This is what it feels like

Today reminded me of the truly fragile nature of the human mind. At any second, and under the right conditions, any one of us could...just...snap. And we would be lost, adrift whatever we got lost in in the first place.

I'm sitting here watching a movie, halfway through a bottle of red wine. How did I get here, in this frame of mind? You be the judge.

Today was a weird shift for me - a mid. Due to the fact that we've been understaffed this week, it was the only shift in my department for the day. The drive was normal, nothing happened. Of course, when I got to work, walking through the parking lot, I was almost backed into by a woman driving a large SUV, who naturally wasn't looking behind her. It would be folly of me to expect otherwise.

Upon arriving I am notified of an odd shipment that arrived in another department, but that sounds like it should have been delivered to mine. I said I'd check it out. I clock in and check out my backstock, as is my habit. Lo and behold, a considerably large pallet of materials is placed directly in front of a shelving unit of mine, making my product completely and totally inaccessible. Fantastic.

The shipment that arrived was very obviously for me, but the other department started using it, thinking that it really had been meant for them, and they were just changing things up on a complete whim. Because that's how business works.

When I go to check my work email, I am notified of a sale that requires a substantial amount of a certain product tomorrow. However, upon investigating, I find out that the product in question isn't accessibly to me for another 6 days. Couldn't I have been notified of this a whole lot earlier, then we could make it worth something?

This has all happened in a half hour. At the time, I was thinking, "Am I losing my shit? Is this all really happening, or is it in my mind? Am I gonna wake up?" It was real.

On top of that, customers were being really needy and demanding, which did wonders for my frame of mind. Eventually, I go back to the office and someone asks me if there's anything wrong, because I have this bewildered, confused look on my face.
"Well, I was kind of angry before, but now I think I'm past that, and bordering on crazy. Ah, man, I'm fuckin' losin' my mind..."

Later on, near the end of my shift, which was spent dealing with the ramifications of the first half hour of my shift, I begin cleaning my equipment, which I notice is spraying water for no reason. So now I have to deal with this. I call the emergency maintenance who helps me fix it, and it works for a minute. And then it begins spraying water again. So now I'm dealing with customers, cleaning up my area and trying to fix my machine.
I try doing other things to my machine, which doesn't help. Now the machine is inoperable for probably the entire weekend, which makes things look really bad for me. At this point, I'm wondering, "Is Cronenberg running my life? Should I be pulling a gun out of my chest? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH ME TODAY?!" All this while still being convinced that reality is fading away from me, a joke, a punchline that you understand but makes you consider rather than laugh.

So, after leaving, getting stuck in traffic for 40 minutes on the way home and finally walking through the door, I've cracked a bottle of wine and put in a movie...and here I am. My frame of mind being brought from the brink of oblivion by something that sends the rest of you into it. Whatever works, I guess.

Whatever works.

The course of a short period of time

I've been living in Columbus for about a year now, and recently I've been reflecting on the course of events that occurred over the past year that have led to now. And it seems that more has happened within the last month and a half than has happened over the other ten and a half.

Over the last year I moved to this city looking for a job related to the degree I had just obtained, only to find that pursuit fruitless. I had found a job at the company I work for now, glad to be making a higher wage than I'd ever been paid before, let alone having a job at all. I also moved laterally and up slightly in the company, leaving the radius of my original job search slowly behind me, creeping away. This was aided by a resurgence in my pursuit of trying to find out if I really do want to teach. But no one will let me.

I also saw my brother obtain his second degree and then pursue a further degree he had a good chance to be a part of, but would ultimately be left without an answer for what seemed to be an eternity, a purgatory in northwest Ohio. He didn't get the chance to shine in the Sunshine State, because an irrelevant test told the administrators he wasn't qualified, though they had every other sign he would not succeed, but exceed.


Within the past month and a half I became engaged to a truly beautiful and amazing woman, and that woman has come into her own as a truly accomplished professional, earning her second degree in half as many years. I've never been so in love and I don't expect that to change, not ever.

Also in the recent past I saw a different perspective of a friend, someone I enjoy joking with, that revealed a deep sadness that reminded me of the truly fragile nature of the human psyche and the emotions that accompany it, and that I'll never forget.

Finally, as of the next few days, the last month and a half has brought about the death and subsequent burial of a family friend that died for a conflict he never knew the truth about.

I'm not trying to be a downer, I'm just attempting to figure out my part in all of it. I go to work, and I come home. I watch a ton of movies and I wonder if there's something else I should be doing.

Is there something else I should be doing?

Completely uncalled for

Apparently I provoke a lot of anger at work, without really even meaning to.

Here's the scene: in the back office there's a series of computers, each one meant for a different department. The offending ([unreasonably] offended?) party was sitting at his computer, and I went to sit down at my computer, seeing that there was a box in the way of where my legs would be, had I sat down. So I moved the box to the right, between my chair and the schmo, sat down and logged on. The guy was mad for some reason.

"Woah, woah, woah. Hold on there."
"What?"
"Isn't that Kathleen's box?"
"Yeah..........and?"
"That doesn't belong in my space."

I ignore that last comment and continue my typing. A few seconds later, Mr. Jackass grabs the box by one of its top flaps and yanks it backwards, sliding it quickly to the middle of the room, under the big table in the middle of the room.

Reasonably perplexed, I ask, "Was that really offending you?"
"Are you still talking?"
"Awesome. Way to deal with others."

Now, here's where I become a little proud of myself. Instead of asking him, "Hey, what the fuck's your goddamn problem," because there were other people in the room, I decided on another route.

I finished up my work, logged off the computer and went towards the box. I pulled it back, placed it exactly where it had offended him, and walked out of the room.

I don't know what it is about me, but for some reason I provoke angry retribution from other people, unknowing that I had trespassed some social rule in the first place.

Everyone's an expert

At work yesterday, an older man wearing a baseball cap adorned with an American flag approached my coffee and began telling a younger-looking woman, presumably his daughter, all about the different coffees, and about coffee in general. I came over and asked there was anything I could help them find, and the man regales me with his story.

"You see, I've worked for Nestle for 25 years, so I know coffee. I know coffee in and out."
"Oh, ok," I said, thinking to myself whether that was Maxwell House or Folgers (turns out it's neither, but I'll get to that).
He continues, "You've gotta blend your good beans here with some trash beans to give your coffee some heart." And before I could tell him everything that was wrong with that statement, he says, "that's a good American cup of coffee."
"I see," I reply, thinking that, if that's what an American cup is, I don't want to drink American coffee. So he blends a bunch of different coffees in his bag, regardless of the pricing differences, which I tell him is alright, and I mark the lowest price of what he got.
"Yeah, if you wanna drink Idi Amin's coffee, you've gotta throw some trash in there." At this point I'm thinking I'll have to ask one of my co-workers which country Idi Amin ruled, and if that particular nation was ever a coffee producing nation.

So he leaves, and I'm left processing everything that had just happened. I go over to one of my friends to ask about Idi Amin, and it turns out he ruled Uganda, which they all remembered because of the film The Last King of Scotland. And this morning I looked up which coffee company is owned by Nestle. It's Nescafe, which I should've seen coming. However, upon perusing the brands offerings, I notice a pattern, which is that all of Nescafe's coffees are all instant coffees, the lowest rung on the coffee ladder.

"I know coffee in and out."