THBBM - Eleven

Eleven
Light the candle, put the lock upon the door...
9-27

I crawled into work at around eight thirty; not late -- but not exactly when I’m supposed to get there, either. A stack of papers washed in a sea of brightly colored post-it notes and insistent pen lines sits on my chair. The red voicemail light on my phone glows impatient.
: As I sit down to survey the damage I take my sunglasses off. The colors of the post-it notes seem even brighter, the fluorescent lights harsher. I need coffee. I need coffee now.
: As I’m reaching for my mug, the phone rings.
: I work on a monthly deadline schedule. Things are assigned before the month starts, and everything is due right before the month ends. Bigger things can stretch out for a couple of months -- but when it’s due, it’s due. Sometimes there’s a little leeway here and there depending on the amount of stuff being turned in, but basically when the 20th rolls around the crunch kicks in.

Meet me tomorrow at 11, she says.
: There’s been a lot going on in my life recently. Deadlines of different sorts. Things that have required my presence, things that have needed me to be there. Sometimes I’ve needed to be there after I get off of work, but frequently I’ve been needed around four in the afternoon, a couple of hours before my working day is done.

: We’re closing on a house. The neon died and I had to make a deal so I could get a new car. I bumped the new car into the back of someone else’s car on the way to work and I need to fill out the top half of a police report. Kim and Ebony need the car for errands, for job-hunting, for whatever.

: A while back when it was starting to get in the way of things my boss and I had a meeting about it. She was concerned about all the time I was missing. Concerned that it would affect my work. I apologized, but assured her I was on top of things.
"There’s just a lot going on right now." I said.
: The work I do is collaborative. I rely on other departments for the information that I base my work on, and I rely on those same other departments to verify that my interpretation of their information is correct. Sometimes they get behind or crunched and it has a sort of domino effect. The longer they take, the more behind I get. Sometimes it works in reverse, where I’m the one lagging when it comes to getting them work to check over and sign off on. The people I work with are also on a deadline, but theirs is different than mine. Usually it’s not a problem.
Tomorrow at 11, she says...
: I scrape out a moment to pour myself a cup of coffee, four shakes of creamer, excessive amounts of sugar. A sugar packet slips from my fingers and lands in the coffee cup. It sits there like a sandbag in a flood, soaking up the liquid all around, yet refusing to move or sink.
I reach my fingers into the coffee to fetch the packet.
No matter how many times I have ever had to do this in my lifetime, it always slips out of my grasp on the first attempt.
: There’s a primal instinct that sends off warning bells whenever your body experiences negative stimulus. As I prepare to reach into scalding hot coffee a second time, these bells sound like Independence Day. But sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to get on with your life. Sometimes burning your fingers is the quickest way to get past the things that don’t matter as much. Sometimes a little spike of pain is what you need to get going in the morning.
: When I get back to my desk there are new papers, new post-it notes. Some of the things I rushed like hell to get to my editors over the past few days are in need of a couple of nip and tuck fixes. Little things here, tiny adjustments there. Just important enough to have to be finished before the editing process can continue. The sort of things I should have taken care of much earlier in the month. The kind of things that I usually fix along the way, the kind of things that are just part of the job, not specific to the projects that I’m assigned each month. Housekeeping tasks, little bureaucratic details that need to be done every month.
: Sometimes when the big things are on fire, you let the little sparks go – promise yourself that you will address them later.

The phone rings. It’s a familiar, soothing voice from home. "How are you?" The voice asks. I am unintentionally curt; the timbre of my voice is strained. Keyboard tapping accompanies each word I say as I attempt to fill in missing details on the page while simultaneously asking how the kid is. Someone knocks on the entry way of my cubicle. I turn in my chair, receiver clamped between my shoulder and ear. More paper is put in my hand, more post it notes and proofreaders marks. The editor shrugs a smile, and mouths the words "when you’re off the phone come see me" while pantomiming a telephone receiver with her hand.

Yesterday I had to cut out early from work to meet the lead contractor at the new house to discuss some last minute repairs that we wanted done. The house we are buying is old; its facade consists of bricks and mortar. A lot of work was put into the house to bring it up to federal standards. A lot of money was spent on new pipes, paint, and roofing. The place looks good. But there’s some spots the painters missed, there’s some visible wiring that needs to be attended to, there’s some electrical outlets that are missing covers, and the other day when I left work early so I could check the place out before signing the papers, the handle on the bathroom sink came off in my hand.

Little things need to be fixed. Little things aren’t done yet. We’re supposed to sign the papers before the month is out, but unless these little things are done, I’m not going to sign those papers.

There’s a deadline racing up. My lease is about to end, and I want to move into this house I’m spending so much money on. Someone didn’t take care of a bunch of piddly little things, and they’re holding the rest of us up from getting our stuff done.

I called the guy and asked him to meet me at the house so we could go over the details. He said the only time he has open is four p.m.. I ask him if he can meet any later in the day, since I usually don’t get off of work until six. He sounds apologetic when he tells me that this is the only time he can squeeze me in. He says something about interest rates falling, something about being really busy. "There’s a lot going on right now," he says.

Tomorrow at 11, she says...

Midway through the phone conversation with my wife, there’s a warning bell. The computer tells me there’s a new email. It’s from my manager. Two paragraphs; short sentences. Very to the point.

It reads: "I assume that you're going to be making up the time that you took off yesterday. Please keep in mind that changing your regular schedule and making up time (working on Sunday, etc.) should be the exception to the rule and not a consistent pattern of working."
"Meet me tomorrow at 11 so we can discuss this."
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