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Last night, I had a three hour dinner with my best friend from college and it was so much fun. We did lots of catching up on the random events of life, shared news and gossip of other friends, but also talked about current topics: movies, music, pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. She lives in Evanston, but we never see each other -- maybe once a year. She's married, works far out in the suburbs, usually 60 hour weeks, and we joked about her being all settled down and boring. But I said I envied that she likes her career so much, gets so much out of it. I'll probably harass her sometime soon to come into the city and hang out with me, maybe try to call her more often just to say hi, but I'm not holding my breath that it won't be another year before we actually see each other in person. And that's okay.
I got this call yesterday afternoon that Cambridge never received the photocopies and guess what? I don't have the airbill with the tracking number. Except I called DHL and they tracked via other ways and they have nothing in the system, which means it never got picked up anyway, never made it into the computer database, so techinically having the tracking number wouldn't really do much good anyway except for maybe some tiny attempt at proof that I mailed it, but hell, I could make one of those up. I mean, I know I mailed it, so it doesn't really feel like a lie. I e-mailed my contact and was honest -- I don't have the airbill, called DHL, waiting for a callback then I'll call him. He wrote back: "this is bad news. this could cause a lot of problems. looking forward to your call." It's possible it's sitting in the drop box still -- perhaps this drop box is ignored or forgotten and the copies are there intact. But I'm also having to accept that's possible I'll be out $250 in labor and $80 in copy charges. DHL will reimburse up to $100 for lost items, so at least the latter might be covered, but I'm sure it's a hassle to file the claim and possibly impossible without a copy of the airbill. I think I can make that happen though.
Losing the paycheck will suck. I mean, I live on a budget, so that's a 1/4 of my income for the month. Poof, gone. Having to pay out of pocket the $80 of copy money -- that will really suck too. And I suppose the final consequence that could come of this would be I'm fired from the project.
There are worse things.
I started to panic and feel flustered yesterday, my usual response when I've "fucked up". But then I just stopped. I feel very calm and detached. Yes, I made a mistake, but they happen. And that mistake doesn't really have any serious bearing on the larger problem. There's only so much I can do to rectify the situation and I've already started doing it. So here we are. It's kind of refreshing really, this clarity.
But, I did dream last night that I started working part-time at Borders again (I think because I was killing time in Borders in Evanston last night waiting for my friend to have dinner, and there were a few people on staff that I recognized from years ago when I worked there). So while I don't think this incident is some huge kick in the ass wake-up call, I think it is a gentle nudge, a suggestion from the universe, to find other sources of income.
I got this call yesterday afternoon that Cambridge never received the photocopies and guess what? I don't have the airbill with the tracking number. Except I called DHL and they tracked via other ways and they have nothing in the system, which means it never got picked up anyway, never made it into the computer database, so techinically having the tracking number wouldn't really do much good anyway except for maybe some tiny attempt at proof that I mailed it, but hell, I could make one of those up. I mean, I know I mailed it, so it doesn't really feel like a lie. I e-mailed my contact and was honest -- I don't have the airbill, called DHL, waiting for a callback then I'll call him. He wrote back: "this is bad news. this could cause a lot of problems. looking forward to your call." It's possible it's sitting in the drop box still -- perhaps this drop box is ignored or forgotten and the copies are there intact. But I'm also having to accept that's possible I'll be out $250 in labor and $80 in copy charges. DHL will reimburse up to $100 for lost items, so at least the latter might be covered, but I'm sure it's a hassle to file the claim and possibly impossible without a copy of the airbill. I think I can make that happen though.
Losing the paycheck will suck. I mean, I live on a budget, so that's a 1/4 of my income for the month. Poof, gone. Having to pay out of pocket the $80 of copy money -- that will really suck too. And I suppose the final consequence that could come of this would be I'm fired from the project.
There are worse things.
I started to panic and feel flustered yesterday, my usual response when I've "fucked up". But then I just stopped. I feel very calm and detached. Yes, I made a mistake, but they happen. And that mistake doesn't really have any serious bearing on the larger problem. There's only so much I can do to rectify the situation and I've already started doing it. So here we are. It's kind of refreshing really, this clarity.
But, I did dream last night that I started working part-time at Borders again (I think because I was killing time in Borders in Evanston last night waiting for my friend to have dinner, and there were a few people on staff that I recognized from years ago when I worked there). So while I don't think this incident is some huge kick in the ass wake-up call, I think it is a gentle nudge, a suggestion from the universe, to find other sources of income.
