Murphy is a monster

Last week Murphy wreaked havoc on my health, work and life.

We live by Murphy's Law at the newspaper, because everything that can go wrong in one day usually does.

Last Monday was like any other Monday: just crappy. Our lovely Great Plains carrier was having problems once again, so email, Internet and phone service was sporadic. And Monday is when most of our newspaper content arrives...via email. Super.


I still haven't found balance with all the responsibility I have while my co-worker Violet is out on maternity leave. Editing all the photos and handling email traffic while trying to typeset and design pages - oh and here's an ad to design and you screwed up this jobwork - is not a smooth process. And by the end of the day (6 p.m.) when I'm trying to make progress on my page layouts, I feel as though I accomplished nothing all day, even though I only took a 10-minute lunch break.

We somehow managed to get the paper done around our usual Tuesday noon deadline. The rest of the week, I had sports posters, ads, business cards, envelopes and any other kind of job work possible. Add on tons of family issues and trauma and the sudden death of one of my WSC professors, and I was ready to crawl under my covers and not come out. Sadly I missed his service because of another work obligation, but I was able to send in a memory for his family.

Then it was Friday, and I finally felt on task and prepared for Monday. Did ad tearsheets from the last two weeks and even had a few stories on one of the town pages. It was the best Friday in five weeks.

Then came today. Murphy was, in fact, not kicked to the curb.

Long story short, after photos went missing, a co-worker's family death and typical Monday madness, Marilyn and I were both at the office after 7 p.m. And I'll probably be back around 6:30 a.m. tomorrow to make sure we're on task. (Not whining, just venting.)

Here's to dark under-eye circles, a second glass of wine and a happily purring kitty keeping the bed warm for me, if I ever get to use it. Violet, please come back to work soon. *Cheers*