Yesterday was weird.

I officially quit smoking (again) almost two days ago and have been quite the Testy Teresa. Clients are annoying me more than usual, I have constant headaches*, and I'm not getting as much sleep as I'd like. I have restless leg syndrome, which really just sounds like some asshole's attempt at getting people to feel sorry for him/her. But it's not as fun as it sounds. You know that feeling you get when you want to run (fight or flight kind of situation, here)? That's kind of how my legs feel at times. If I stretch, it kind of alleviates the sensation, but only for a little bit. And it's not really helping the sleeping part of things.

But yesterday was ... just weird. I can't really explain it. It seems rather run-of-the-mill day in Jujuland, but things were off. I got into work late for various reasons, one of which being that, no, I don't really want to get out of bed right now, and then clients were just obnoxious. One guy called just to see what I was doing. Another girl, who was rescheduled last week (during my three days out for sickness) because she wanted to get all of her verifications so she could just be done with the interview process, came in with nothing. None of the shit she was supposed to bring that she was TOLD to bring last Wednesday. And she didn't even really seem that fazed. Which, okay. Whatever. Then another client felt it was necessary to preach to me about the good of baseball, which okay. Whatever. All in all, I got all of my clients interviewed and for the most part taken care of.

Then I went to lunch.

And came back.

To my supervisor, frantically searching for me because ZOMG YOU HAVE TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE. JUST GO GRAB THIS PAPER AND WALK OVER TO MICHELLE, WHO WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO DO. ZOMGGGGGG!

Like this but more AUGH THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!

And I'm all: 

May have been the actual words out of my mouth.

Okay, now backtrack. Our office is currently looking to hire 24 more caseworkers, which we direly need (my caseload - and by caseload, I mean total cases, not just people - is close to 2300). I've never interviewed anyone before, so after my brief, "SERIOUSLY? THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?" tirade about essentially how our office just kind of does and thinks about it later, I went through the list of questions my supervisor handed me. They were some of the most useless questions I could imagine. Sure, there were some standard, "How have you resolved an issue with a coworker/boss that you didn't get along with?" questions, but a lot of the other ones were basically asking, "Can you tie your shoes? YAY!!"

The lady I interviewed was pretty awesome, actually. She was well-spoken and had worked with the state before, so she is well-accustomed to the fuckery that any type of government can cook up for us to deal with. I asked all the questions on the questionnaire, but then just said, "Well, that was a dumb interview. Let's just talk??"

And we did. I got to see a little more about who she is and what she can bring to our office (hint: it's a LOT), and I was able to be more candid with her about what she would be facing if she were to be hired on. I tried to be neutral, but I think she picked up on some of the animosity I have toward the front desk. She didn't seem intimidated, though, but that could come from the fact she worked in the drug rehabilitation policy department for a while. While having a state job, you just get used to the bureaucracy. Or you tolerate it and bend it as much as possible, if you're me. I walked her out and decided to recommend her to the Council ... er, the administration? I don't know what they're called.

I was able to get out of going to the meeting of recommendations later on in the afternoon, using my actually true excuse of having a shit-ton of paperwork to do from last week. Of course, I didn't get to do a lot of it, because, well, being a team lead means that while you still have to be an awesome caseworker, you also have to do your boss' job at the same time. It wasn't entirely his fault today, since he did have to leave early to pick up his kids at school, but other times? He just doesn't DO stuff. And he's not a very good resource for his unit, so they come and ask me, because my supervisor doesn't really know how to clearly explain what exactly they need to do. And I love my new caseworkers; I do. They're just new. They don't know everything yet, and that's fine. Hell, I don't know everything. I call the help desk at least once a day for what I'm sure they think are stupid questions. But GAAWWWDD. I think I'm going to put them all on the "Just Do It" plan. Or the "If You Ask Me One More Time About QMB/SLMB/QI, I Will Cut a Bitch" plan. The first one is probably the best choice.

The thing is, all of this probably would have been easier if 1) I hadn't quit smoking or 2) I had quit smoking several weeks ago and didn't have a pounding ache on the top of my head all day. But neither of these was the case, and I had to endure stupidity after stupidity (with a nice reprieve in the interview) only to be followed with more stupidity and frustration.

And this is turning into rambling rambliness, so that means that I should probably stop before I type out an entire novel about what things I find annoying. Or how much I hate my job and just want to bang on drums all day.

And with that, I leave you this:

* This is actually not unusual for me, as the lovely TMJ I've suffered with since I was in middle school seems to dictate that I ALWAYS have some type of headache. This pain, though? It's different. It's nicotine-starve neural pathways ... or something. I don't really remember much from anatomy and physiology classes. Except phalanges =  fingers and toes!