Lately I’ve been having dreamless sleeps. I lay back on the bed, blink and suddenly the room is filled with the morning’s sunshine. I groggily pick myself up from the mattress, take a huge drag on a cigarette and wonder why the hell I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all? It takes a rather hefty infusion of brewed coffee to finally wake me up, at which point my heart is now palpitating wildly and I ditch the cigarette so as not to induce the morning’s heart attack.
One day, I finally got myself to google the situation, turns out I may be “stressed out”. Crap, exactly what I needed to hear. Just when I’ve been slacking off at work in preparation for the holidays, I find myself a step closer to being totally dysfunctional.
There are ways to avoid the impending breakdown, vitamins, regular exercise and the proper diet usually work, I’m told. Thought about it and found myself coming up with all sorts of excuses, good luck to myself, I guess. The best (read: most realistic and feasible) solution to the problem is to slack off a bit more, heck, a LOT more. A whole afternoon of mindless television and/or computer games should do the trick. So this weekend I plan to rerun the entire two seasons of “Rome”, with a beer in my hand and a slice of pizza in the other. Yes, in my book, this is how the day after Christmas should be spent.
*****
I fired a third of the people I manage this week. A case of not living up to expectations. Before you report me to the authorities for unfair labor practices, let me clarify that “a third” represents just one of the three person team that I manage. Yeah, I know it’s quite pathetic to be called a “manager” when you’ve got only three people under you, but hey, it is what it is.
At first, I thought I’d never be able to bring up the topic. After all, this is my first time to assume the role of hatchet-man. We took our seats in the conference room and I brought up her stats… well, it’s definitely easier when you’ve got an unsatisfactory evaluation report to back you up. No there was no crying, no pictures of a worthless husband and young children to feed, no promises of doing better given another chance, not even an attempt to seduce me to save her job. She just nodded and waited for the words to formalize the deed. It wasn’t as tragic as I expected it to be, boring. Frankly, I wanted to fire the other two, just to see if the result would be just as painless as the first one. No, I didn’t, just a passing thought.
It is probably noteworthy that all this happens the week of Christmas. Well, I guess there really is no good time to fire someone, but wouldn't it be better if it wasn't Christmas? The office grapevine is all of a sudden murmuring something very much sounding like "Cold heartless Jackass", and so far I've been topping the survey on who best fits the title of "Scrooge of the Year". Shame on me!
*****
So the holiday break begins, and I’m really tired from all the rush. I spent the last two days buying gifts for the staff and bosses, then ended up spending the whole night and the early morning packing and wrapping all those gifts. After I finished the pack and wrap, I was mortified to find out I didn’t have enough for everyone and there was no more time to get additional gifts. I started prioritizing and eliminating names off my Christmas list. Just barely made it work.
Lo and behold, by the time I got to the office I soon discovered there were a couple of people I forgot, I mean, I forgot that they even existed. Unfortunate that these were bosses not to be passed over come gift-giving. I had to choose whose gifts I was to give away to them. Luckily, two people took their leaves early, hence missed out on getting gifts from me. Woohoo!
*****
And as you giveth, so shall you receiveth… well, that wasn’t to be. Out of the 32 gifts that I painstakingly bought, lugged, packed and wrapped over those two days, I got three in return. I know I’m not supposed to expect anything whenever I gave a gift, but 3 out of 32? Man that’s pretty pathetic. I’m kinda glad I didn’t run out of the house to get last minute gifts for the 46 other people who didn’t get a gift from me, that would have been somewhat of an all-time low. Wonder if firing someone the week of Christmas had something to do with it?
Note to self: Don't sleep commando, I doubt the ghost of Christmas present would let me suit up before dragging me to Tiny Tim's.
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