Wednesday 28 January 2009

Bad Work Day

I spent a horrible day at work today. I made the erroneous decision of spending the night at the office to clear up the back-log of paper work that'd been accumulating on me for almost a week now, and then I spent the whole of today behaving like a fish out of water. Highly embarassing, I tell you. Problem was, the idea didn't seem so erroneous when I was thinking it - and why should it? There was internet access and steady power (something I never have in my house), plus there was a shower in the tool yard, so I could clean up early in the morning.

Everthing went easy peasy, and I cleared my table. Even did some extra work online on my blogsites and FX account. And then morning came and another - today - came. I just wasn't prepared for it. I was stressed out with staying awake all night (I did grab some winks that night, but it just couldn't substitute a warm, cozy bed). My head felt two sizes bigger; my boss' voice sounded louder than usual - to me anyway; and my colleagues seemed to have decided that today would be World Screaming Day. Coffee was no good, in fact it made everything worse. Then around 2p.m, I acted out the grande finale: I nodded off while standing and taking notes on a job. Luckily, my supervisor saw me just after I jerked awake. After that, I quietly went to HR and complained of "general debility". They let me off - thank God!

Sunday 25 January 2009

Funny Pain - a poem


He came from the west
Blue-eyed and bright-eyed,
Like the others before him
Quite grown-up, yet so young.
He was by our indifference mystified
And our levity stumped;
We only ‘amened’ his libations
– What could it hurt?

Confounded at last
And befuddled, he asks:
“Why do ye suffer so, and still
“Smile so?”
But our grins just stretch wider
Belying our bleeding souls
For having aged in our cribs
We are young, yet oh so old.

“Look-ee here,” we say,
“Look, behold the slums and cities
This here land you see
Is the land of Funny Pain.
Our first-borns eat their shares
And ours, too, then speak glib
Refined tongue-in-cheek
While we, the children of lesser gods
Swallow bitter spittle, and
Guffaw in misery.”