Saturday, February 26, 2011

!!! Hell Week !!!

Follies, this has been a very stressful week.  I never had a Hell Week in school, despite being a sorority girl. We didn’t do stuff like that (I know, you don’t believe me. But you should. Because we were straight up AWESOME.)  This week, at work and in life, was the closest I’ve ever been to experiencing a true Hell Week.  I work in a job where I rarely have to take work home with me – the last time I did that, it was over Super Bowl weekend 2009 and I only had to spend an hour on the document.  So we’re not talking about hard stuff, and that’s part of the issue I’ve had with my job lately.  I’m not challenged.  I’ve been here more than two years and I’ve reached the point where I (mostly) know what I’m doing.

So this week a project came up at work that sort of terrified me and sort of intrigued me: Writing a legal memo.  I won’t go into too many details, but suffice it to say that this project I took on? Usually done by LAWYERS.  Lawyers with LAW DEGREES.  Law degrees that I DON’T HAVE.*

It was exhilarating! It was challenging! It was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done at work! Two nights this week I brought home research and documents, spending hours each night making sure that I had all the appropriate documents (I didn’t), I’d self-edited and made sure it was formatted correctly (I mostly did), and I did not have an inappropriate TONE within the document (Follies, I always have a tone).

The director of my office was well aware of my involvement in this project, so I knew it had to be good.  And the director is not my boss – he’s the boss of the ENTIRE OFFICE.

Angry Folly can double as Stressed Folly
You guys, this was hard.  Super hard.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t eating this week, and Trevor didn’t know whether to be more pissed at the stress or the lack of food in him, and then Follies, THEN –

D decides to pick this week to come back around and invite me over.

What the FUCK.  If Trevor wasn’t fucking pissed before, he was straight up livid at me now. (I’m sorry, Trevor, I couldn’t help it. You’d think my stomach would understand these things.)  I’m surprised I got any work done Tuesday after D called (oh, wait, I didn’t. Nevermind.)

Remember, on V-day, when D said to be, on the bus, that he’d give me a call sometime? Well, he gave me a call.  D wants me to come over and see his new couch.  He bought a new couch.  He wants me to see it.  And do you know how badly I wanted that to be a euphemism?  A euphemism would make more sense.  It would be, I dunno, borderline expected.  But it’s not.  He actually invited me to come over and see a new piece of furniture.

*sigh*

Somehow, and gee golly, I don’t know where this is coming from, I get the feeling that he doesn’t JUST want me to see the couch.  </sarcasm>

Anyhoo, despite it possibly being a really bad idea…I’m going over tomorrow to “see” the “Couch”.  I’m trying not to have too many expectations around what may or may not happen on Sunday, but I’m going to go over, see the couch, and we’ll go from there. 

I’ve overthought, rethought, thought, analyzed, reanalyzed, and overanalyzed just about every angle of the situation, and I’ve decided this is an okay thing to do. 

But I do feel like, in addition to having a Hell Week, my life has become a SitCom.  Guys chicken out in asking for numbers (let’s all be The Count now: Two! Two guys!); past guys come out of the woodwork to show me their actual, real, honest-to-honest furniture; and OH, my job got cray-cray.

*another sigh*

Today, I had planned on cleaning.  Just staying home, cleaning up, and taking care of myself after this week.  But no.

Eff. That.

I’m going shoe shopping, and I’m going to find a Blockbuster that’s going out of business, and maybe even a Borders too, and then I’m stopping by the liquor store for WINE. 

WINE!!!!
Because Follies, I think that, after a week of abstaining from the fermented grape juice, I DESERVE some wine.

Cheers!




*Just to reassure everyone, the subject matter of the legal memo was within the realm of my job and I had an attorney mentor for the project.  And our director is an attorney.  I am not an attorney and cannot provide legal advice.  The memos in our office are just usually written by attorneys.   And my attorney mentor made a big deal about the person who requested the memo, hence added stress. Please don’t accuse me of breaking the law.  I am the law.

2 comments:

Claire said...

Wow, good luck with seeing "D," that's very odd about the couch. Maybe he just felt like he needed an excuse? I hope that everything goes how you want it to!

I'm sure writing the memo definitely made you feel like a fish out of water, but it sounds like you really appreciated the challenge. Legal research can be a pretty big pain in the ass.

Ashley said...

I think he totally felt like he needed an excuse to see me, like I couldn't come over/talk to him unless there's an underlying "reason" for it. I'm confident things will turn out the way they should - just sort of wish I knew what, exactly, that means :)

And I really did appreciate the challenge. I think it would have been less stressful if I'd had more than two and a half days to complete it, but I definitely appreciate the challenge and the chance to show the higher-ups what I'm capable of doing.