That kind of day
The morning went pretty well. Had a useful and productive meeting, ironed out some disagreements over a document I'm working on.
But after that it went downhill.
It was the kind of day where I'd skipped breakfast, so I went to lunch earlier than usual and hit the lunch rush. So the cafeteria was crowded, so I was tense, but I figured I would just make myself a peanut-butter sandwich and skedaddle. So I got two slices of bread out of the bin and put them on my plate, which was on my tray on the counter nearby, and closed the bin, and a guy was coming the other way so I stood back out of his way instead of pushing past him, and as he squeezed by his backpack hit my tray and knocked it and the plate and the bread to the floor.
(I should note that the cafeteria workers were efficient and nice and got it cleaned up quickly, and the guy was very apologetic, and I did subsequently manage to make and eat a sandwich. But I nonetheless didn't cope very well.)
It was the kind of day when I left work around 9 p.m., tired and frustrated, and saw that they'd closed the big garage doors, so I decided to leave by the small bike/pedestrian door. And when I got outside I discovered that the door wouldn't close properly. So I opened the cabinet labeled something like "security telephone" and picked up the phone, and it connected me to the main corporate phone number, as if I were a customer, complete with phone tree asking me which division of the company I wanted to contact. I pressed zero, and it told me we were outside normal business hours. I slammed down the phone and went back inside and used the emergency call box to call Security. (Fortunately, they were nice about it.)
In between lunch and leaving, it was the kind of day where, despite fourteen years in this industry and several years of professional computer work of various kinds before that, I felt like a total novice. The engineers I was talking with treated me like a beginner, and I almost deserved it for the beginner mistakes I was making (and had made). Incredibly frustrating and fairly distressing.
But I did get some useful work done this evening, and then I came home and had a nice phone chat with Lola, and now I'm going to sleep, and tomorrow will be another day. Or so I hope. If it's not, I will be unhappy.