My schedule got fried up, scrambled, and served over toast. I'm half done with my work week this week at this point. My usual work week is Thursday through Sunday. (Four days. Usually over 40 hours at this time of the year.) This week I'm working Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Work is insanely busy. Dayshift has been staying an hour and a half later than they usually do, which is causing no end of nasty problems to my day. I managed to do the right thing today and pulled a list of the dayshift people and manually sorted out the ones who were staying for nightshift, which sounds like it ought to be complicated, but only managed to be tedious. That cost me time when I could afford it and saved me time when I couldn't afford it, but it was still a pain in the ass.

It looks like while my habit of checking phone goons in against logins in booths is paying off in security of my being able to say who's who, instead of relying on my sketchy memory for faces and butts in seats against the seating chart. Someone slipped through on Sunday II, which wasn't my shift this week. Someone would have slipped through today, except I'd pulled the dayshift list and sorted out who was day, so I knew who I had to double-check if they didn't show up. I showed up at her booth and put Fear of Me into her -- namely, she almost got counted absent because she didn't check in with me.

I'm getting better at not really threatening people, but getting my message across, or threatening people and making it sound instructive. Pink Shirt Guy is a good influence. He's a born diplomat of some sort, and definitely a Good Role Model for someone who's too Ravenclaw for her own good in this workplace. (Bonuses: I'm also Ravenclaw enough to get away with saying outrageous things and fixing computers even though I'm not actually a Certified Geek.)

We are getting batches of new trainees. This is entirely scary. I've already encountered the young men I refer to as, collectively, "The Goslings" in enough separate situations to make up my opinions about them in the current state of their social and mental evolution. Their most defining feature is that they're young men, apparently almost entirely without motivation, and with any number of visible piercings in that very modern and crisp smooth stainless steel with spheres look. That's the side of themselves they show at work, at least. It wearies me. I fear becoming too sarcastic for my fellow supervisors to stand.

Other than that, I'm plugging away on the new book, which is now fueled by my work-related burnout issues, rather than hampered. I'm not sure what my options for the upcoming season of insane holidays will be. I have limited transportation, so Thanksgiving may be rather more quiet than it was last year. (Besides, Lady Malfoy hasn't invited me, and I'm not sure if she'll extend an invitation this year, given that they may want a very quiet family Thanksgiving, and I'm still dubious as to my Family status.)

"Behind on sleep" seems to be a chronic status and part of the job description, rather than an emergency state. This does not make me happy, but not many things have been making me brilliantly happy of late, not that stick. Last night I was very punchily giggling over, in turn, the stuff I was writing, and the Arcata Eye police blotter. The two bear a certain stylistic similarity to each other.

We've now got two walkers on the floor bearing the name David R. We have to distinguish them by hairstyle -- ponytail or flattop? Flattop David seems to have geeky leanings in his spare time, and has near-infinite patience with what I politely call "operator error" on the part of some of our less technically savvy employees. I approve. I have no plans to collect either of these Davids, though both of them are distinctly cute.

Darkside has not been about much lately. I'm hoping he's in this weekend. It's difficult for me to articulate exactly how much he means to me. It's difficult for me to describe how much stress I shed in one minute in his company. It's difficult for me to find time with him. If all else fails, I'm going to be using my e-mail.

I seem to be evolving into the sort of character who can work in an office. This is a crash course in office politics (and, in my case, how to avoid them). I am perfectly content to be the office character who is the smart and unworldly one who is considered generally nice and too sweet to have a bad thought of an immediate colleague. (I can have all the opinions of interviewers I want, because as a supervisor I am supposed to be tracking the history of the interviewers, and I am known to avoid making it personal. I have a long-seated grudge against one of the ancient ladies for some personal history she doesn't even remember, a Gender Warrior issue, and that doesn't come up in supervisor discussion at all because that's just Not Appropriate, and is between me and -- well, at this point, me...) My personal spiffiness has been increasing as well. In 2001/2, it was sticky rubber sandals, shorts, and battered t-shirts. By 2003, slacks and tank tops with button-down shirts open overtop were the look. 2004 was seeing more long-sleeved, high-necked shirts. 2005, and I'm in sturdy shoes, calf-length skirts, knee-high opaque stockings, and decent, well-made tops. (And it's time to get an alternate pair of shoes to swap out, because this pair is getting a little manky, and I want to break in the new ones, and it's good to swap out shoes for the good of the feet.)

The fact that I look sharp was underlined today. Trendy Chick was asking Obso1337 Super why he was all dressed up, and he mentioned that we had guests in. (Ordinarily, we're t-shirts and jeans casual, but supervisors are asked to do Business Casual when we have company superiors or outside guests in.) Trendy Chick badocketed a bit, and pointed out that I wasn't dressed up. I was wearing what I always wear these days. The fact that it's a rather goth black doesn't mean that it's not sharp. I pointed out that I'm always in Business Casual.

One of these days I'm going to have to go in wearing colored shorts and Hawaiian print or something. What I really need is a new Pink Skirt, or a new Frog Skirt. I enjoy dressing to impress. I enjoy dressing to unsettle, and I enjoy it with fangs.


[edit: Oh, yeah. And I'm sick. Like, snot-nosed ill.]