Between work and recovery from work, I despair of my chances at hitting 50,000 words by the 30th. Strangely enough, I'm not sure I care. I need to write something. It's in my blood. But I've taken the challenge and won last year, and I'm very good at getting words out of the head without the censor getting in the way.

I don't think I'm the target audience any longer. I don't have enough time to be the target audience.

I know that azwriter is doing this with a house full of kids, both her own trio and the kids she cares for. I know that countless other people are doing this with worse challenges than what I'm facing. I'm not even really up against a challenge. I'm just working full time, and I'm giving myself permission to not drive for the word count and take care of myself so I won't be a burned-out wreck at the end of the month. This is not the sort of month where I can push myself and drive up the word count and rack up guilt if I do things other than write the goddamn thing.

And, honestly, "the goddamn thing" is not how I want to see it.

Work today was surprisingly restful. Morning shift was not overcrowded. Evening shift was worse. I am not happy with a seating arrangement that leaves me with less than five extra seats on the survey that's neither milk nor meat, much less a seating arrangement that leaves me with zero extra seats on that job. But we managed, with only three serious ARRRRGH moments.

I explained what actual goslings are like to Stressy College Chick. I nobly resisted the temptation to claim a backrub from the Cute Desk Guy.

If all shifts were this reasonably calm, I wouldn't mind doing double shift Sundays regularly, so long as I might have Saturday off. Even so, the security guard was floored at the idea that I'd just spent nearly 17 hours working. (It took me about 15 minutes to gather myself together, so I was out of there 17 hours after I'd arrived.) Come to think of it, Monday off too would be necessary.

I'm a tired Lunatic. Not very much about my days is getting saved. I didn't have much to do in the morning, so I did the little things that need being done and add up after a while. Maintaining the 25x spreadsheet soaked up about an hour, where I went back and forth between the spreadsheet and the monitoring log to verify that all the people in there still actually worked here. (Quite a few didn't, and some of those who do work here aren't ever on the phones any more.) TJ's Queen Monitor saw me at the beginning of the shift and commented on how ghastly pale and sick I looked. By the end of first shift, I was looking and feeling a lot better. Spending some computertrance with the spreadsheets helped me out. I really do trance out for things like that. It's nice. It's like sleeping, only better, because at the end of it, I'm actually rested and happy. Sleeping, there's no guarantee that I'm going to be either, or that I'm going to get to sleep.

Trendy Chick got me this great big inflatable blue bat. Her boyfriend was dreadfully confused by this. I was delighted. The rest of the workplace was delighted, or at least amused to see me with the thing. I'm plotting to introduce it to Rev. Not-So-Nice Super so he's on the smacking end of the thing, and someone else is the smacked end.

Clone Name Super quit. He will be missed. There is already gossip going around. It's funny -- when Poser-Geek Super got fired, there wasn't half that much gossip. Clone Name Super quit the other day, and it's not even Monday, and already people are saying he got fired. But no. He quit and then he came Saturday to bid us and the workplace farewell or some stuff like that.

We're way low on supervisors now. We're pulling phone goons to walk. Both the Davids are getting supervisor training. Ponytail Dave was supposed to be primarily a monitor, but things are crunchy enough that he may wind up being a supervisor first. Flattop Dave will be a good supervisor. He's very quiet and has an air of authority. Groucho Guy is getting supervisor training as well, because it was sort of vital that someone take over something, because we were that short. My opposite is getting her abandoned supervisor training finished up (people started seriously quitting when we were training last spring) and I have submitted that I'd like to finish mine as well, so I can fill in as necessary when there is a crunch. (Just you wait and see: I'll get called in to work like woah when other people call out. I'd be tempted to VNC in from home and run jobs from there and delegate someone to be my walker, but that strikes me as cheating, plus I don't have home access to work computers.)

One of the IT guys is out until the 17th or so with his tonsils out. He's the one who usually gets called in when there's a system problem. Everybody shows him the love, though they may not say so to his face all the time. I proposed chat and VNC, because there's nothing wrong with his fingers, in case of a system outage. My proposal was shot down, alas, I think mostly because then they'd do it that way all the time, and also because the IT guy in question does like to come in and get hands-on with his babies. Or something like that. Maybe it's just get out of the house so he doesn't go so stir-crazy.