Berberis' World

I started writing this at work, until I realised that if what I’d written was found, I’d probably be fired. Maybe that’s just paranoia, but I’d not believed that work could get more stressful or less satisfying… yet today it did.

I walked into the office at 8.35am, and it was already 27 deg C with no movement of air whatsoever. Also, my ‘phone was ringing. As it was an internal call – usually meaning that notes/scans are missing, or patients have turned up at the wrong time – I answered it. My line manager wanted to discuss the report I’d been working on for the previous week, and how the issues it raised could be addressed. I said I’d just arrived, had not even turned on the computer, and she said she’d call later.

At just after 9, she called again. We had a brief discussion about the report and I told her that her manager had been asking for it to be emailed to her so that she could look at it. In that it changes every half an hour or less, we’d agreed to save it on a shared drive so that it could be accessed by everyone who needed to review it.

Unfortunately, I’d not fully grasped what it might mean to give everyone access without protecting the document from cock-ups. Which meant that within 30 seconds, she’d overwritten the original report and lost a week’s work.

There is an intensity of anger which cannot be articulated. It is simply felt as a knot in your stomach. Every time you think about what has caused it, the knot tightens. Your skin flushes hot and cold, your hands tremble, and you begin to wonder if your heart is going to find its way to your throat and choke you.

It wasn’t even 9.15. I called my manager and asked her what had happened to the report – I had to be direct, lest I vent my spleen – and she said that someone was checking what had happened and was sorting it out.

I don’t remember much of what I did between then and about 11.20, when it became obvious that no-one was going to sort it out. Someone made me a cup of coffee, and I rearranged the piles of work on my desk so that it might be less intimidating. The former went cold and the latter failed.

A little later – and on the basis that there surely has to be a back-up – I emailed the IT department and asked them directly if they might be able to resurrect the spreadsheet as it existed at 9.03am, but I don’t hold out much hope, to be honest. I’ve watched too many episodes of The IT Crowd to believe that more than the smallest number of IT departments have the first fucking clue what they’re doing. We shall see.

And since when does going abroad for a year in 2 days time make you eligible for urgent medical treatment? If you’re that ill, the only place you should be going is bed. I felt a surge of absolute fury, not tempered by the fact that this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

I left work at 6.30pm. When I got home, I sang along to Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Am Singing’ (from Songs in the Key of Life, an awesome album) before hanging out some laundry and having a glass or several of wine. Of which there is some left and I am going to have some more.

I feel calmer now. With any luck, I will be able to deal with all the shit that hits tomorrow’s fan with a slightly reduced feeling of hysteria than I did today’s.