I'll head this off at the pass... The post below is because of how I feel right now.

First off, it starts with a phone call I got at 9:45PM last night. It was my boss.

I had taken yesterday off, and they wanted me to take today off, because I wasn't feeling well. As far as I knew, I had come down with the flu.

So anyhow, the dude says, "Can you work the Rensselaer shop tomorrow from 8-6? I know you're sick, but I really need this."

I figured, "What the heck. I need the money and if I need to puke or explode in my nether regions, the toilet is less than 10 feet away from where I'll be working," and I told him "Sure. I'll work."

Well, I could see this morning at 7:45 that the dude I had to work with was going to be about as reliable as "Old Faithful" on Alka Seltzer. At 8:00, that thought was confirmed. At 8:03 he pulled in to start his day "working".

Now, that dude has a lot of crap going on in his life. He's a 20-year-old kid, making less than $10 an hour, trying to support his 2 year old son and his ex-wife. Next week he goes to court for custody, I guess. Still, though, that's really no excuse for being THAT late to work on a day that a "new guy" is there to help open. He left me alone to open. Not good.

After getting all the crap done before cars started to come in, I felt like I was going to get sick, so I went and sat down. Just then, the boss pulled up and started yelling about me sitting down and no work being done.

Now, he knows for a fact that I'm not one to loaf. I'm there to work, so I work. Plain and simple. But when I feel like I'm going to vomit all over the place, I don't think I need to be standing over the mop bucket, filling it with water (and possibly other stuff).

Once I told him what I was sitting down for, he was cool about it.

So, as the day went on, the other dude continued his crap, even after the boss yelled at him about no work getting done around the shop this last week.

THEN the cars started to show up. I got a 10 minute break to go to the bank (for the boss) and to go get my lunch from one of the resturaunts just next to the shop. When I got back and started to eat it, cars started to show up again.

The thing about the cars today was THEY DIDN'T STOP! From about 9:30AM until 6:00PM, they came in, one right after another. At times, there were 2 or 3 cars lined up waiting out back. Overall, we had 30 cars, 1 transmission fluid exchange (30 minute job), and 1 air conditioner service (20 minute job).

Right around 5:45, the dude called the boss, and the boss told him that we weren't to go home until the crap he wanted done earlier was done. What was this crap? Well, the dude had to scrub the floors in BOTH pits, he had to paint the walls, and I had to paint the rails and the steps in both pits, and we had to keep up with the daily cleaning list.

Well, big deal, right? I only had to stay until 7:00. The dude didn't do much, and he made it last as long as he possibly could. It got to the point that I was giving him orders, because I needed to get home.

Sometime during the fray today, the boss called and reminded me that I had to work at the other shop from 8-6 tomorrow. Again, around 7:00 tonight, he and his wife showed up, and they both kept reminding me about it. The dude was still slacking off, even with them there.

So once I finished the painting and a few other minor things, I told the boss that I was going home. Guess what he reminded me of, AGAIN...

By the time I got home, I was too worn out to even THINK about coding anything tonight. I have the 2(3) website projects to get done ASAP, and time is just not in my favor. Add a stressful (mentally AND physically) day job to the mix, and you have a synthetic blend of "tim-no-work".

Well, add this to the rest of it... Mom and Dad showed up at the shop when we had 3 cars waiting, and Mom asked me if I needed anything from Lafayette. I told her I had a couple Best Buy gift cards laying on my floor, and that I needed a new hard drive. I wrote down on a piece of paper for her what I needed, and I told her, "If you don't get this, at least get me a spindle of CD-R's."

When I got home tonight, I asked Dad where the stuff from Best Buy was. The response I was given sent me through the roof: "Mom told them that you'll just come down on your next day off."

DAY OFF?! DAY OFF?!?! DAY OFF?!

• 8-6, M-F, 8-2 Sat.: Day job.
• 6-10, M-F, 3-11 Sat., all day Sun.: Web development

Where's this "day off" thing?

I have a hard drive that is either dying or has died, and I need to be able to get my data off of it. There's not enough storage left across the network for me to backup to another computer, and I am out of blank DVD's and CD's, so I don't think I'll be able to back that crap up for a really long time, unless Mom tells me exactly why she didn't get the drive for me.

AND I just realized, I forgot to order a piece of hardware for a customer... SON OF A BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!

That's it. Shower, TV, bed.