dilbert cartoon now.

Haha Julie...I've come to the conclusion that those that can..do..and those that can't brown-nose.

We had a speaker at work last week who tossed out a frightening statistic...something to the effect that they did a study that followed Ivy League grads and 25 years later many were not as successful as their slow-witted but "nice" (I.e. brown-nosing) colleagues. So, the idiots are running the asylums? Yikes...give me an anti-social, smart, critical thinker in the workplace any day over a "nice" dolt!

Oh Sue, I am with you! First of all, sorry to hear about the sickness...lots of that stuff flying around.

I don't know where to begin. We had an employee steal the opening bank and backup bank from one of the Waffle Cabins. She went in, opened the day safe (only four of us have the combo) and took the $$. She then opened the windows to try to make it look like someone broke in. The local police "were too busy", so the NH State Police came. The girl never came back to work, moved to another part of the State. So far, the police didn't find her. DH went to her Mom's house to leave a paycheck (yes, we had to pay her!) and the mom gave him her address. Hoping the police catch up to her soon. I've been stalking her social media accounts for clues.

The rest of the employees seem to have huge difficulties counting money. One day their banks are over 20, the next short 25..back and forth back and forth. One young man has some learning difficulties, eventually his usually works out. The others? I'm not so sure.
Obviously it isn't a terrific job, but you'd think people would try a little harder to get it right.

Joanie, you made me laugh! That's such the way of the office. Having to look at the Train Wreck all day is just plain mean.

I love what HHireno said, to try to imagine the best in everyone. When I was tending bar, I was getting really bitter about the everyday drunks who were there most days, drinking, bragging about what great parents they were, etc. I finally had to force myself to look at each one and find something positive to say about each one every day. One in particular really bugged me. The best I could come up with was, "His eyes are really blue behind the bloodshot part".

Beth P.

Have you heard the term "co-irker"? I just heard it recently and I thought it was so funny.

FYI: Schools have 100s maybe thousands of kids to keep track of. A given teacher has 100 or more s/he is keeping track of. A senior in High School should be watching HIS ONE schedule close enough not to be enrolled. On the flip side there are parents angry 'cuz Johnny is skipping at will and no one is telling parents fast enough. A response to the e-mail "Thank- you I will have my son get to the bottom of it" would have been sufficient. A secretary didn't enter info faster than a teacher is on top of her/his class. Perhaps your anger should have been placed there? Perhaps given your own blog/busy experience should have made you more compassionate with others whose jobs are busy?

I knew someone would say this. Arcy, first of all, because this is a class that started 2/3 of the way through the year, it is not written on his schedule. But enough defending him -- he took care of the whole thing as soon as he was made aware of it. He didn't think to worry about a new class being on his schedule because he had taken care of the necessary paperwork ahead of time -- this slip-up was not the teacher's, it was someone in the school office. My REAL issue was this teacher's attitude -- not the fact that she was misinformed. She assumed not only that he cut class, but that he would continue to cut class and after three cuts, would fail the class. Her entire email was accusatory and, I think, inappropriate. She could have worded it differently as in "DS missed my class on Fri. and because there is sometimes miscommunication about the sports classes, I wanted to check with you..." (Which is more or less what she finally said in a third email.)

Anyway, for those keeping score, DD now has the nasty stomach bug as of 5 am this morning -- and is supposed to compete in a gymnastics meet in Chicago (we have plane tix, hotel res., etc.) this weekend! Agh.

PS I realize now that when I said I forwarded her email to the guidance counselor and vice principal, I was "reporting" her or something. I did that because she told me to get in touch with the two of them to clear up the matter. I simply attached her email and explained that I had called DS out sick and that there seemed to be a miscommunication and that I wanted to ensure that his absence was recorded as Excused.

I have every respect for good teachers but I have been the target of a clueless teacher's attitude filled email more than once, I completely sympathize with Sue

Sue, so sorry that your gymnast has the crud. At least it happened before you left and not while you were traveling. Norovirus is nasty stuff.

Beth.....so sorry about your money woes....I hope the girl is caught and there is some restitution. Kudos to you for hiring people with learning disabilities!

Some of the problem might be that kids today do not know how to count change back...has anyone noticed that? If their computer register breaks down they are lost. When i was in college (in the 70's) my part time job was at a CVS type chain drugstore. No computerized registers back then and we had to count back the change to every customer. It is not difficult, but the kids today are not taught how to do it and are clueless. They panic if the computer does not tell them how much to give back. I have actually walked kids through it a numer of times and told THEM how much I should be getting back..ha ha! And I love it when they just hand you a wad of bills and change at the end of the transaction.

The nicest thing I can say about my coworker is that I think she is a good mom. Besides being inept....she is also the biggest Gladys Kravitz I have ever known...sticks her nose into every conversation (even private ones) and has on numerous occasions passed my answers off to management as her own...management even knew about it and nothing. Sometimes I think she must be blackmailing them! lol.

Mtnr.....co-irker....I love it!

Sue---sure hope DD gets over her bug in time for the competition, especially with flights and hotels involved! I had the flu 3 weeks ago and am still not 100% but kids bounce back quickly.

Sue, I think that all that has been going on with you these last few weeks, it's normal to feel cranky.

Joanie, so sorry you have a rotten co-irker. It is the people around you that make or break your work environment.
I used to work in an office where half the company was related. This was not a private business, I might add. It was difficult to see the relative being given preferential treatment. Strangely enough,I liked my coworkers and have kept in touch. It was just an odd work situation and only those in it, could understand it.

I remember a few from many, many years ago.

