End Of The Season

Day 9: There may be a very few of you who will recognize this image from nine years ago. The circumstances have not improved. In fact, they have reached a new level on the Frustration Scale. You see, it is the end of the season, that time when all the paperwork held back by supervisors through the summer comes pouring in. It should have been sent to us long ago, but no, it comes in a flood. We (Kevin and I) are deluged with unsigned volunteer agreements and unreported hours, the backlog from the summer, and sometimes from previous years. It's always a rush, always coming right down to the wire to submit the statistics on which next year's budget is based, and no matter how hard we try to make the process go more smoothly, it seems to be bent on finding new ways to go awry.

I sat down last Saturday morning intending to put a sizeable dent in the pile of paperwork threatening to collapse my makeshift "desk." I'm working from home still, wedged into the kneehole of a poorly illuminated antique vanity amid a snakepit of extension cords. It's a decidedly uncomfortable arrangement, but it's the best I can do. As I said, I sat down to attack the paperwork, turned on the computer and...used the full complement of my father's tractor-starting words when I discovered it had locked me out. We tried several remedies, but nothing worked, so I had no choice but to deliver the offending object to Kevin so that he could work with our IT people to restore access. It took some effort on their part, but eventually, it seemed to be fixed. He brought it back to me along with another pile of paperwork (we're reaching critical mass rather quickly here), and this morning, I moved everything onto the kitchen table so I'd at least have better light. I turned the computer on and...I bet you can guess what happened. Or rather, what didn't happen. Three hours later, after deleting my government account and subsequently re-establishing it, I finally got logged in. I'm halfway down the stack, exhausted, nerve-wracked, and cross as an old bear. I think I can be forgiven for recycling a 9-year old photo for the occasion.