Just another manic Monday

Is it wrong of me to wish that this switch plate had the switch opening more strategically placed??? I suppose it's better that it wasn't or else I'd have to keep the lights on in whatever room I installed the switch plate, which would of course be my bedroom.

My coworker is off work all this week, last minute, b/c her father got sick last week. I know, I know, I should be more sympathetic and all. However, when you are the only person in a very busy law firm, answering phones, trying to keep up w/ work and constantly being interrupted by clients who just drop in because they think we are sitting here, waiting for them to grace us with their presence, it's pretty damned inconvenient for her to take time off, especially when she was gone for 2.5 weeks at the end of June through July 6, then off last Thursday and Friday, and now off again till next week!!!

I am sorry that her dad is sick, of course. But my issue is with my coworker. She treated me like complete garbage in 2003, the year my dad died. She never offered any explanation for her behavior, despite my repeatedly trying to get her to tell me what I had done to make her so mad. It was so bad that our bosses noticed it and called her on the carpet to discuss it. I kept asking her why she was kicking me when I was down, how could she be so cruel to me when my beloved father just died, and all she'd do was give me a half hearted apology and a weak hug. But then it would start all over again. After the bosses talked to her, she blamed me for stabbing her in the back. Needless to say, I get along fine with her in the office now, but I did not forgive or forget how she treated me and I do not trust her at all. I never refer to her as "my friend" anymore, only as "my coworker". I don't really have a lot of desire to hang out with her outside of work anyway, we don't have that much in common.

Plus she's one of these people who LOVE to go to the doctor and treat for all of her aches and pains. She took 5 weeks off in 2004 for elective hand surgery, leaving me to deal with all the work, phones, etc. Now she wants to have knee surgery. I would never, and have never, take that much time off from work while I've worked in the legal field. No office I have worked in allowed much more than one full week off because of the workload. But she's been here for like 30 years, so she gets to do what she wants.

So if I'm not all that sympathetic to the fact that she has to take yet another week off for a family emergency, I have my reasons.