I find the month of June 2010 guilty of the following:
- One count of my partner who does all the work I don’t want to do being on vacation for a month, leaving me with twice the work to do and the only person at work I can have a real conversation with gone.
- One count of a staff member just not showing up any more leaving us shorthanded by one for the duration of the month.
- One count of a staff member injuring herself with a box cutter leaving us shorthanded by another one for the duration of the month.
- Two counts of staff members losing family members causing us to be further shorthanded, in one case for a week and in the other for the duration of the month.
- Four counts of machinery literally breaking.
- Three counts of my supposed second in command leaving early without letting me know and leaving me with extra work that I had to rush through so I could be done in time to catch my ride.
- Two counts of my supposed second in command calling in to say he won’t be coming to work for reasons deemed suspicious.
- One count of me not getting done in time to catch my ride.
- One count of the paper being delayed hours to wait for the results of a hockey game. (Fact: Anyone who cared about that game and for some reason hadn’t watched it on television or caught the results on the news or on the Internet or from friends should really just not bother)
- Untold counts of me spending hours trying to get to sleep but unable because of heat or noise from outside.
- Eight counts of me finally being asleep and then being awakened by some external stimuli (In one case it was a cannon salute for the Queen. Am I the only one who thinks maybe she’s been around the world enough that a cannon salute isn’t going to impress her much?)
- One count of being called into work when I had already been awake for twenty-one hours.
- Three counts of me crashing an sleeping for ten or more hours at a time, eating up an entire day of time spent not working.
- Two counts of having to postpone Father’s Day dinner because of work.
- Two counts of having to cancel blood donation appointments because of work.
- Three counts of having to turn down Hanging Out With Friends time because of work.
- One count of ruining a shirt on a jagged metal bit at work.
- Two counts of ruining pants beyond the point of wearability (and for me that point means they are quite damaged.
- One count of me injuring my finger in such a way that blood came out from under the fingernail.
- One count of a long scratch on the back of my neck from the corner of a machine I was reaching under.
- One count of not having access to the Internet on my only day off during one week.
- One count of the twenty-four hour gas station I used to stop for juice when I had to walk from work apparently not being open twenty-four hours any more.
- One count of locking myself out of my apartment.
- One count of the truck I was in nearly being hit by a drunk driver (or if not drunk, just a very bad driver).
- At least three counts of papercuts (those are just the ones that occurred after I decided to keep a list of annoyances).
- One count of being a month with so many annoyances I decided to keep a list.
Now, I fully admit that the vast majority of these are quite minor and several were obviously much worse for other people than me, but the fact it was all condensed into one four-week span really made June 2010 a month that I will not miss in the least. It joins the year 2006 in Times PDR Mostly Didn’t Enjoy. But hey, it is all over now.
Damn I think June deserves the chair. Or maybe pecked to death by penguins.