By Cazey Williams, guest blogger
I intern remotely for a consulting company and have to log 20 hours/week. The best/worst part about this arrangement is, I set my own hours – which is an overwhelming proposition. While I have flexibility, I also have to commit to when I set those hours, and, like most millennials, I am a commitmentphobe. Every week I email my boss when I’ll be working, and every time I feel like Ariel giving away my voice. What if I want it back?
Why am I telling you this? Because my hours aren’t actually an exact 20 hours/week. They just have to average 20 hours over a month. So at the end of August, I had worked enough overtime that I only needed to work (wait for it) 13.5 hours. *hand raise emoji*
I happen to plan my life down to details like needing to cut my fingernails. (For real, in college, I would put on my daily to-do list “Drink water.”) So this week I happen to know I have too much going on to comfortably fit in my 20 hours. You type B’ers may say, “Well, I have the rest of the month.” But a person who schedules when they’re going to get their daily dose of hydrogen and oxygen cannot be reassured by that thought. No, no, it’s the beginning of the month; I should frontload my schedule, so at the end of September I can relax aka work less than 20 hours. It would not do to work less than 20 hours this week. (Plus, the rest of my September is sorta popping out of its jeans, so I’m already anxious about other weeks.) The point is, I have to work 20 hours this week.
So I told my boss that I would work this past weekend. On Friday I submitted my 14.75 hours for August (even worked a little more than my necessary 13.5 hours) and volunteered to work on Sunday and Monday (today, Labor Day) and then normal hours on Tuesday throughThursday. Why is this important? Because I’m sacrificing my three-day weekend. But I will not be under 20 hours at the end of this week, so I can breathe without a paper bag on Friday when my friend visits. (I’ve never actually done that – used a paper bag, that is.)
Except. Pause. What was yesterday? Yes, Sunday. But what was the date? Yes, exactly. Fucking exactly. August 31.
I DIDN’T NEED TO WORK.
Can we repeat, I didn’t need to work?
And when did I realize this? Well, yesterday, on August 31, I woke up, declined brunch invitations, worked out, declined an invitation to go the river and lay out, and put on my watch (which has the bloody date – mind you, so does my cell phone, which I’ve been looking at since I woke up) and headed to my neighborhood Starbucks. I found the perfect window seat – like, I had sunlight to mimic that tan I turned down – ordered a Trenta (which, this is a future blog post, is a big deal because I only drink coffee two or three times a week) that set me back $4.51 (pumpkin spice in it, baby – because I thought it was September), and I logged onto my work computer. And that, ladies and gents, is when I saw the date.
I knew Friday was August 29. And Saturday was August 30. How did I forget 31 days has August? BUT HOW?
And so now you, the reader, thinks, “Well then, just pack up and go home.” But – but – but there is a big project due to a client on Tuesday, and unless I slaved away on Sunday, August 31, the project wouldn’t be done in time. (And I could have just worked longer hours today on Labor Day, but I felt that would be too much labor on my faux holiday.)
Insert gun emoji. Insert bomb emoji. Insert an emoji that just can’t express all my feelings.
So where did all this leave me? Sitting facing the sunlight through a window, simultaneously drafting this rant while devising a Facebook status that succinctly describes this FML situation and will earn a satisfactory amount of likes, texting my friend if she’s left for the river yet, listening to a girl order an "extra hot" latte on a 90-degree day, and sakjhkdsjhdslkhdglkghdgsd.
Stalemate, baby. Stalemate.
Happy Labor Day.
