ZZZZZZzzzzz.....huh? HUH?? AHHHH!!!

Reason #1,979 to not work for someone else;
The “Late Headless Chicken” Mode

I don’t care how “responsible” you are, everyone has one of these mornings at some point. It starts out unlike most, and usually spirals uncontrollably into a “bad day”. When it happens, nothing short of a miracle will get the day back on track. This was my morning….

“OH CRAP!!”

From a deep sleep, and with a sudden jolt of realization, I sprang out of bed, probably looking like a jack-in-the-box popping out of its cube. I bolted over to my cell phone on the dresser hoping to dispel my dreaded suspicion. Having been let down many times by plug-in alarm clocks which had been silently rendered useless in the middle of the night by power outages, I came to the realization long ago that I can only depend on battery powered electronics to wake me... even then, it’s a challenge.

Because I’m already not a morning person (a handicap that I’m certain is delaying my entrepreneurial success a few productive early hours at a time) just reading the time on the cell phone’s tiny back-lit screen was hard enough, let alone trying to process the meaning of the numbers. I’ve done this enough times, however, to know that if it doesn’t say 6:00 am, something’s definitely wrong. Sure enough, it said 6:28am!

“DANG IT!!”

“Okay…I’ve got exactly 2 minutes to get out of the house before I’m late! GO!” Yeah right. As I bolted into the bathroom, a torrent of thoughts flooded my mind… “Why didn’t my alarm go off? Maybe it did… Did I snooze it? Wouldn’t be the first time… What should I wear that’ll look good? No time… What’s clean? Who cares… Shirt. Pants. Wait…..if you can’t shower today (…ugh…) you’ve GOT to, at least, for the love of all that’s sanitary, change your underwear! Okay, socks… Shoes. Belt. What am I going to do with my hair? Dang it…it’s too long! I need a hair cut! If it were shorter I could do it seconds… This is going to take no less than 5 minutes! Precious minutes… No time to stylize… Must settle….Just get rid of the bed-head…” I stuck my head in the sink, soaked, and then dried it. I moosed up the fro and then tried to tame the mop to look, well…at least like I didn’t forget it. Ugh….

Just then I heard a sound I had hoped to avoid on this, of all mornings… My 2-year old was awake and knocking on the bedroom door…crying.

“AAAHH, GREAT!!”

On any other day, while still on schedule, this would only be moderately annoying. Second only to being on time for work, my number one goal every morning is to get up, ready and out of the house before the girls wake up. When they’re up, they always slow me WAY down because they’re so loud and needy first thing in the morning. They always either need to be changed, fed, hugged or entertained somehow. If you don’t do this, things get ugly real fast. Normally, I try very hard to address their immediate needs in order to give Kim an extra few minutes of much needed pregnant-mother sleep. Unfortunately for all of us, today I was in “late headless chicken” mode. I quietly trotted over to the door and poked my head out and attempted to “reason” with her. Nothin’ doin’. Not sure what I expected there. After a few minutes the seconds on my watch started to speed up and synchronize with my adrenaline-filled pulse! "There’s no time for this!" I shooshed her, closed the door, and bolted back to the bathroom. By the time I’d finished the pointless job of de-bed-heading my hair, Kim had already gotten up, changed the diaper, and diffused the ticking time bomb that was my daughter by inviting her into our warm comfy bed for a snuggle. All of this while still mostly asleep. Amazing. Another quick glance down at my watch…

“OH SNAP!!”

"It’s 6:53 am! Aaahhh!!! I’ve got to be AT work in 7 minutes!!" I got nearly to the bottom of the stairs when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I bounced off an invisible rubber wall and raced back up the stairs. "Got it! Must…get out!" Suddenly I felt like I was in an episode of 24 trying get out of a house which had been compromised by a timed explosive that could go off at any second. Not a second to spare, I flew down the hallway to my office and grabbed my work bag, threw on my jacket and tore back down the hall towards the kitchen. “Shoot, my work ID badge!” Back to the office, and back to the kitchen to rummage through leftovers in the fridge for lunch! 6:55 am…tick tock, tick tock…. “Where are my keys?? In the office? No. Upstairs? Oh, please, for the love of Pete, not upstairs again!” Hoping, I swung around the kitchen and spotted them on the counter. “Whew! No time for relief…”

“GO! GO! GO!”

Lugging my work bag and some Tupperware, I made it out to the porch, locked the front door and headed for my car. I looked at my watch again… Okay, even The Flash, himself, couldn’t make it to work on time at this point. Reality started to set in. "Hhhhh….I’m late. Really late." I got in the car, rolled down the driveway and pulled out my cell phone. As I searched through my list of contacts for my boss’s number, I tried to hurry and think up some cleaver excuse as to why I would be so late. How do you tell your boss that you're late because you snoozed through your alarm? It was just seconds before 7:00am. Luckily for my pride, at least, I got my boss’s voice mail instead of him. “Hey, just wanted to let you know that I’m running behind this morning and will be a little late. I’m on my way now and should be there in just a few minutes….” Click. HHhhhh..... The rest of the drive was just damage control. I was already late. From this point on, it would just be a matter of HOW late. “Mitigate the time loss….don’t be stupid, but punch it!” Foolishly, I weaved in and out of lanes, screeched off the line when the lights turned green and sped up at all the yellow lights. I’m sure somewhere, my old Driver’s Ed teacher was in hives.

By the time I finally got to work, I had set a new record for myself. I was at my desk by 7:19am. Nervous, I looked over all the cubicles at my boss’s office door and saw that it was closed. Wait, HE'S not even here yet?? I skipped a shower, ignored my needy daughter, broke just about every traffic law possible and arrived sweaty, panting and ready to humbly apologize only to discover that my BOSS wasn’t even in yet?!?! As I clouded up, a question surfaced in my mind. "If my boss wasn’t here to witness me being late…was I late? I mean, technically, yes, but it’s not like we clock in around here... As far as he’s concerned I arrived before him just like every other day. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a model employee…. As far as he knows…." Then it hit me. Insult suddenly joined the injury… There was a message on his voicemail from me TELLING him that I’m going to be late.

HHHhhhhhhhh……. I’m retarded. And still late.

I've learned:
A boss will always be more concerned about your tardiness than he’ll ever be about his own.

I'm glad:
I've got a boss that's understanding

I wish:
I were more of a morning person

I will:
have to go to bed abnormally early if I'm ever going to become one