One gal was really something. She came to work one day and was wondering why the building was dark and no one was around. She made her way to the other building to the cafeteria for her morning coffee only to find it was dark, no food, and nobody. She went back to her desk and finally figured out it was a holiday! The dumbest thing she did was to tell everyone about it the next day.

Then we had another gal who got promoted to manage our typing center (yes it was that long ago). Her new desk was literally one floor below her old desk....but she wanted to know how to get to the cafeteria from here....I swear she was an example of why dumb people get promoted...let them become someone else's problem!

But when it comes to people serving us with little knowledge, it's to be expected. Just take a look at the high school dropout rates...really shocking. Detroit is graduating just 22% of students, Baltimore it's 39%. Yet that's where our work force is coming from. I remember many years ago an article about how the teacher hiring situation in Baltimore was so bad, they had to require the teachers to go nights for remedial education. Just awful. But this is the pool of workers from which employers must hire....

Here is a link that might be useful: Drop out rates

Annie---I work for one of the school systems in the top 5 on your chart. According to a recent announcement our grad rate is now 88.3. Because of the unions, it is nearly impossible to get fired and, therefore, there are so many incompetent people collecting hefty paychecks..and that goes from top administrators to janitors/custodians. And salaries are based on length of service...so a high-school dropout janitor (9th grade education required) whose been in the system for a long time can make more than a teacher. At one school I worked at, the head janitor had a fit when I called him and asked if he could bring a dolly and move several heavy boxes of books. He actually said "that's not my job." WTF? Every time you walked by his office he was watching TV. Administrators don't want to take the time to document poor workers, so they get good evaluations and move around and up in the system to become, as you said, someone else's problem. The funny thing is my old boss used to complain about all the incompetent people..then she hired one and did the same thing...gave her a glowing evaluation rather than admit she totally screwed up.

Sue, the norovirus struck here too. That thing was vicious!! I honestly can't remember being that sick except when I had food poisoning. All of us got it.

It's big here in OK., I was wondering if anyone else got it?

Best advice. Keep a large bowl with you at all times. :)

I live in MD and got a flu bug, but not the norovirus you describe. Started with joint/muscle pain in shoulders, then moved into nose/sinuses. No needing a bowl thank goodness. Missed 4 days of work plus the weekend. That was 3 weeks ago and I still have residual joint/muscle pain that comes and goes and shows up in different parts of my body at different times...shoulders, arms, backs of knees, hands. Cant help but wonder if its the flu and pneumonia vaccines I got in November at the same time--one in each arm. DH got it too but his only lasted 2-3 days.

Co-irker!! I.Love.It!!!

Sue, I think any of us in the workforce can emphathize. The change-givers who don't know how to make change! Don't get me started!

I hope your DD feels better soon. I am not sure if the norovirus has made it to our area but I know that when it does, we will get it as I have 4 germ magnets.

I hate systems that are redundant or do not work together. Our school district is trying to cut down on truancy. They have asked that you contact the school when your kid is absent, which I always do. However, at the end of the day, there will be a call informing me that my child has missed 1 or more classes and to please call the school. What is funny is these 2 kids are 7 and 10, chances are pretty good that they are not ditching at this point.

The tone of the communication from the teacher is bad judgment. It's needlessly adversarial. As a Mom, it would bother me as well.

On the other hand, since this teacher can't possibly "know" all the kids, maybe she was just giving a heads up.
(Perhaps thinking she was doing the parent a favor.)

Senior year is tricky for many kids. They are ready to move on, and sometimes act out in surprising ways.

The funny thing is, later she said to me "I know DS and he is not the type of student who would cut class." Which makes her initial email even weirder. Whatever. I'm over it now! DS is known as a "good kid" throughout the school, which was partly why I was so turned off, and surprised, by her original email.

Next challenge is to navigate airports and airplane this afternoon while I feel like I'm getting the stomach bug myself. Ack. Hoping it's just my hypochondria rearing its ugly head.

Sue...sure hope you don't get sick...it's the worst getting sick away from home. Have a good trip!

Glad to hear DD is well enough to compete this weekend! Good luck:)

Co-irker! Love it haha. I have had a rough go with coworkers this past year-- mostly because for the past 15 yr, I've worked with two great bunches of people. All capable, responsible, interesting and smart. Now I am managing a merger of two companies and am having to deal with incompetence, politics and drama. This is not my strong suit.. in fact, my strong suit is rising above and not tolerating or succumbing to these poisons. We're working through it but boy is it draining. I just wish that people would pause and look at themselves and their behavior. Some will lose their jobs--and not because there isnt a place for them. It's because there isnt a place for their bad mojo.

AND don't even get me started on the third-party vendors. I am up early to get the results of a test upload of a db from a tech center in preparation for a move next weekend. It should have taken less than an hour.. at midnight they sent an update saying that it would be another 70 hr. Really?! No one stopped to question it. No one said, "hmm something must be wrong here". What has happened to basic problem solving skills? Arggg.

Sue, glad to hear DD is able to compete.. and really hope you aren't coming down with the same. Can't imagine anything worse when you are traveling. Crossing fingers and toes!

Thanks for the good wishes. I remained healthy throughout the weekend and being at the "largest women's invitational gymnastics meet in the world" was quite an experience for DD. We came home last night with a tired gymnast and 4 medals :)

We have has a difficult couple of months with our oldest DS, which has made even minor stressors feel like bigger ones, but life seems to be calming down, at least for the moment.... and we are all looking forward to a relaxing vacation in FL coming up soon. Counting the days!

Yay for your DD Sue! Glad things are turning around. Enjoy your FL vacation!

Congrats to DD...how exciting....now go soak up the sun!

Add my congratulations too! Glad things are getting back on track.