So, how relaxing was my long weekend in Michigan with Sus? These are the things that have happened at work in the last two days, and which have yet to dent my composure (okay, other than a few under-the-breath curses):

*One of our programs may have to change its date at the last minute (after we delayed printing the advertising to get its current date, and have more than thirty people signed up for said current date) because one of the speakers has just now realized that the date he signed off on six weeks ago is the same day some giant grant proposal (that he was working on six weeks ago) is due.

*When we showed up for our program today, we had neither the food we ordered, nor the table on which it was supposed to go. (That got fixed pretty easily, really, but those fifteen minutes where we weren't entirely sure the catering office had made the order were a little frightening.)

*Someone signed up for today's workshop, which began at 12:30, at 12:45, and then sent several emails complaining she could not find the workshop, and even came up to the office to bug the people in the other departments about it. We don't send out locations until people register so we can have an accurate count for catering and other handouts (in this particular instance the $50 dollar book that we were giving out for free) and that is stated pretty clearly on all of our advertising. I think part of the problem is that people can't believe that a university this size has such a tiny teaching center that they can't leave anyone to cover the phones during the workshop. But I do leave the location on the phone message -- if she had just called, she would have had the answer.

Still, my reaction to all of this -- which last week would have had me throwing things and complaining loudly to anyone within earshot -- has been not to have much of a reaction at all. New Boss keeps asking me if I'm okay, particularly with the program date changing bit. It's not that it doesn't bug me, it just no longer feels like it's worth ruining my day sulking about it. Also it doesn't hurt to listen to Sus describe her work stress for four days -- at least nothing I do is responsible for a corporation's bottom line or preventing my coworkers from getting their fingers blown off.

If I ever get time to upload my pictures to Flickr, I'll post a link. I think I'm going to get a few of them in big prints that I can frame, so I can look at them next time I need to mellow out.