A situation to which you've grown accustomed is about to change unexpectedly.

oh lordy.. I can only imagine what that's supposed to mean.

I'm sure I say this every year, but I really can't remember being this tired at Christmas time! I am just exhausted! Monday I worked a 10 hour shift, yesterday and today were 12. I left work at 6:30 p.m. tonight and have to be back at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow for a 10 hour shift. Then it's over! Thank God! But then we move on to the after Christmas clean up time. ugh

Here's my funny story of the day though: Remember Ryan? Well, he got laid off sometime before Thanksgiving so he's been working all month at UPS as a temporary driver helper. Tonight as I'm getting off work he calls me on my cell phone and leaves a message asking when I planned to be off work because they had a package missorted onto their truck that belonged to me (what are the odds?!). He wanted to know whether I wanted to meet them on route or if I just wanted him to take the package and bring it to me later. I wasn't expecting a package, but ended up meeting them on route to get it. It was funny, I had to keep calling to find out where they had moved to because by the time I got to the neighborhood they were in they had moved on. I guess the driver had pulled my package and when she saw the address she read it out loud and said, "this isn't in my area, I don't even know where it is". Ryan asked her to read the address again and then asked if it was my name on the package. Sure enough it was and she must have for a split second thought he was a psychic genius or something. She was really grateful that I met them on the route to get it though. Then we chatted for a minute about the joys of UPS at Christmas time and then all went on our merry way.

Oh, and the package? It was from disneystore.com and had an ornament for my Nightmare tree and a Jack Skellington hoodie that I got on clearance. The price kept dropping on it so I got it for pretty cheap. Happy early Christmas to me!

The longer I work at UPS the more I become jaded about Christmas. How can you enjoy something that really just causes more work and higher stress? On Friday I was walking through the call floor to hand out some letters to be signed and as I passed one lady's desk I heard her say, "yeah, we actually have an inner office competition to see who can ruin the most Christmases". OMG! I couldn't believe she actually said that. I don't know whether she was talking to a customer or a sales rep, but either way it was pretty inappropriate (and perhaps maybe just a little bit funny). And just to clarify, we are not actually trying to ruin anybody's Christmas. I didn't stick around to listen to the rest of what she was saying, but in my mind I like to think what she was conveying is that people are keeping a tally of how many times a they take a call from a customer and are told 'you ruined my Christmas (or my child/grandchild/neighbor/niece/nephew/friend/pet's Christmas)'.

I remember one Christmas Eve when a lady called in and screamed at me for a good 10 minutes because I couldn't personally arrange for her package to be delivered that day. She kept screaming at me that I was a horrible person and I had ruined her whole family's Christmas. I wanted to say to her, "yes ma'am. I have never met you in my life, but I have a personal vendetta against you and your family. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you waited until December 23 to order your item." Although my personal favorite is when I get this type of call and the lady is screaming and the whole time I am laughing because the package is coming from Victoria's Secret. Really? Not having your sexy undies is going to ruin your Christmas? (but, to be fair, that really happens more around Valentine's day) I'm so glad I don't have to take those calls anymore. I much prefer to just sit at my desk and type apology letters to all the people who's Christmases have been ruined by my coworkers.

The point of this? Order your presents early, people. Christmas is on December 25 every year. It's not Easter, it doesn't change based on the moon patterns. Plan ahead. Don't order your presents two or three days before and then be mad when they don't ship out on time to arrive. If it's that late and you're that much of a procrastinator, you're just going to have to get off your ass and go to the mall. No internet "last minute free shipping" special is going to do you any favors. And if you want to blame somebody for a blizzard that delayed your shipping, blame God, not the UPS man. And if you don't believe in God, blame Karma. It's probably getting even with you for being such a rude person.

p.s. Yes, I did work 14 hours of Overtime this week, including giving up my Saturday. I am tired and one day off isn't going to help with that. I have tons of stuff to do at home, but will be right back at work tomorrow and doing OT all week long. Including Christmas Eve. Perhaps this is when I can tell the rude person on the phone, "no listen, you ruined my Christmas.

I'm so tired! Work is crazy crazy busy, and for me it's not just because it's Christmas time. I worked 12 hours today and I have to go back in tomorrow morning at 6. I'll work at least 6 hours, not sure if they'll allow me to work more than that. I have plenty of work to keep me busy way longer than 6 hours though. On the other hand, I don't know if I'll be able to handle more than 6. I've already put in 8 hours of OT this week. My busiest time of the year is usually January/February when I'm dealing with fixing all the problems that happened in December. If I'm this busy now, I can only imagine what's going to happen in a few weeks!

