This week has been a doozy. I only think of myself in the third-person when I feel bad for myself, but currently I think it's justified. First I'm going to complain about things in general, before going into the specifics of why I'm confused. Hey, I'm going to ramble, but at least I'm being up front about it!

So… I think I've mentioned this before, but we have two Bosses. Boss with a capital B, that is. One's a man, the other isn't, ha. They're each responsible for 1/2 of the contracts Writing is involved in. The current project is hers, but he's been helping because it's so damn massive. Unfortunately, the day after she flew down to meet with the DOE of that state, she was called to her dying father's bedside. He died Saturday.

This means that the other boss has been left in charge of everything. But he's in the middle of finishing his PHD, and planned to do half-days all this week. You'd think the fact that he is now in charge of everything would change that, but no. Instead he called in "sick" the last two days! This dumped everything onto the three assistants, one of which is useless, the other two stressed beyond endurance.

Did I mention that we're also beta'ing a brand new system for the computers that keeps throwing roadblocks into the process of gathering materials for training? There are some serious system flaws, one of which allowed both Sean and I to slip boo boos past both us and the people above us since there's no easy way to cross-reference item numbers on our end anymore. I feel like an idiot, but it's not entirely my fault (or Sean's) that we both picked exemplars that had been used for other parts of training. Luckily, both errors were caught before the items were trained. To be perfectly honest, I'm glad he screwed up the same exact way, because now it's a demonstrable pattern of common error, not just me overlooking something in the rush to prep. And I should mention that we were given about 1/3rd of the time we realistically needed to prep, too, which is made clear by the preponderance of errors everywhere. Our pair of errors are just two on a long list, but enough about that, huh?

What a fucking mess. I think we all deserve credit for making this circus run at all, never mind as smoothly as it's been. It's a wonder that none of us has snapped or quit. Everyone says this is the worst it's ever been, ever. We all hate this contract already. Whoever decided we should beta the new system at the same time we started a project we just acquired is insane and I hate him. I don't know which him it is, but I hate him anyway.

Okay, now on to confusion rather than just irritation. Yes, I'm sorry, but my venting is not nearly over. Monday was bad for me in other ways too. I "learned" two pieces of information that made me decide things were never going to happen and give up on both. Now I've learned both might be premature. Poor Shannon is so confused!

The first thing: as I've said before they told us they were trying to propose that we be given permanent positions instead of being temps. ("seasonal" temps who work 11 months of the year.) They said they'd probably know by the end of this month. On Monday things did not look good at all.

See, on Friday they sent 1/2 of the folks prepping the project home. The guy boss said it was because of budget concerns, since that's really sensitive now. And they fired over 20 of the useless tech people too. He left it at that.

Clearly, given these things and the fact that one of his assistants said that she'd been told that the issue of fulltime hadn't been spoke of since August, it wasn't going to happen. They'd dicked us around yet again, probably to keep us from all quitting after the stunt they pulled in June with pay cuts. Problems with the current project not withstanding, I usually like working there. But I need a full, permanent position if I'm ever going to fulfill my aspiration of becoming trailer trash. So I reluctantly began looking through the want-ads, wondering what the hell I should do with myself now.

But! Apparently the tune has changed. Now that they've gotten rid of the excess tech people, one of the project managers (I'm not even going to explain their function. It's lateral to our Bosses) has been telling the assistants that this means they will be able to afford to hire us now. No one knows when, however.

Is this for real, or what? I'm so sick of the rumors, they're up, they're down, when the hell are we going to get some solid answers about what's happening? People aren't going to put up with this indecision much longer. It's too unbearable.

Also on Monday I was very sad to learn that Guy 3 wasn't going to be coming in to work on the project Tuesday like he was supposed to. I haven't seen him in weeks (the one month a year we don't work was mid-August to mid-September), so I figured he must have gotten another job, and I'll probably never see him again since he never did join us over our break. I left him a message about Laura's party and never heard back; and phones bring out my insecurity so even though it's possible he just lost my number, I have trouble believing that. Honestly, I'm not brave enough to call anyone I don't hear from after the first time again even if there are more innocent explanations possible than they're not interested in hearing from me. This made me very blue, which mixed nicely with the angry indignation I was already feeling over the fulltime thing.

I told myself it's about time to move on, mentally. I haven't heard from him, yada yada, so you should really stop thinking about him, Shannon. But I like liking someone, you know? It's hard to turn that off, especially since up until Monday I thought not seeing him around was just temporary. So I've been looking for the brakes, so to speak.

But! Today his Mom's brother-in-law's wife, who is one of the assistants, pulled me aside and pointed at one of the people who started yesterday. "That's Guy 3's mom." She tells me. Interesting. I'm not sure why she was pointed out. I'm glad it wasn't an introduction, because what would I say? "Hi! Nice to meet you Guy 3's mom. I've spent an inordinate amount of time this summer contemplating sleeping with your son." Yeah, that'd go over big.

"Oh." I said, and then asked if she'd heard from him. She'd asked me to pass on a message if I heard from him, and on Monday I gave her his number so she could call him herself. (The metaphoric brakes escape me, since I've daydreamed that she'd tell me he'd tell her that he just lost my number…)

"No. But his mom says he's coming back [to work here] soon!" She told me brightly. Suspiciously, in my opinion. Why do I have the feeling that Meredith told her I was interested in him when I went up stairs Monday to get a pen so I could give his number? I get that vibe. On the other hand, though, this is the woman who insisted I should have him at my table in May because he's "a sweetheart." He's not, no more than me, but that's fine. Sweet=neediness in my experience, and I hate needy. Anyway, I've got to wonder if she suggested that I'd take him hoping he'd "find a nice girl" since I know she considers me one. Poor misguided woman.

So maybe he'll be one of the people coming in on Tuesday, given that there's a new bunch joining the project then. I hope, I hope, I hope. And I hope he hasn't found a new girlfriend yet, really did lose my number, and he'll still be as flirtatious as before the break and… yeah, I've pretty much stopped looking for those brakes.

I thought I was being silly, still thinking about him a lot, until yesterday. There was this girl at Sean's table who had a major crush on him, but she hadn't been around since July. Yesterday she gave him a big hug and started hitting on him again, like she'd never left. Apparently, it's not abnormal to have lingering feelings. Here's to hoping he does, too, huh.

That's it. Now you know why I'm so confused. And I just have to say, emotional roller coasters are terribly unfair on the first day of one's period. It's surprising I haven't cried over being so puzzled. Despite cramps I'm feeling much more optimistic than I did when I got up this morning, and I guess that's something.