It’s the shortest day of the year, the issues at work go on and on and on, and I’m slowly being ground into pulp. We have a nice Christmas tree this year, the stores play Christmas music incessantly (although that will end, like, around 6 PM on Christmas Day so the stores can start getting ready for Valentine’s Day), and lots of folks have their lights up but there’s no sense of Christmas here in my office. While I was on Florida the twins decorated the house and Tracey put a cardinal ornament that had lost its string on my desk; otherwise, one wouldn’t even know Christmas is just around the corner.

My office mate Peach the rabbit sure doesn’t care about Christmas – but I also don’t think he’s crazy about someone pounding away at the keys in the wee small hours of the morning. Right now the best I can do is grab a few hours here and there while my team flails away at trying to get things at least somewhat stable. In work terms it’s like having a series of nor’easters continually piling up the snow and the snow keeps falling as you keep shoveling and losing ground. Fortunately, our company has holidays on Friday and Monday so the weekend will allow us to staff just enough to keep things moving before it all starts up again next Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get a full break from this. I know I won’t.

I don’t want to give the impression that it’s just me having to go through all this: my boss and my team in India are having to work the same kind of long and strange hours – believe me, they’re just as committed (a.k.a. “stuck”) in helping the company out of this mess as I am. One of these days I’ll do a post (in general terms, of course) about this whole experience without naming names or companies or people, but that will have to wait until things settle down.

There’s not much else to say. I can’t remember what my trip to Vegas was like, can’t remember what it’s like to play golf or even hit balls. While I see President Trump (it still feels strange typing that) finally got Congress to push a tax cut plan through I haven’t had the time to see what’s going on around me culturally or politically. I’m guessing the hockey season has started – not that I would even notice if it had. It’s just the most bizarre set of circumstances I’ve ever experienced from a work perspective. Time has ceased to exist beyond the world of my laptop.

And so it’s in that spirit of things that I leave you with this Shawn Colvin tune. Kinda conveys the same sad and lonely state in which life is lived right now.

A big “thank you” to everyone for all the kind comments on my last post. I just saw them logging in to compose this. It lifts my spirits to know others care about something I do even if we all come from different political perspectives and persuasions. Sooner or later things will get back on track, but it sure won’t be anything I’ll ever be able to look back on and be able to laugh about.

Back to work…