Ready for This Day to Be Over

I’m ready for today to be over with. The public program I have today has been one of the most frustrating I’ve ever done. It feels like one disaster after another.

It started with the dates. I couldn’t get anyone to settle on them soon enough for the promotional materials, so they barely got out on time. My two speakers were arranged by someone outside the museum, and they’ve hardly communicated with me. The caterers have been equally silent—though, at this point, I’ve come to expect that kind of incompetence from them.

Then the government shutdown forced one of my speakers to cancel, and my remaining speaker emailed just yesterday to ask what he should talk about. If he’d communicated like most speakers do, this would have been settled weeks ago. To make matters worse, the VIP who was supposed to introduce him backed out at the last minute because something “more important” came up.

And then there are my coworkers. Some of the laziest, most self-centered individuals I’ve ever worked with. When I ask for help, even with the smallest tasks, I’m met with bad attitudes or outright refusals. Yet they’re the ones who want to change parts of my job so I’ll end up doing parts of theirs. That’s not going to happen.

One of them even took a work-from-home day today, despite knowing there’s an event. Under my previous boss, that was never allowed—you couldn’t take a remote day on an event day. But apparently, that rule doesn’t apply anymore. I give up my own work-from-home days all the time to make things run smoothly, but when she’s asked to be flexible, she refuses.

I am tired. I am anxious. I just want this day to be over with. I’m sick and tired—literally and figuratively—of everything. I just want this disaster to end. I fear today is going to be an embarrassment.

Oh, and of course it’s raining. Bad weather always means a smaller crowd. I just hope people show up, and that we have food to serve them.

At this point, if anything goes right today, I’ll count it as a victory.