The day began with me stumbling around in a sleep-befuddled state, going through the motions of showering, putting on makeup, etc. We left the house at seven, stopped at Starbucks (where, I have to say, it’s criminally incompetent to have a new barista working during morning rush). I got to work to find that a file I KNOW I had stips for was returned by the underwriting for lacking the very stips I was certain were put in. I told my teammate K, who was covering my desk this week, that I would handle it at lunch, but either she didn’t hear me, or the manager on-call was trying to be helpful, because it went to underwriting AGAIN, and was returned with a “Decline Incomplete” status.

Meanwhile I was in the training class from hell, in which Scott (not his real name) went through a powerpoint presentation of screenshots of the new software (which, mind you, we had two weeks of training on in APRIL) as a helpful “review.” Had this lasted the five minutes – ten at the outside – that it really required, this would have been bearable, and almost informative. Alas, he kept us captive for THREE HOURS, during which he went through every. single. screen. Twice.

You know that scene in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when Ford and Arthur are subjected to Vogon poetry and their heads nearly explode? I felt like that. Only instead of being repulsed, I was bored nearly to tears. And that, coupled with severe lack of sleep, meant that it was all I could do to stay awake and pretend to care about what was being said.

It wasn’t just me, though. At the break there was almost a queue to beat our heads against the wall. Almost. A teammate, my manager, and I all vented to each other, then got more coffee (I’d already nursed a quadruple venti iced almond nonfat latte all morning).

So, by noon, I’m bored, jittery from a quantity of caffeine that was a bit much even for me, and crabby because I was tired. We went to lunch at the corporate cafe where they were pimping the most amazing taco salads ever, and I proceeded to douse my shirt with cranberry juice. (At least it wasn’t white).

After a luxurious twenty minutes of actual lunching, we all trooped up to our desks, working for forty minutes while our teammates bitched about having to help with our files. Well, not MY teammates, because our team is uber-cool and we get along splendidly, but the other ppl’s teams were much with the bitching. Not fun.

A bit later, we went back to class, where we were subjected to a lesson on how to do a verification of employment. We have all been through training on this. We all do about ninety such verifications a month. We told the trainer this when he asked. HE WENT THROUGH THE ENTIRE THING ANYWAY.

I’m pretty sure I slept through most of it, because by that time my pod-mate and I had amassed a collection of chairs, and made ourselves comfortable, and Todd’s voice is relaxing, with a neutral accent, and no real dynamic changes. . Our managers shook their heads, laughing, and didn’t care. (They were busy surfing flickr and looking at vacation pictures, anyway.) Anyway, we were granted another break, and the lot of us trooped over to the espresso bar for caffeine and sugar. (The sugar ended up being one really intense slice of chocolate mousse cake and ten forks, – we all shared the cake.)

We sat in the cushy lobby chairs and chatted for a while, then went back to class for another hour, after which half of us went back to work. I was greeted with a plate of really amazing pizza, and an apology from another teammate. “I forgot you were in training, and we ordered this today. Have some?” It was cold, but I like cold pizza.

Still, my brain was fried, is fried, and I barely got through the last two hours of my day. Finally I could leave, and now I’m home, beating my Creative Zen Micro into submission and preparing for sleep, and another boring day of training I neither need or want.

Would someone remind me, please, why I sold out to the soulsucking corporate world?
Yeah.
I don’t know either.