Grind

Owing to the pressures of work and the weariness of an active weekend, I can only come to the conclusion that I have been half-stoned for the last twelve hours.

Monday is anathema to work. It's the day when the occasional programmer won't come in, the day when the anxious foreign client comes a-calling, and the day when the whole week decides to up and hit you with the foreboding sense of the upcoming project load. I assure you that I share more than a common sentiment with a fat orange cat when I tell you that I... hate... Mondays.

For that matter, overtime happens to be one of the banes of management. You try to avoid it as much as possible, but you have to resign yourself to it when the time finally comes. It's much like getting a good whack upside the head: It knocks you dazed and senseless, but there are times when you really deserve it.

The true irony is that any manager worth his salt almost never has to experience overtime. When you do your work smoothly and efficiently (which is how we're supposed to do things in the first place), then you tend not to get stuck in the office late. But any good manager also realizes that his staff members occasionally have to do overtime for him to begin with, and should remain by their side for as long as humanly possible.

All this adds up to the fact that I'm writing this at 9:00 pm on a Monday evening in a sweltering office, for no reason at all aside from the fact that someone else just happens to be late with his deadlines.

I wish I could say that I could start doing my work in advance for tomorrow, but this where reality just has to cut in: I'm bone tired, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I can't even write effectively, it seems. The work just saps your strength, up to the point where all you can think about is curling up under a warm blanket and sleeping till noon.

Such is life, I suppose.