Orange is a good colour

The week has not been a grand one so far. I woke up yesterday morning feeling like grandma once again. A gift of our mock-grading the previous day, along with the two orange stripes to add to my belt, signifying I'm now a very unofficial orange belt.

I needed to get into the office post-haste which meant joining the rush hour traffic I usually manage to avoid. Having left a full half hour early I made it in a whole fifteen minutes early to hand Darnell the proofs that I'd spent three hours of my Sunday night organising and checking.

Liz, the oft-mentioned DTP operator, had managed to get a stomach bug on top of all the other illnesses that have plagued her for the last few nightmarish weeks of work-load hell. No-one realised this, bar presumably her, and despite it being her birthday on Saturday her children didn't come to visit her. This meant that the first time anyone knew anything was when my bosses panicked at her uncharacteristic lack of communication and the fact that she hadn't come into the office to fetch the work she'd said she would.

They tried every means of contacting her, phone, family and friends to no avail and eventually tracked down her home address and went round. With no response at the door, but her car in the garage, they called emergency services and broke into her house to find her so ill that she'd been unconscious for a substantial while and she was rushed to the nearest ICU where she remains, last I heard, conscious but too dehydrated and weakened to leave.

This meant the ball has dropped somewhat, our reports are delayed and freelancers have been called in a last ditch attempt to plug the leaking dyke - however much of the pressure has also been landed squarely on my shoulders. Having come down with an ill-timed and total unforeshadowed cold on Saturday morning I have not been in the best of moods or states to face the trails of the last few days. Especially as my beloved Orange Avenger that is Cal-C-Vita hasn't been able to do much more than mitigate my cold to the sorry snuffling stage of things.

Hence I can't believe it's only Tuesday!

A short-yet-sweet comment from a long lost friend and my belated discovery that the CLAWsWiki is back up, prompting a dip into my old blog archives has added an air of sureality to this fledgling week only held in check by the fact that I've not been adding painkillers to my sinus meds.

All I can say is: Can I have back whatever I was on when I wrote those early blogs, 'cause it looks like it must have been the good stuff?

They want what!?!

Have I mentioned I hate clients?

I probably have, plus as it's one of the oft lamented pitfalls of being a designer I usually don't feel the need to reiterate it on a constant basis.

I've been designing yet another cover for yet another annual report and I included on it a lovely quote by some antique holy guy, 15th century monk or the like, who had to say; "The path to greatness is along with others". Lovely, inspiring, and totally appropriate since their theme is Teamwork.

I didn't credit the quote since Patricia said it wasn't necessary. Now today I finally get the client's input back and they've gone and decided that they're better copywriters than, well, us and/or the dead guy and have crossed out 'path' and written in 'strategy' and 'others' is edited to 'people'. Just to push the point home that they're a small-minded group of corporate wankers incapable of accepting anything with even a slightly metaphorical leaning.

Apparently they tore the design of Brian, a mind-bogglingly brilliant freelance designer we occasionally use when Darnell thinks that his current designer is too busy or insufficiently talented, into itty little bits since he used a lot of dynamic red and orange arrows to imply movement and flow (they deal with supply chains and fleet financing i.e. getting stuff places) as they though the share holders might believe that this meant that they'd actually had a good year! Which they hadn't, it has only been an average year. Heavens forbid!

Anyway this means the poetic quote has been mutilated to read "The strategy to greatness is along with people." Deep inside my soul howls in agony. I mean is that even English?

Bloody hell!

Two of our client are late with the copy for their annual reports and Liz, the DTP operator is sick! This means that work will need to be done this weekend. Fair enough, my bosses say they're getting a freelancer in to support Liz, but apparently I will need to come in too.

Liz and the freelancer will both get paid overtime rates for this extra work, I on the other hand will get f'all, except the pleasure of 'doing my duty'. Do I have a right to utterly livid over this? 'cos I am. I'm sorry, it's not my fault the client aren't following schedule, or that Liz is 'understaffed', she's our supplier and she should sort it out herself. I know that deadlines are important, but I don't see why I should be dragged into it, for little too no reward.

Sigh, I need to vent. My mood is not helped by the fact that I was in the office till quarter to ten last night. Partially my fault for being unable to focus on Wednesday.

I also have a suspicion that my body is struggling to fight off the germs from Liz and Darnell - or possibly Tony, since he was feeling a little down on Wednesday.

Angry angry angry.

I'm not having a good side of the bed month so far.

Plus I want my contract and I want more f'ing money!!!

I also want to go watch Freshly Ground at the Bassline tonight, but at a hundred bucks a ticket I'm not taking Tony who'd hate it, and I don't have anyone else to subsitute him for. :(

I wish I had a tail, just so I could twitch it right now. Tapping an eraser on my notepad just doesn't have the same effect, no matter how agressively I do it.

Ooooh, and my insurance are wankers, I told them I've moved to Joburg and they've doubled my premiums. I'm sorry there's no way in hell I should be paying just short of half a grand a month for a car that's almost a decade old and worth around 30k! You've got to be shitting me!

Now if I can focus long enough to finish my current work I'm going to start getting competitors insurance quotes.

Grrr.

Assorted update

Ugh. It's a Friday afternoon, and I've been left with a little work, but nothing that I'm in the mood for. Requires too much conceptual thinking, and I'm not feeling particularly focused or creative.

I've noticed that Gmail keeps crashing Safari... Might have to get Mozilla, but I have no idea if Gmail even supports Mozilla on the Mac. Will research.

Also finally getting my arse in gear to find accommodation for Tony and Katie's wedding. All fine and well being please as punch to be going, but if I can't find a bed for the nights there's not a lot of point.

Would also rather like to visit Cape Town later next month, but two holidays in two months is a little expensive on the pocket and the leave quota - plus my company will have a hissy fit if I leave them hanging too much. It's not as if I've got a co-worker to shoulder things onto, so without me either output grinds to a halt or they need to get a freelancer in for a week.

Life has been quiet, and work hasn't. Between overtime, hobbies and the odd bit of freelance work I've had little free time, so have been spending most the weekends doing something quiet with Tony. I'm usually too flat exhausted on Fridays to even think of going out.

We have managed to devour the entire of Firefly over the space of the long weekend as I wanted to watch them before watching Serenity, and Tony was happy to see them again. I can see, to some extent, what the fuss is about, but a large portion I believe is due to the series having become a martyr. Even so, deeply cool, and deeply sad we didn't get to see Josh weave another of the complex plot tapestries he proved himself so capable of with Buffy.