Oh God, has it been a week. Today, especially, has been bad. Things usually pick up around here in September, but this s ridiculous. We have had more business today than we had all last month. OK, exaggeration, but it has been crazy. The phone has not gone 5 minutes without ringing. Pile on top of that the fact that most of the folks running the company seem to think I can stop time today, and you see how things are. There hasn�t been a single order today that hasn�t been sick with drama.

One order was supposed to go the huge convention center here. I was told that trucks were being sent to the marshaling yard, which can be death. There have been times when our driver has just sat there for over 8 hours waiting to be let into the dock. I was told, though, they the trucks were just being weighed and sent right back to the docks. Our driver gets there and there are 16 other trucks just sitting there waiting to be called to the dock. Our driver has three other deliveries to do. Chaos ensues. I manage to get a hold of the client and he tells me he can take the delivery tomorrow when we drop off other stuff at the butt crack of dawn for another booth. Crisis averted.

Next, another company wants a piece of equipment we have, but isn�t very reliable. I subrent said piece of equipment to avoid dealing with problems on site. I am then asked why we are subrenting. Giggles then calls customer himself and decides we do not need to subrent, regardless of my concerns. I then have to call the folks I was subrenting from and apologize profusely for making them waste their time prepping something we no longer need. Crisis averted, though we look like idiots.

Next, the owner of our company wants glass gobos made. He didn�t get the information for them until yesterday. I say, ok, but I need to know if this is a go by 10am tomorrow morning (that would be this morning) to beat the deadline. No problem, they are having a conference call and will decide tonight. Yeah, didn�t happen. Didn�t tell me it didn�t happen. I�m begging the company that makes them to give me five minutes after the cutoff to find out what�s going on. Finally, I have to make a decision, so I send the PO at noon to get them made. At three I get a call from the Big Boss. They still aren�t sure if they want them. I frantically cal the manufacturer and have the order put on hold. There is now a $200 charge fro restarting the order that I was trying to avoid in the first place. I still have no idea if that is actually happening. Crisis tabled.

THEN Manager Rainman comes down and tells me that the board I booked for the convention center is already booked for another order and has to be delivered on Monday Morning. I tell him that I have no idea what he is talking about as I checked availability before I booked the board. Well, it turns out his order is still a FUCKING QUOTE. When an order is a quote the computer assumes that you are simply giving pricing and therefore DOES NOT BOOK THE GEAR. According to the computer, the board is still available. He is running around my department in a panic trying to convince me it is my fault this has happened. Sorry, no. It is not my job to make sure you have confirmed your own orders. It really just isn�t. Luckily, as I said earlier, this order had not been delivered so it hadn�t been set up yet and could therefore be given back to Rainman�s order since my customer really doesn�t care what kind of controller they have as long as they have one. Now this means I have to find a new controller for my order, even though I was the one who had done everything correctly the first time. Whatever, they really needed something simpler anyway. However, the simpler board hasn�t returned from the order it�s out on. Giggles comes in and says, �Well, you know we have another one, right? I just didn�t put it in the computer because we�re switching programs soon. WHAT?!?!?! Gah! This could have saved about 3 hours of headache if that stupid board had been entered when it was put into stock, you now, the way it is supposed to be. Anyway, long story short, crisis averted, though I am ready to commit murder.

Then, at 20 minutes to 5 this guy who we very graciously agreed to loan staging to (he is working with someone who recently worked here, so we agreed. Yeah, I know, suckers.) shows up to pick up the decks. That goes relatively smoothly, except for the fact that this ditz also shows up to pick up her staging and comes in without the stuff she needs for the deposit and tries to tell us she didn�t know while she is holding in her hand the paper that lists THE THINGS YOU NEED TO BRING FOR DEPOSIT. Gah. People can be so fucking stupid. She then proceeds to get this guy into a conversation about what she is doing and what he is doing blah, blah, and basically preventing me from getting this guy taken care of and out the door so I can deal with her ignorant ass. She then tells Monion 2.0 that she doesn�t know the phone # of the person she is working with, could she use our internet to find the number? Twit.

Add on top of this a very good friend of mine was supposed to come visit this weekend (I think I mentioned it.) It turns out his car broke down in Nebraska. Now, that sucks much more for him than me, but it means he won�t be able to complete his trip out here and that is very disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing a happy face I hadn�t seen for a while. Boo.

All in all, shitty day. I�m going to go have a drink.