Control-alt-freak, or why I'm RealGrouchy (diary)

I found out today that I didn't get the job I had applied to.

Oh, well...

I actually would have found out a week ago if I hadn't accidentally moved the e-mail telling me I didn't get the job into my SPAM folder. That's what happens when you get 100 spam a day.

Well, my spam filter (PixByte antispam, a freeware) usually gets about 85% of it, but I still have to move the rest into the spam folder manually. Since I get very little legit mail, checking mail for me is usually: (1) let the computer automatically identify 85% of my email as spam and automatically move it into the spam folder, then (2) move the rest of my new messages into my spam folder.

But getting back to the job (and yes the following is related). If there's one thing I've learnt from many years of psychotherapy/psychiatry, it's that I am a control freak, and my biggest cause of stress is not knowing what is happening.

So, for example, a big cause of stress was not knowing whether I got the job (I was the same way when I applied to university, especially since I had applied to only one!). Now that I know I didn't get the job, a big cause of stress is not knowing what the heck I'm going to do now.

There's an opening coming up with the organization I already work for, but...well, let's just say that it's been hard to keep that position filled for very long.

I'm also bitter about a newsletter I was sort of co-ordinating for said organization. The plan was for the editor to collect the submissions by June 25, and have the newsletter ready for me to take to the printer yesterday (Monday), so it would be ready by the end of the week to be mailed out next Monday. Sure he got it to me yesterday...at ELEVEN AT NIGHT! I don't know about any 24-hour printing companies, do you? (professional ones, not do-it-yourself-ers)

I also had to get the editor to make some changes, and I emailed those changes to him, and called him to make sure he got the message, only he wasn't home. I also had another thing I needed to get printed that I already had ready, but I decided I'd wait until I got the edited newsletter. I called him at 15:45 to follow-up, and he said he was working on it and would get it to me in 15 minutes. He got it to me at 16:27. Although I was already downtown, I still had to copy it to a CD and take it to the printer.

I called the printer at 16:40 to find out when the closed. Five o'clock. Fine, I thought, I just had to rush.

I arrived at the printer's offices at ten to five, and they had already closed!!! Note that they said they closed at Five o'clock, not ten to five. I called another printer that was tied with this one for the best prices in town, and they also closed at Five (and by this time, it was five).

So now I have to go back downtown tomorrow morning (hopefully after they open, but that shouldn't be a problem since I'm not a morning person) to bring in these documents that will hopefully be ready in time.

So you see, it's not because I'm a bad person, it's because all sorts of shit just happens to me that I'm RealGrouchy. Maybe I'll tell you a happy story sometime.

BTW, I sent an email to Marketplace about my CD-pen fiasco. Hopefully, they'll take it up and look further into the matter.

- RG.