Day 117

A doubleplusungood lousy day.

We had an inspection at work. My department has never had any sort of problem before and is conscientious and well-regarded. When we had this same inspection three years ago my group got 100% so I wasn't worried.  Then the inspector showed up and made a rather insulting comment about my kind of department generally before announcing he would be extra-hard on our particular department.  Which he was. The most strict and all-or-nothing interpretation of the standards possible. It was awful. Not just awful but awful in that sucker-punched not-expecting it kind of way and as the boss of said department it was all on me.

After the horrible session which involved the inspector reviewing paperwork for an hour and a half in silence with his back to us before turning around and saying "your department definitely has a lot of work to do" I was supposed to have lunch with him and others involved in the survey but I, upon finding out that our time had run over by a half-hour, said "Oh I have to get back to work; I have things to do" and excused myself.  The things to do were 1) not break bread with that guy and 2) compose myself in private.

It was the worst day I've had at work in several years.

Commiserated with colleagues for a while (they were even more outraged and angry than I) walked to the library and back and tried not to dwell on it. What's done is done and can't be undone, the issues raised are already permanently resolved in a way that will satisfy even the strictest of interpretations and have been for several months (they look at prior year data, not current) and it doesn't make me or my colleagues _bad_ anyhow. 

Then I looked at tomorrow's workload which is more than half again but not quite double a usual workday.  That was just the icing on the cake. Or, as a colleague would say, the stink-cherry on top of the shit sundae. No changing that, either.

However I dealt with my terrible horrible no-good very bad day better than I would have back in my drinking days.  This would definitely have been a stop-at-the-liquor-store-on-the-way-home kind of event, probably including the rare drink-a-mini-in-the-parking-lot modifier and definitely leading to pour-as-soon-as-you-reach-the-kitchen.  Despite the extra-heavy workday I knew was coming tomorrow.  Oh sure, I'd -think- about the next morning but those thoughts would have been something like "so I need to get my nightly drinking done right away and push a lot of fluids so I won't feel as bad" which may or may not have been what actually happened. And although the booze would have been theoretically to forget my troubles or reward myself for having survived them, I would have ended up dwelling on the awfulness of the day all the more AND felt like crap the next day.

Tonight I shared my rotten day with family who offered sympathy, walked the dog same as always, put on my pajamas, poured a really icy glass of tea, had some cookies and made dinner: chicken soup with matzoh balls which I had never made before.  Middle and ABL had never had them and I'd only ever had the from-a-box-mix kind once decades ago so that was an adventure as was the pineapple pie recipe I got off FaceBook for dessert. ABL was indifferent and Middle didn't like matzoh balls but I did so I fished the rest out of the soup so they can be my breakfast when I start my day from Hell tomorrow. The pie was so-so...but I'm a sucker for social-media recipes.

Then I had a nice little lie-down with one of my new library books and realized that I had already bounced back from the horrible day more and faster than I had expected I would even four hours prior. Not only that but I will sleep well and wake up ready to tackle the big heavy day -- these are all very real benefits that reinforce the value of staying off the sauce.  Another HUGE benefit is knowing that even though the day was vile, I have none of the shame-cloud which always hovered in the background of the kind of weeknight drinking I did and I'll be able to hold my head up high tomorrow.  Spouse saying "I'm really impressed and proud of you" was a nice side benefit, too.