There is nothing special in this rant. I'm just having a bad day, and I need to bitch about it in some kind of forum. That being said, lets begin.
I woke up this morning and cast a bleary-eyed gaze upon my clock. A satisfied grin crawled across my face as I realized that I still had 4 hours left to sleep. It was one of the most satisfying feelings I have ever felt. Recently, I've been prone to getting bed late and getting no more than 4 hours of sleep per night. It was nice to actually have a decent amount of sleeping time left. Then it dawned on me: Recently, I've been prone to getting bed late and getting no more than 4 hours of sleep per night. Last night was no exception. I finally crawled into my bed after taking my girlfriend home under the cover of a thunderstorm only 3 hours before I had to get up for work. My heart sank as I realized that the numbers giving hope to the idea that I might be able to sleep for a little longer were blinking instead of static. The ****ing power had gone out. I picked up my phone and flipped it open to realize that, oh wonder of wonders, I had to get up, dressed and out the door in... five minutes ago.
Now, generally when something like this happens to me, my body will surge me with adrenaline as a friendly way of reassuring me. "Don't worry, Aura (it calls me by my board name for some god-unknown reason), we can do it if we work together!" it says in a voice that rivals most childrens' show hosts for chipperness and reassurance. This morning, my body chose Harvey Fierstein to take its tone from. "You're on your own, bubala." My sleepy eyes searched my room for my shoes to no avail. I went out into the living room, and finally found some sandals. Since yesterday WAS laundry day, ("laundry day" does not actually imply that I got any laundry done, mind you) I was wearing an old ratty t-shirt, and a rattier pair of shorts. Some people can pull off shorts. To hell with those people, I can't. I stumble up the steps in my house to the kitchen and through the kitchen out into the garage.
"**** the world." I thought as I opened the garage door. The open garage door gave a glimpse at the fact that the world was pretty effectively saying, "**** you, too, irishman." Damn the racist world. Its one of those rainy days that isnt at least cheery in the fact that its raining and perhaps the plants need some nourishment. I've always liked plants, and could bring myself to like the rain if they were enjoying it. They seemed just as fed up with it as I was. "**** you," said a bitter old dogwood as a pulled out of my driveway and headed to my job.
If you've read my job-rants before, you might think this is where the meat of my story begins. If you've not read my job-rants, let me update you. I test helmets. I have my own office. My job description basically puts me in a building that is 20 minutes away from any of my bosses, none of whome check in on me. I have lots of really expensive equipment around me all the time. I get paid to strap helmets to said really expensive equipment and break said helmets. Helmets are, in themselves, very expensive equipment. So, in effect, my job is to break expensive stuff. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
Its not. If you could roll all the hatred in the South up into a tiny little ball and pay someone to eat that ball, pass it, and eat it again, all day long, it still wouldnt suck worse than this job. I don't know why it is, I think my office is just a cosmic void for happiness.
Yesterday, the NOCSAE system broke...again... this time, instead of spitting out terrible readings, it was giving me great values... up until the point where, inexplicably, one of its bolts sheared itself off perfectly. The only explanation for this is that the system just hates me enough to break itself. Normally, for a machine, this would be decently implausible. However, with this machine, I've been through a lot. Its caused me to show my ass to my boss, unintentionally. I hate it, so much.
I drove to my boss's office to check in with him and explain that the NOCSAE system was "eating my ass" again. Fortunately, there's still plenty left to be done over at my lab, so I headed over here, with an intense dread permeating my heart. I rode the elevator up with a countenance on my face much like that of a cat at the vet getting his anal glands expressed - uncomfortable, discontented, but wise enough to accept the inevitability of the finger lodged deep in his ass.
I came into my office, sat down, and opened up the rant hall.
Is this my best rant? Of course not. But it is, far and away, the most necessary one I've ever written. Please, feel free to share your "bad day" stories here. Perhaps if I know that other people are suffering, too, it will bring me some small degree of solice.
Dare you get me started? Maybe not that bad of a day, but I still feel like crap.
So there's this plane crash in a Fort Collins neighborhood (three people died, small plane). I go to cover it (I am a reporter for a newspaper in Colorado). I get there and the police have the scene marked off. I start walking toward it, figuring if they haven't told me no yet, then I can go on up. Heck I see a newspaper in there already so I figure it's ok.
"Hey ma'am you have to get back by the cones okay?"
I flash my press badge.
"That's great, but you have to get by the cones."
