Time pieces

Last week passed by in a blurry recollection of late nights, frayed nerves, simmering tempers and red eyestrain. We actually made it for that ridiculous deadline without losing anyone, although that last bit involved some superhuman restraint on my end.

Last-minute changes seldom make people happy, harassed techies least of all.

Keeping time
If there's anything that acutely marks the start of a new work month, it's the monthly report for the previous month. It's like doing a timesheet, not unlike what lawyers do on a regular basis for time-based work; and like all reports, time-consuming as hell.

I'm told that one of the main reasons for this report is to determine which department pays our salary based on the time and effort expended on their account. Which makes me wonder, to whom and for how much should I attribute that annoying email which took one minute to read, half an hour to fume over, five minutes to construct a response to, fifteen minutes to remove most of the stings and barbs in said response, and an additional twenty-five minutes to cool down and get re-oriented to the previous, interrupted task?

I haven't even counted the amount of time it takes to recover from processing said report, invariably involving one or more of the following: imbibing a warm beverage, consuming food-not-amounting-to-a-meal, hitting a ball with a man on a stick (read whichever way you want).

Time passes
.. and we all get older. Other times pass, and we all pool together to get someone a gift that symbolizes the passing of time:



Time passes, and my wallet gets lighter. But what the heck; Happy Belated Birthday(s)! :)