Murphy’s Law on Steroids

Wow, it seems like Murphy is really kicking my butt lately.

First, my computer died a couple of weeks ago. My brother has it, and will try to see what – if anything – he can do with it, but for now, I am computerless. I had borrowed my stepmother’s laptop for 2 weeks, but felt guilty about having it for so long, and gave it back last weekend. Right now I am at my mother’s house ‘borrowing’ her computer.

Then, there was that stuff last week with my coworker offering to help me out. I was dumb enough to accept the offer and wound up getting an earful about it from my boss, only to have the coworker go ahead and do what she offered to do anyway.

Last Friday was the plumbing fiasco. That one worked out ok in the end, but it sure was a fight to get there. My garbage disposal had stopped working, and the plumber was supposed to come between 12pm and 4pm on Friday to fix it. This is all well and good, except that I pick my daughter up from school every day at 2:15pm. I was not able to find anyone else to pick her up that day, so I crossed my fingers that out of that 4 hour time period, those 30 minutes when I would be gone weren’t the ones during which the plumber should show up. HA!

They called me at around 12:55pm to say that the plumber was on his way. This seemed like it would be ok if he showed up relatively soon. I did not have to leave until 2pm, so that should be plenty of time to fix the garbage disposal. 1:15, 1:30, 1:45…all came and went, and no plumber. I was now in panic mode. At 1:55pm I called the office and said that I had been waiting, and he had not yet arrived, and I had to go pick up my daughter. Apparently the plumber had gotten lost on his way from Baltimore. After giving me a VERY hard time, the gentlemen on the other end of the line told me that he would have the plumber wait for me, but that if I was not back by 2:25 at the absolute latest, he would have to leave for his next job, and I would need to reschedule.

Driving to the school took just over 8 minutes, but I knew that it would take longer getting home. If Megan doesn’t make it out of the school before the busses pull out, it typically takes several minutes to get out of the parking lot. By the time she got to the car, it was even later than usual – 2:17pm. That left me 8 minutes to get home. There was no earthly way. By the time we made it to my neighborhood, it was 2:26, and I was behind a school bus. We made it home at 2:28pm and there was no plumber to be found. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to go the entire weekend with no garbage disposal, and effectively, no kitchen sink.

I went inside and called the company and told them dejectedly that I would have to reschedule. Someone, somewhere must have taken pity on me, though, because he said, “Oh no, ma’am, I told our guy to make sure that you got home, so I sent him to go get something to eat or drink first. He should be there in a few minutes.” This was quite a pleasant surprise after he’d given me such a hard time about getting back in the first place! The plumber showed up 15 minutes later, and all was right with the sink.

Murphy decided to give me a couple of days off before hitting me with The Big One. I got to work on Monday only to find that my door code didn’t work. As we frequently have issues with all things electronic in that building, I didn’t think anything of it. I went to my office and tried to log in to the application that runs the doors, thinking that we had some kind of a problem. For some reason, though, the password didn’t work. That’s when the light started to come on. When my boss walked by and said we needed to go to the conference room, my suspicions were confirmed. Something was up, though I had no idea what I could possibly have done wrong.

Apparently it is wrong to pay someone their accrued sick and vacation time when they go out on maternity leave. Funny, I thought that’s what it was for. Basically I was accused of giving an employee preferential treatment by paying her *her accumulated time* and of ignoring an order from my boss to in fact do the exact opposite and *not* pay her anything – an order that was NEVER GIVEN TO ME. I was told that we would make Friday (last, not upcoming) my last day and that my check would be mailed to me. And that’s when I found myself fired for the first time in my life. Thanks, Murph.

So now, I am on Day 2 of being unemployed, and finding the whole thing just a little surreal. I keep thinking of all these little things at work that I just *know* my boss does not know how to do (like, oh, I dunno…PAYROLL for starters) and wonder how on earth they’re going to figure it all out. Then I think to myself, “Guess what, it’s not your problem anymore, baby!” (Yes, I call myself ‘baby’…someone has to!) I wonder if I will actually get a final paycheck for last weeks’ work week, let alone my leftover vacation time that she *said* she would include. Time will tell, I suppose.

And then, to top it all off, as I left my house this morning, I realized that my sunglasses were broken.

Damn you, Murphy!!!

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