MY BOSS IS ON HIS BACK, SO HE CAN'T GET ON MINE.

Jeez, that sounds mean-spirited, given that Odin, my supervisor, really is suffering from excruciating back pain. It was so excruciating, in fact, that he called me when I got in and said he could not come in to work today.

It's a recurring problem of his. He has a herniated disk, and must not lift heavy objects. Apparently, he spent the weekend lifting heavy objects. On the bright side, since he had to stay home today, he could not interrupt my intermittant naps--which he is wont to do--with his usually outrageous demands that I do some work instead of sleep.

While his absence has forced management to give me some Odin-esque tasks to perform in his stead, I did not find any of these new duties to be particularly challenging. The most arduous thing I had to do was walk around the various showrooms twice, and record the temperature readings of the thermostats onto an Excel worksheet. I could not believe this is Odin's job when he is actually up and about. The man has a Business degree from Boston College, and he has to read thermostats.

Hopefully, Odin will be back at work tomorrow. In the meantime, it's about 3 in the pm, so I'm going to try to squeeze in a nap before going home.


POSITIVE THINKING = ~(NEGATIVE THINKING)

(ALTERNATE TITLE: "MISFORTUNE AND THE VICIOUS CYCLE")

Could it be true what they say, that attitude goes a long way in determining one’s lot in life? I started wondering that last Wednesday, when a situation that would normally have ended in heart-crushing failure resolved itself in a totally different light.

See, I’d resolved to take some evening classes at a particular University, courses that lead to a particular program of study, which I already have a speculator’s interest in. Got clearance from the faculty adviser to sign up, received an "appointment" time for 9 a.m. sharp. Was online, and on the site, at the appropriate time. Even had the 4-digit course numbers for a few alternative sections scribbled down on a pad.

So there I was in front of my computer at 9 a.m. I entered the codes for my primary choices, then clicked the icon to process them. I get a message stating that I’m only cleared for one course, since the office doesn’t have my immunization record. Now, I had no idea the college even needed my vaccination background; I could understand them requiring it if I was matriculating as a full-time student, but when I took two classes at NYU SCPS last fall, the only paper that school required was a check for $1500.

I could get a copy of my immunization record by calling the NYU Health Center, but the problem was, this was a special section, with a registration period lasting only two days. If NYU could fax my record to me, it would make my life easier. But a quick phone call at 10 a.m. rendered that a no-go. No way would they fax anything, and I didn’t have time for snail mail.
My only option was to take off during my lunch break and pick it up from the office myself.

Naturally, no R train pulled up to the 42nd Street station for twenty minutes, so by the time I got to the NYU Health Center, I was already due back at work. Amazingly, there was not a single person in the waiting room at Vaccinations, so I sincerely thought I had caught a break. Fat chance. You won’t believe this, but the woman working the counter entered my SS# into the computer, clicked enter, and the very next moment—the network crashed.

The entire office, as well as all five floors NYU occupied in that building, suddenly lost all computer support. Faxes, phones, printers, all petrified into collective impotence. And worse, the woman working the counter couldn’t bring up my immunization record. After struggling with the useless phone receiver, she just looked up at me, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Sorry. I can’t do anything right now."

I couldn’t believe my ill fortune. I tried to explain to the woman my dilemna, tried to explain that I needed the immunization record right away, tried to explain that I had called earlier and was told that I must pick it up in person, and tried to explain that coming down to pick it up in person was very inconvenient to me. The way I saw it, leaving work to go to the NYU Health Center required a great sacrifice on my part, and now that I was being denied the record I so desperately needed, I deserved some kind of explanation above, "Sorry. I can’t do anything right now."

Worse, when I reiterated what seemed like a modest request, that the office fax over a copy of my immunization record, the woman cut me off before the end of my sentence with, "No. We can’t do that." And when I tried to calmly explain that this might be viewed as an unusual circumstance, warranting an exception (After all, hadn’t I gone to the Health Center as requested? Clearly, the inability to produce the record was the fault of their office, or possibly God, but it couldn’t be blamed on me.) the terse woman simply got up and walked silently away, replaced a short time later by a person I presumed was her superior.

This new intermediary handed me a clipboard. She told me to fill it out, then promised, once the network came back on-line, that she’d call me, so I could make the same trek down to the office again. I couldn’t see any other option except what the second woman suggested (though I thought about tracking down the nearest physician and paying for another Rubella vaccination), so I took the clipboard. As I sat in the waiting room, filling out the damn thing, I became very inwardly upset—not only because I was being brushed off, but the timing of the network meltdown seemed like such an impossible coincidence. Surely, I thought, some Almighty Being has a hand in my present misery.

