Friday, August 05, 2005

netherworld


My razor's edge path teeters between an ennui bordering on the comatose and a hairtrigger so hypersensitive the least likely thing is liable to detonate it. My eye-to-hand coordination is failing and I have an odd pain in my shoulder blade, probably some kind of repetitive syndrome from constant and continuous mousing. The numbness in my butt from sitting nowbrefuses to dissipate with short treks up and down the hallways and only disappears after my nightly nature walk when it's time to go home and go to sleep.

Morale picked up a few days ago when our snack stash was replenished. What started as a one-time splurge years ago has become part of the annual summer budget. Before the avalanche of work hits, each person lists their favorite snacks, which is developed into a shopping list from which we acquire many cases of soft drinks and several shopping cartfulls of junkfood purchased from Sam's Club. These are stacked neatly in one of our small offices and employees can freely choose from the communal supply. Someone said the bosses must've figured out we grumble less when we're fat. We are like toddlers who are tired and cranky because we missed our nap but can be temporarily distracted by ice cream. The most popular snacks are the "drumstick" ice cream cones dipped in chocolate and topped with nuts. As the word is whispered along the way (so our customer won't notice) a path between our cubicles and the refrigerator in the customer's area becomes a very active bee line.

But ice cream is quickly eaten and we are left with the realization that we've only got this new snack stash because there are still hard days ahead in our schedule. Next week is supposed to be harder than this week was.

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