07 December 2006

Dreaming of the simple life

Nothing is ever simple for me, not that I'm complaining or anything. It just seems like the simplest stuff takes me so long to do. Today is a perfect example, I need to drop off some samples to a guy to get prepared so I can run some tests, a two second job for most people... but not for me. I see this guy probably 3-4 times a day usually as I'm walking around the department, today I have already spend over an hour looking for the guy on a few different occasions. He's no-where! I know he's here people keeping telling me that they just saw him somewhere or other, so I go running to the last sighting and he's already gone. Maybe he's avoiding me, but I don't think he even knows I'm looking for him.

Last week I went over to Chemical engineering, again to run tests on some samples. I didn't know who I had to see so I had emailed the general enquiries person for the department and they never responded! Side note: Why would you post a email address for general enquiries if your not going to check them? Bad form chemical engineering, bad form. Anyways I go to the reception and tell them I want to have some samples processed who do I need to see? They send me to some guy in some office in the corner of nowhere, which took me 5 minutes to find with the aid of several people in the hall. I finally find the guy and he tells me he has nothing at all to do with sample testing I need to find someone else, so he points me in the right direction I go off more lost than ever. About 10 minutes later still looking for this women's office, the guy I was originally sent to walks by and sees me, realizes I'm more incompetent than he realized so offers to help me find the lady. We go to about 5 offices/ labs looking for her when finally some tells us that she's gone to the states for the next 2 weeks and tells us whose in charge of the lab for that period, so off we go again in search of her. A few more labs and offices later we find her!! i thank the guy and have the 30 second conversion with this women about getting my samples tested she hands me a sheet to fill out and tells me to bring the samples over anytime. See simple, except it took me an hour to do that 30 second job. A few days later I have my samples all prepared and go back over to drop them off, I thought great I know where I'm going this will be a 2 second job. Nope, there's no one in the lab where I was suppose to drop it off, so I go to an office I was taken to 2 days previously and no one is there either. So I go back down to reception hoping that now at least I know who I'm looking for they'd be able to help me. I was sent to 3 more offices with no one able to help me at all. I leave frustrated and decide to come back and hopefully some one will be in the lab then, well four days later (every day going over) I was finally able to drop off my samples, a nice and simple 2 second job.

These are just a few examples of the not so simple life for me, I know lots of people have these moments but I think they actually occur more now than the jobs that actually do turn out to be simple. People always say to simplify when your feeling stressed out whatever, but how can I do that when I'm not the problem (for once at least).

UPDATE: After spending another 30 minutes looking for the guy I gave up for today trying to find him, and decided to have a smoke... and tada there he is! So the samples have been dropped off and now I just need to find the guy whose actually going to test them, already seen him 3-4 times today so I figure I better wait till tomorrow to try and find him.

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