Day 566

Better day. Sleep -did- help and I think I’ve finally beaten back whatever stupid sickness was trying to take root as I had more energy than the whole rest of the week combined.

On the other hand today was the good admin assisstant’s last day. My office is usually staffed by three office people - let’s call them Alef,  Bet and Gimel. Bet started out as a transcriptionist but grew into a more general admin assistant over the years especially once the electronic system with voice recognition became widespread. She is capable but easily stressed and a big-time complainer. Alef was the personal admin to the previous boss who also grew into a more general admin assistant over the years. Gimel was the front-desk person who replaced Vav - how I miss Vav; she was the best admin assistant I’ve ever had so of course she moved on to bigger and better things which is excellent and I don’t begrudge her...but boy do I miss her.

Anyhow, Gimel gave notice and quit. Bet was her backup so it made sense for her to apply for and get Gimel’s position although the duties were a bit of a reach and the public-facing part was a big reach. Bet has been in the new position a couple months and is struggling but mostly getting it done. Had to be coached about not complaining so much and especially not to people in the visitor chairs. Alef was picking up slack and things were going okay though everyone wanted to hurry up and get the backfill of Bet’s old position posted and hired because there was a little too much work for two especially as Alef and Bet don’t like each other much. But...hiring freeze. Then Alef announced she was going out on medical leave for a knee replacement, coming back for one week in early March and then retiring. Panic ensued. After much pushing we got approval to post and hire -one- of the two open positions but that approval came on Tuesday.

So now the whole department, which usually runs with three admins, is going to be doing it with just one, the easily stressed often-whiny Bet, for the foreseeable future. Color me thrilled.

Came home and tried a new-to-me sesame cookie recipe. Flop. Picked the recipe because it also had pistachios in it. I love both so what’s not to like? Plenty. Probably screwed up the metric to English conversions as dough was ridiculously oily. Baked up okay but not flavorful and not sweet enough to be something readily identifiable as “cookie” either. I should not have made a double batch - stopped baking after first 2 dozen but couldn’t bring myself to pitch that much dough (yet, anyhow) so it is now languishing in the back of my freezer. I will make something else instead...which is probably just as well as suspect I am the only one who would have eaten them even if they were “tasty” by objective standards anyhow.

Still...it was kind of demoralizing. Good excuse to crash on the couch and message with a friend of mine though and that was nice. Once again it will be time for bed very soon and tomorrow is a pretty light day. Gotta say...cooking sober is way more efficient than cooking with a drink in hand despite all the cultural/societal cues to be doing the latter. Tipsy cooking may seem more fun at the time but it is - well, was for me anyhow - way messier and always leaves the dishes for the next day. Tonight I had the washing up done before the non-cookies had even come out of the oven.