The Week From Hell
That's what this has been. I had class both Tuesday night and Wednesday night. Tuesday night the instructor gave us a powerpoint presentation on scanning. The woman gives this presentation several times a year at a workshop, and once she got started she couldn't stop. She kept us 25 minutes late. 25. She is the blondest redhead I have ever known.
Then Wednesday I had to have my monthly lunch with my supervisor, besides having class that night.
Then on Thursday I had to go to my practicum thing at Special Collections. I overslept that morning and was late, but the woman I work with there didn't get there until after I did.
Then today I knew my supervisor wanted to me to go to a two-hour workshop on Respectful Communication. At least she went with me. But I overslept again today and was an hour and 15 minutes late.
I think that class running long on Tuesday night screwed up the whole rest of the week.

Last Wednesday Night
Week before last the building manager at my apartment building pased out notices saying that over the next few days, workmen would be coming into our apartments to change the valves on the radiators. I saw her that day, and she gave me the impression the workmen would come during the day while I was at work.
Last Wednesday, after work I went to the grocery store. When I got back, my apartment door was standing open, and there were two guys in there starting to work on my radiators. It was 6:30 pm. I was already getting hungry and needed to start dinner, so I asked them how long it would take. The older of the two guys said 45 minutes.
I asked them if they could come back later, that it wasn't a good time for me.
They hemmed and hawed and it became pretty clear that they dind't want to come back. The older guy eventually said, "Well, let me go get the boss man." He went into the next apartment and came back with some third guy.
I asked the bossman if they could come back later again. I told him the building manger had said they would be there during the day.
He said, "I didn't say nuthin' to nobody about when I would be here."
He then told me the work would only take 15 minutes.
I had already seen how much trouble the first two guys were having with the radiator they had started on. I pointed out to the bossman there are four radiators in my apartment.
"It'll take 30 minutes."
So I told them to get on with it. They'd refused to come back later.
After a few minutes the bossman and his co-worker finished in the next apartment and went into my kitchen to start on that radiator. They moved my kitchen table all the way across the room so it was blocking the cabinets and the stove, so I couldn't go ahead with dinner.
I just stood there waiting and getting more and more hungry, and the hungrier I got, the more ill I became.
Then it registered with me that the younger of the two guys working in my living room was addressing his co-worker as "Sugar Britches." It had been going on for some time but I just didn't pay attention. At the time I didn't think it had anything to do with me, but I realise now he must have seen something in my place. I don't leave porn laying out, but there's literature buried not too deep in my living room, and they moved a bunch of stuff before I got there.
It really annoyed me. I went and stuck my head in the kitchen and I told the bossman that I usually started dinner then, and I was really hungry. I reminded him he'd told me it would take thirty minutes and they'd been in there forty at that point. I also said I didn't understand why they were in there doing that work at night.
The bossman said business happened when it happened.
This pissed me off so much I went and stood out in the hall. I didn't want to see or hear those fuckers.
After a couple minutes the bossman came out and told me that they'd finish what they had taken apart and they'd come back and do the rest when I wasn't home.
I thanked him.
Now I think what happened was that after I went out into the hall, they'd gone into a huddle and one of them told the bossman I was pissed off because of the younger guy saying "Sugar Britches." I was really pissed off because I needed dinner, but whatever. They left eventually.
The next time I was back in the apartment the younger guy apologised profusely and repeatedly. I hadn't figured out what had happened yet so I just thought he was being an idiot.
I called the buidling manager after they left and I asked her why the hell those workmen had showed up at 6:30, and her response was "They seem to be unpredictable." She didn't care.
So here's what I think.
The bossman had never heard of the building manager, so I don't hink they worked for her. The bossman mentioned the owner of the building. The owner is notoriously cheap, so through his good-ole-boy buddy network he got some kind of deal. The fact that these guys were doing that work at night, and they refused to come back later, lends credence to my suspicious that there was something shady involved.
I'm planning at this point to deduct from next month's rent the amount I make an hour here at work, saying that's how much my time is worth and your radiator repair fucks wasted an hour of my time.