#288 - Startled Awake

I was startled out of a sound sleep by a co-worker who thought it might be a good idea to ask me a question at seven forty-five in the morning.

As much as I admire the dedication to work, it was still a bit early to be contacting fellow employees, particularly; if there wasn’t an emergency of any kind. After cursing her name in my head a few times, I constructed a response and promptly went back to bed.

I was at my desk before nine and as soon as I sat down, my messages started lighting up the screen. My Teams app binged merrily like it was bring played by a pinball wizard. Everyone had a thought or a question for me this morning, which came as no surprise. With our supervisor away on vacation, it fell to me to steer the ship. And that meant answering machine gun questions for the first two hours of the day.

All this was something I was used to, as I once supervised shows for years until all the work ran out and the industry went a bit flat. But it is like being slapped in the face. No caffeine is really needed.

Having said that, I made myself a cortado with the new espresso cups I found in Parry Sound. It was the first cortado I’d had since leaving for the weekend and I enjoyed every sip of it while I inspected my garden. But a cup of espresso doesn’t last for very long, and soon the garden tour was done, and I was back upstairs chasing things down. Hunting for answers and trying to solve riddles is one of the job requirements of a Background Paint Supervisor.

I assigned some work and contacted any departments that needed something from me or that I needed something from. Then it was on to a quick meeting with my seven forty-five messenger to organize ourselves before the crew meeting and to divvy up some tasks.

Before I knew it noon had arrived and passed. The clock said twelve twenty and we hadn’t taken our walk yet and with a meeting scheduled for one, it seemed like a walk wasn’t in the cards. We decided to take a short walk anyways and just keep one eye on the clock.

Opening the door, the Racoon Removal guys, were in the driveway to remove the one-way door and seal up the soffit for good. It was a hot day to be working outside.

We returned in time to make the meeting and soon after the removal guys packed up and left. The meeting was shorter than usual as there wasn’t much to talk about. The crew decided that I looked like one of the guys from the band Linkin Park. I had to Google it to see what they were talking about, and sure enough there were some similarities.

After the meeting I did more approvals and searching for things. I had some organizing to do and more work to assign out. I called for a few revisions to some backgrounds and then near the end of the day, our Art director contacted me to say she had approved a bunch of paintings. That meant I could start the rendering process and change all the status to Art Director Approved.

And there is nothing more satisfying to a BG Paint Supervisor than getting paintings past that threshold.

I ended the day feeling good about the amount of work we accomplished. I’d prefer my supervisor came back from vacation to things a normal instead of leaving her a dumpster fire.

After work I sat in the back for a while and enjoyed being outside. Robyn and I then chopped up some vegetables before she left to so her extra job. I roasted the veg and then did some chicken thighs on a baking sheet. It wasn’t a fancy dinner, but it ended up being delicious and healthy.

Kiddo #2 decided we needed to purge the fridge seeing as it was garbage day tomorrow. We must have thrown out three garbage bags full of things from the fridge and freezer. The fridge is basically empty now. I guess we really did need a cleanout.

A new episode of House of Dragons was available for us to watch, so we cuddled happily on the bed and watched. The events of the week finally catching up to us.

We squeezed in one more show, an episode of From, before Robyn was ready for bed and I needed to start some writing.

I’m behind on my word count. The weekend trip to the cottage wasn’t as productive from a writing perspective as I was hoping it would have been. It’s just past midnight and I am heading to bed. My aim is to get up an hour early and get some writing done before my day gets crazy, but my track record for getting up is not a good one.

But I’m all out of energy for tonight.

Until tomorrow.