I start telling him if he's going to let one paper in, he has to let all the media in. No playing favorites! Five minutes later, he grabs the other newspaper (and a camera that had finagled their way in) out of there.
In this time, my photographer got to the scene. She was frantic, afraid of losing her job if she didn't get a good photo. We have our cell phones on, and she runs off. Meanwhile I am talking to people about the crash, and find a lot of good eyewitness accounts.
So she comes back when I call her. Apparently she and two teenage girls were playing Charlie's Angels, hopping 6 foot fences to get herself a marginally good shot. Poor girl, I could see the fear on her face.
So I keep getting calls from the office (editors and another reporter are helping with some background that I cannot find from the scene, like the names of the crash victims). One is from my Editor (the one directly above me). I can't hear a damn thing she said. I yelled into the phone "Yeah I am here, we are trying to get (our photog) a good shot. I can't hear you, bye!"
So a couple hours later, we are finally allowed closer to the plane than 300 yards.... she gets her shot, and we leave. I had gotten a call with potential names of the victims and I figure, what the hell, I can go to the airport and talk to people there. Maybe someone knows the pilot. I had previously talked to someone FROM the airport, but didn't know the people who were in the plane. He had told me going to the airport might pan out.
I get to the airport (a wide spot in the road as airports go) and walk in. The mood is very somber (duh) and I approach the situation sensitively. I tell them I am from the paper, and if anyone knew the guys who were in the plane, and if they wanted to talk about what great people they were etc. I hand my notebook to a guy who looked like he was interested. The notebook had three names on it, of the people we think died.
Keep in mind this is probably the hardest part of my job. I HATE talking to people after a loved one has died. It is really the worst thing. But you have to as a journalist. And there are ways to approach it sensitively.
So I am standing there, and this other guy starts yelling.
"All you are is a bunch of assholes! You're a bunch of blood-sucking ticks."
I try to laugh it off and deescalate the situation, "Yeah, I've been called that before, ha ha." But the guy walks right up to me.
The guy GRABS MY ARM and manhandles me to the door. I kinda fall back on the door and trip on the threshhold. On my ass I fell. I wasn't really hurt, more of a pride thing I guess... The guy with my notebook came to help me up and handed my notebook back, and said, "yes," to the names I imagine.
So I get back to the office, trying not to act upset, when a night editor asks me how it was. I am the type of person who, when someone asks me how my day is, I don't just say fine. I try to give a short synopsis of how my day really is. So, I burst into tears and start babbling about what happened at the airport. They were pissed and wanted to file charges. But the damn airport is so dark, I couldn't ID anyone there anyway.
And to top it off, my editor, the one who called me on the phone, is pissed at me for yelling at her and saying I should have listened to her. Yeah duh! If my phone didn't sucked any harder I would be using a tin can with strings.
Oh, and I had to come in on both of my days off (I am thinking they are going to make me take two seperate days off this week, not together of course). Weekends do not exist for me.
AND to top it all off, a really great guy in the community died in a triathlon. I met him a few times and was touched by how much he cared about other people. He was a doctor, and was running for a state representatives seat as an unaffiliated candidate. :( Why can't the jerks die in horrible tragic accidents?
Sorry, not as entertaining as Aura. I am paranoid that my phone episode is going to show up on my annual review. WTF. I told her my phone sucked and she just flew past it like I never even said it. I love my job and don't want people pissed at me. And I SUCK at kissing up to people. I loathe it. It's freaking horrible.
Like always, Aura, well-written rant. Title is the best, by far. I have no words of encouragement, aside that these should be compiled at some point. Btw, if it'll make you feel any better, I could kill that vituperative dogwood...and a puppy. Yes, a dogwood and a puppy. Say the word and they're both gone. Maybe that suffering will be enough to brighten your mood.
That was a great pilot to not take out a house or two.
Yes it was the one that made national news. The guy was in a flat spin. He couldn't control the way he fell. It was just pure luck that he missed a house, or a van full of old people and kids (literally not 20 feet from the crash site, the van that later exploded).
This letter is regaurding your writer who goes by the name of Aura. It has come to our attention that his latest work entitled "Aura's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day", did not meet up to his usual standards of wonderfully written and witty rants. In fact, it has been leaked that he wrote the rant just for money for his "Habit"(which im told by a very reliable source is a substance called food and/or water). Please inform Aura that if his rants do not continue to be of the utmost rantitude and quality, he will be forced to rant on another board...im told is Graffe's, but I cant guarentee that.
