Whinge Week: Work

After two days of not being at work, I feel as though I should be more relaxed. But I’m not. Instead I spent all weekend feeling like a hermit because I had no plans and did nothing. And while doing nothing, I had no internet access. So I wasn’t even like a good, internet social hermit. I was just a lonely, sad person with no one to talk to and nothing to do but drink.

Then, after a weekend of wretchedness, Sunday night was spent thinking over and over “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow, I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.” My car ride in to work this morning was spent thinking “Why do I have to go to work today? Why do I have to go to work today?”. When I arrived and sat at my desk it became “Why do I have to be here? Why oh why do I have to be here?”

By the time I had read my morning emails I was so agitated that I had to avoid everyone. I need a holiday damn it!!

I may have mentioned before (repeatedly) that one of the things I hate most about my job is the fact that I am the only female employee. At the best of times this is nothing – it can even be mildly amusing. But when your workload becomes so great that you begin to lost control, working with men is a nightmare. They’re disorganised and stupid and they spend most of the time patting themselves on the back for how well they’re doing, when really they’ve just dumped all of their work on me.

On Friday afternoon, right before work finished, the boss called a meeting. He then proceeded to crack the shits at us for not having done some obscure task that was set a few months ago which had to be put aside because we’ve been so busy and so understaffed. As I am at my wits-end with all the bullshit; and since in the best mood I am strictly no-nonsense; I just yelled right on back at him. And while this is not such an unusual thing, because this is the dynamic we have, it always makes me feel like shit afterwards.

In the last two months I have been yelled at, bitched to, back-stabbed and harassed at work and I am so well and truly done with it all that I just don’t want to be here anymore. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve given as good as I’ve gotten. I’ve yelled at a co-worker or two, whinged about them and left work in a rage. But men and women feel differently about this stuff. And men never seem to see the vast workload which leads to this point. They just gloss over that and put down any bad mood to ‘female troubles’. Well, here is news for you men: my real female trouble is YOU. You’re lazy and ignorant. You’re incapable of multi-tasking and you can’t seem to ever talk about anything except cars. You forget that I’m a woman and joke about how annoying your wives or girlfriends are and some of you take to backstabbing when my work shows up how your work isn’t being done properly.

You suck, male work colleagues. You SUCK.

Whinge Week: Sometimes Life is A Pain in the...

In waiting until everything that you want to whinge about piles up into one giant heap, you end up with the problem of not knowing what you want to whinge about first. I guess, logically it would make sense to start at the very beginning, but I’m not sure that starting at the very beginning will give the full effect of how whinge worth things have been lately.

If I were to start at the very beginning, I would start by moaning about my job. But before I complain about my job and how I have a workload so big that I would need an army of office-serfs to get it done before Christmas, I’m going to whinge about something that affects each and every other crappy thing that has happened lately.


Some time during the last two weeks, I did something strenuous. I know that’s kind of vague, but I can’t recall what exactly I might have done that was strenuous, I only know that one morning, I woke up with a slightly painful twinge in my lower back. I put it down to sleeping in an odd position and tried to ignore it.

The universe, of course, decided that since I was ignoring that twinge, it would ramp things up a little to get my attention. When I woke up the next morning, the twinge had become a sharp stabbing. I got up out of bed so that I could stretch it out. Faster than I could stand up, I found myself on the floor writhing in back spasm-ing agony.

‘Fear not!’ I told myself once the pain had eased a little.’ Your sister is a physiotherapist! You’ll be fine!’. And as a good sister does, she immediately came to my house to work her magic. Half an hour of painful poking and prodding later, my lower back was taped up and I had an ice pack in hand and a belly full of Nurofen. As I headed to bed that night I felt relaxed and I was convinced that by the next day, I would be fine.

I’ve always wondered why people with back pain make out like they’re the most hard-done-by people in the world. Now I have a fair understanding. When I woke the next morning, the pain was excruciating once again, and it stayed that way for quite a while.

For the following week, my back was a constant source of pain. It was fine provided I didn’t try to do silly things like bend, stretch or move in any way; but you really don’t realise how much bending your spine does until it doesn’t want to do it anymore. Even something as simple as coughing becomes a giant pain the...well, in the back.


Now, there is a reason that my stupid back has been my first post during whinge week. This little tale of my back pain woes is something to keep in mind during the rest of whinge week. Because every single crap thing that has happened, every annoying person or irritating moment that I have come across recently – all have been accompanied by a sometimes stabbing, sometimes aching, always agonizing back pain. And when people and things suck, a pain in your back makes it all suck even more.

So to excruciating back pain caused by a mysterious strenuous activity, I say this:
You SUCK, back pain. You suck.

Commence Whinging

With the huge workload I’ve had at my job recently I haven't really found myself with a lot of time for writing, and when I have found time, all that comes to mind is a whinge about how busy I’ve been and how I have no life. I've always tried to stop myself from whinging too much on here, because I figured once I started it would be hard to stop; and if people wanted to hear someone complaining, they wouldn't have escaped to the internet in the first place.

So a few days ago, I finally mustered up the motivation and creativity to write something. It was a glorious little piece about some observations I had made regarding wine drinkers. The writing started slowly, but after a little while the words began to flow and I ended up with a fantastic, tight piece of writing that I was proud to post after my lengthy absence.

Then, as I copied and prepared to paste my writing into blogger, the unthinkable happened. My computer crashed.

Luckily, I am well prepared for such an eventuality. I save my work almost obsessively for just this reason. So I hit the reset button, and waited for windows to reboot. A strange message flashed across the screen, suggesting that I run a check disk. Impatiently, I opted to skip the check. The message disappeared...and the computer restarted. Same message again. This time, feeling slightly more cautious, I chose to run the check disk. The message disappeared...and the computer restarted.

And with that, my wondrous blog post, along with everything else on my PC disappeared into the great and mysterious virtual void.


That moment there; that brief but devastating moment; was the beginning of what seems to be the universe's attempt to make my life very difficult for a while. So many annoying, upsetting and painful things have happened to me in the last few days that I need an outlet for them all. And despite my attempts to keep this blog whinge free, there comes a time when whinge I must.

And so begins my 'Week of Whinge'. For one whole week I’m going to be totally self-indulgent and just write about how bloody annoying everyone and everything is at the moment. And maybe, just maybe, it will help me to feel a bit better.

So read away and feel free to join in by commenting and sharing your own similar experiences; or judge me and call me a grumpy old lady - but if you choose to do the latter, keep it to yourself. For one single week, I intend to complain without feeling guilty, so 'suck it up princess' type comments will be deleted - and then possibly whinged about. Because everyone needs to complain once in a while without fear of being permanently dubbed a 'whinger'.

And that is all I have to say about that. For now.

Let the whinging commence.