It’s Friday and it’s snowing out. Been like this all day. It started with a freezing rain last night. I was blue but Juan wasn’t having it and came over to keep me company. We watched Ugly Betty, then Scrubs, followed by the new Andy Richter show, Andy Barker PI which was delightfully odd and sort of like watching a David Lynch sitcom. Then we watched The Office that I had recorded while we watched Ugly Betty. The Office was great as usual and Juan disclosed it was his favorite show. I am partial to Scrubs, but Andy Richter got my vote for favorite show even though it was only the first episode.

It was nice to hang out with Juan. He makes for good company and he gets all jazzy from time to time which is also nice. Unfortunately 11:00 came rolling around and I had to kick poor Juan out into the street in the rain. He didn’t seem to mind and anyway he understood that I needed to go to sleep for work today. I soon got horizontal and fell into a deep sleep. Deep enough for me to wake up at 3:00 thinking it was actually 6:00. I even made it to the bathroom before I realized how wrong I was.

I was soon fast asleep again only to wake up a few hours later. It was the right time this time I made sure of that. All night long I heard the sleet hitting the windows and it continued with a mixture of snow. That made for a slippery walk to work today. Yesterday President Naomi was squawking about how she might not make it in today because of all the snowfall was expected throughout the day. I had hoped she wasn’t going to make it in which made going to work that much easier. I rode the bus and it eventually filled up but no one sat next to me which was very cool. These 20 somethings are so blind sometimes.

I had enough time to go to Smiler’s on Fifth Avenue and treated myself to a bacon and egg sandwich. West Indian Tony was once again happy to see me and he always asks how Bill’s acting career is going. I told him a few weeks ago about Bill working on the play in Harlem and that turned into a fiasco but Tony didn’t know that. He said he was hoping to see Bill (known as ‘your Guy’ to Tony) at the Apollo one of these days. ‘Soon enough’, I said as I walked out the door after giving Tony a pound.

I walked around the block to the office where I was surprised to find the door locked. That meant I was the first one in. And me being the first one in meant that President Naomi was not going to be in today. That was more than fine with me. I unlocked the door and turned the lights on, started the machines and made some coffee. I had absolutely nothing to do today. The snow slowed everything down and not many candidates were scheduled to come in. I surfed the net most of the day, going as far as possible without straying into adult content territory.

I found out also that if I want insurance it will cost me almost $400.00 a month. Not cool. Must do something about that.

Thursday and it’s a gray day and I’m blue. Don’t know why really. Last night came home, spoke with Elaine my sister in law and she was stressed and depressed. I too am, stressed and depressed. The job is slowly driving me crazy. Today President Naomi and Wally both had some proof reading for me to do. That’s fine, it’s something I do well. But it was crunch time. I’ve been proofreading the website for about a month now, and sometimes I proof what I’ve proofed already. Today was more of the same but also somewhat different. Today they joined forces.

They both had a section that they wanted proofed with their ideas implemented. Fine. If I had some quiet time to do it it would be not much of a problem, but no, it wasn’t to be that way. I had ringing phones, Naomi had unannounced guests, and of course there were applicants. No make that candidates, to fill out papers while they waited for their counselor to interview them. So proofreading took longer than it should have because each time I was distracted I would lose my place and get more frustrated. And my frustration showed on my face.

It was afternoon when I thought I had everything figured out. I combined both of Naomi and Wally’s suggestions and printed them out, italicizing and highlighting additions and edits. They are also terrible with grammar and spelling and overly fond of the dreaded semicolon. Not like me. In 596 entries for this blog (and that count is from the ‘official’ johnozed website itself) I have never used a semicolon. That’s because the night I met Lewis Lapham, Kurt Vonnegut who spoke before Lewis made a comment about how the semicolon is overused. I made a mental note that I still consult to this day.

I sent both Naomi and Wally emails with the work I proofread attached and also printed out hard copies. Wally had no problem understanding what I had done but Naomi couldn’t grasp it. I had to print out my notes and rough drafts of the documents. Then I had to walk her through it. Apparently it wasn’t that good of an idea to merge both of their suggestions into one document. Too complicated. Well I had too many distractions and there were a couple of pages out of order. It’s been like this with Naomi a lot lately.

She would ask me to scan something and ‘advise’ which is office talk for ‘tell me when it’s ready’. She would send me various invoices for scanning & some were duplicates but I would scan everything and label them in an online folder in the company’s database. I’d put the date, the name of the invoice on the folder and she could never find it, and she gets grumpy especially when she would insist I didn’t do as she asked and I would insist that I did what was asked. From what I heard that’s a no no. I’m supposed to stand there and let her make me feel like an idiot because she can’t see what is in front of her.

I sent her all the notes and rough drafts and showed her what she wanted to see and that shut her up though I’m sure it’s going to go on my review. I’m starting to see why quite a few people just up and left this job.

Being stuck on the bus for an hour this morning didn’t help matters either.