Worry Wench

Had a bad day yesterday due to lack of sleep.  Normally, I can function pretty well on about 6 hours  with only a few minor mood swings which I perceive as being tolerable by others, but when the sleep is reduced to 4 hours.... WATCH OUT WORLD...PISSED WOMAN APPROACHING!

Reason for deprivation? I woke up at 4:15 naturally and fully intended to go back to sleep (until the time when my alarm would inform me of the impending doom of a new workday) but instead my brain decided to hijack my peace.  The dominant thought... "Did I screw up the budget yesterday?"

In the room where I am 'cubed' at work there are a few people who generally come to me for advice for voucher claims and for budget transfers from month to month and expense code to expense code.  Generally I am all good about helping them out of their predicaments and it is rather eazy-peezy.  But this time, due to the jet lag (although I will deny that I am affected by it as badly as others are) and trying to get my brain out of vacation mode, I was in the midst of a 4:00 AM worryfest concerning if I had royally screwed up budget requests for 2 people due to an overseen technicality.

I would tell myself, "Its fine, you can reverse what you did yesterday and make it all better today when you go in.  Just call accounting and have them fix it IF there is a problem with the budget month." 

Then the 'Worry Wench" residing in the evil depths of my cranium would respond with "Oh no, you weren't careful enough yesterday and they can't reverse the problem because the system is strict.  You just lost $3,000 budget."

I return again to address the wench "Regardless of if you are right or not, I can't do anything about it at 4 in the morning!"

She would then smartly reply "True, you can't do anything now, but imagine every detail of the crap you have to go through explaining to those people you helped... who TRUSTED you to advise them....that you screwed it all up for them!"

I thus lay there in a stressed out stoop imagining the pending doom at work IF IF IF there is a problem that I wasn't able to foresee.  Two hours pass by and no sleep, just closed eyes and a noticeably dismal facial expression imprinted on my face to add that much more joy to the day.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.... the alarm goes off....

Slugging to get ready and go to work, arrival and immediate 8AM call to accounting to confirm that NO, there is no problem and the budget requests done yesterday were all correctly done.

Great to hear.   Now the only thing I get out of my lack of sleep is a crappy attitude and a hope that my coworkers don't wring my neck for being short tempered with them over the next 8 hours.

Better believe I slept like a dead woman that night ... after pigging out on a grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate ice cream.


I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know? ~Ernest Hemingway