By the time I left the NYU Health Center empty-handed, I was in a real funk. I was already late getting back from my lunch break, so I crossed the street to Pizza Mercado and ordered the special—the one I always ordered when I was a student. Sure, it was irresponsible of me, but by that time, I was both sad and hungry, and no way was I going to clock back into my drone job without alleviating one of those two problems.

As I sat there in Pizza Mercado, munching pizza and drinking soda, I pondered what seemed to be my unending string of mind-bogglingly bad luck. Especially every time I tried to enter a graduate program. Read past posts of my blog if you don’t believe me! But the longer I sat there eating, drinking, and sulking, the sooner I realized that there was no point in trying to eat, drink, and sulk away what I perceived was bad karma. Maybe I was suffering from a curse—one that had prevented me from attending graduate school each of the past two summers, and threatened to derail this September’s prospects as well. But if that was the case, would intense self-pity and boo-hooing change anything? No, it wouldn’t!

The only thing I could do was fight the best fight possible. I told myself, if the network is down today, maybe it won’t be down tomorrow. If it was still down tomorrow, and there was truly no hope of getting my immunization record processed in time, then I’d laugh about it over beer and soda, whilst marveling at those unseen forces greater than myself, which held sway over my life. But I could not let misfortune kill me!

"Things happen in our lives for a reason," I said to myself. "And if I’m not meant to go to graduate school, then I can accept that. But let the gods spit in my face themselves, if they must. I refuse to hock the fatal lougee for them!"

I wolfed down the crusty remains of my pizza, then marched back up the Amalgamated Insurance Building to the Vaccinations Department of the NYU Health Center. I looked the woman—the first woman who I’d spoken to—squarely in the eye, and asked if the network was still down. She answered in the affirmative.

Then I poured many a honeyed word onto her, thanking her for having patience with me earlier, apologizing profusely for any ill-temper I displayed, and hoping, if I had behaved in such a heartburned manner, that she had not taken offense.

The formerly-terse woman was clearly surprised. My politeness incited her to equal cordiality, and she replied that no offense was taken, as someone in her position could empathize with the dilemna of a person in my position, who had found himself unexpectedly thwarted at what should have been the moment of victory. So soft and kindly was the woman's ’isposition now, that she seemed more like a nurse than a clerk, and I ventured once more, with cautious step, of course, for that small favor which would help alleviate my sharp pain.

I let her know in the most polite of terms, that if she could, once the network returned, fax over my immunization record to my workplace, it would make all the difference in the world for me. But I quickly added that I understood how the rules of her workplace tied her hands, and she might not be able to acquiesce. "This is true," the lady replied.

"Then let us speak of it no more," I said. And I thanked her once more for her previous patience, and reminded her that she had my contact information on a clipboard. "Please call me once you’re back on-line," I said. "I will come down right away. I am certain it will be either later today, or tomorrow." Then I left.

I took the subway back to my job (No one noticed I had been missing.) I threw myself into my labors, and before I knew it, two-and-a-half hours had slipped silently away. It was now after 4 p.m.; I held out resolute hopes of yet acquiring my immunization record that day.

The woman at Vaccinations recognized my name right away. I asked if the network was back on-line, and she replied, very pleasingly, "Yes." I told her I would leave work early, and could be at her office, the same one I had visited just a few hours previous, before five. But the clerk would have none of it. She told me (Her tone almost like that of a friend) that, as her supervisor wasn’t in the office, she could do me the favor of faxing over the valuable document. After all, she said, I had gone to the trouble of visiting the office that day. I would have gotten the document I requested, if not for a shock of inexplicable bad luck.

"Oh," I said, in my most modest manner. "I don’t believe in calling it bad luck. I mean, networks crash from time to time, don’t they? That’s why God created network technicians."

A few minutes later, I was holding in my hands a warm facsimile of my immunization record, fresh from the office faxer. Within fifteen additional minutes, another warm facsimile of the same document lay flat in the hands of clerks in the registration office of my prospective school. Another quarter of an hour later, I was cleared to register for the last of my primary choice of classes. By 5 p.m., I had forgotten all about sitting in Pizza Mercado lamenting bad karma, as I had proof of the exact opposite in my immediate destiny.

While there may be perfectly logical reasons behind this sudden change of fortune, I like to imagine that my decision to trade in a pessimistic attitude towards life, in favor of a more optimistic one, was the catalyst. Now, please don’t think I’ve found religion; I’m too pragmatic for that. But I did get what I needed by not being an asshole, so one never knows.