Before I tell you about it, I have to first mention this incredibly rude lady at work that decided double parking was cool and acceptable. My work's parking lot is not big enough for the entire staff, especially not during peak season (December) when there are tons of temps and attendance is mandatory. There is an overflow lot down the block, but it's not monitored. Nobody smart parks there if they can avoid it. So today this lady comes to work and decides to park her van right in the middle of two spots. Management went to her and asked her to move her car in order to free up one of the spaces. She flat out refused. Really?! You're going to refuse to do something even when your manager has asked you to? Needless to say a lot of people were a little stunned and one particular girl got really angry about it. This girl decides she's going to get even so she gets a friend to go out to the parking lot with her and guide her into the space between this van and the car on the other side. Her car barely fit, and when I say barely fit I mean there was only about 8 inches between her car and the van. She had just enough room on the other side to squeeze out of her door. It was funny. At the end of van lady's shift a bunch of people gathered outside on the smoke deck to see what would happen. Van lady ended up having to climb in through her passenger side door. We all somewhat expected a scene, but she just walked out, looked around to assess the situation, and then went to her passenger door like it was nothing new. We all laughed anyway and then went home. Well, I was leaving to go let my dog out and go to the eye doctor with the intention of going back to work for 2 hours of overtime.

So here's where "that" kind of day started. After watching van lady leave I start heading home to let my dog out. I only have to go two exits on the freeway. On any normal day it's about a 4 minute drive. Today there was some "police incident" and the freeway was closed at the exit I needed so they were making everybody exit there. It ended up taking me 20 minutes to go half a mile. ugh. Once I got off the freeway everything was fine, but I still have no idea what the "police incident" was. While I was sitting in the traffic my gas light came on. Oh the joy. Luckily I was able to get off the freeway and get home without running out of gas.

I get home and let my dog out and then head to the gas station. I get out of my car and go through all the stuff with the pay at the pump and yadda yadda yadda. Well, when I turned around to grab the hose I hit my hip into the cement block next to the pump. When I looked down at my hip I saw that my black dress slacks were covered in white paint. PAINT! There were absolutely no signs indicating wet paint. So then this maintenance man sees me over there trying to wipe it off with a paper towel and he says, "Oh I thought I should have put up a sign". No shit, really? Then he says, "that's a latex based plastic paint. It has a quick drying agent in it and if you don't get it out within 1-2 hours it will be there forever." grrreat Then he says the only thing that might take it out is paint thinner and graciously offered me some. But I had to go back to work! There's no way I was going to douse my pants paint thinner and then go to work and going home to clean them wasn't an option because I had an appointment and then I HAD TO GO BACK TO WORK! So my pants are permanently paint stained. They were my one good pair of black pants. I'm seriously going to write to Chevron and complain. They should buy me some new pants! sheesh. Oh, and because I touched my pants I had paint on my hand so now there is also paint on my steering wheel.

After coming to terms with my paint issues I ran to the eye doctor to pick up my glasses and have them fitted. They are way different than the ones I've been wearing for the past two years. I love them! I love my other ones too, but I'm excited to have something different. My prescription hasn't changed, so I will still have the option to wear either one depending on my mood. Considering I only wear contacts if I'm going out or if I'm out of town, having a good pair of glasses that I'm comfortable with is important to me. I have to wear them every day. It's my biggest accessory. They have to be cool, but not too overly outrageous. Anybody who's on my Facebook knows I've been obsessing over choosing the right ones for about a month now. I went to many different places to look for the perfect ones so I'm excited to be done with it.

Anyway, I was in the eye doctor for no more than 15 minutes only to come outside and find that some idiot has parked their giant Buick right next to my car on the driver's side. When I say right next, I mean it's like I'm the van lady and that angry girl is getting revenge on me. But I wasn't over the lines at all! I was well within my own space. Stupid Buick driver totally crowded me in. I couldn't even get in between the two cars. I bet a four year old could, but I'm nowhere near the size of a four year old. So guess what I have to do? Yup. I had to crawl in through the passenger side door! You know these modern cars aren't built like the old days when it was just a big bench seat. No, my car has bucket seats with a big ol' console in the middle. So I had to climb over the console one leg at a time. I did such an amazing job, I even turned on my windshield wipers with my right foot. Talk about awkward! I just hope nobody was watching!

Karma totally got me today. But I wasn't the one that wedged in next to van lady, I only laughed about it. How coincidental is it that I would be a victim of the same thing that I laughed at earlier in the day? ugh. Anyway, it's still pretty funny. I was able to get back to work just fine and finish out my OT. I will be working OT tomorrow and Friday as well. I don't want to work on Saturday, but I really need the extra time to get some work done. I'm going to ask if there's any possible way that I can. The worst they can say is no, right?

They're self taken from the cell phone, so not the best quality, but here are pics of my new glasses:



And for reference, my "old" Prada ones (the new ones aren't so cool as to be Prada, but I wouldn't want to be considered pretentious haha):