Bleargh, smonster, but good on you for finding some coping mechanisms.

Someone - a fairly new hire who's the #2 in the office - came to me asking if we had a template/standard for something. After about the fifth repetition, she finally understood that no, we don't. eeesh

Work is stupid. You would think that working for myself it would be less so, but not so much. In theory I should be able to take a day off from time to time, but instead it ends up being working excessive hours. Oh well. Maybe seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but at least a couple more weeks of triple time with the current project.

I do feel bad because I have a friend visiting from RI and I haven't had time to socialize. Fortunately she is self sufficient and comfortable enough to take my car and do stuff on her own.

Sing it, self-employed sister!

You'd think it would be less complicated. So absolutely not.

Yeah, one of my employees, who is normally awesome, just pulled the pin on a metaphorical grenade with a client and the whole thing landing in my lap.

Not what I needed. Now instead of this being a clean handoff to someone we use for additional design work because we are some busy at that point, I get to add it to my list of projects that I need to personally handle and make sure go smoothly so that the client feels taken care of. This is the opposite of lessening the load on me.

Oh, ND. That just sucks royally. I'm so sorry, because I can so completely relate to that frustration, though it is so much worse under your current circumstance.

My version of that this morning is dealing with a pet care client who saved money by having us do mid-day walks while he is out of town and having 'friends' take care of his delicate breed dog the rest of the time. They've injured his pet and are throwing my guy under the bus. The client HAS to know that they are lying, given the details, but instead of confronting them, or having us take over the rest of the services, he's forwarded the friends' emails to me to deal with.

I wish I could say this was an uncommon occurrence. It is so much the reverse, that I've included a clause in the client agreement to make sure everyone understands the limits of our liability. I sincerely understand why people split services like this, and I'd be the last person to say we are infallible, but this arrangement very rarely works out well for the pet.

I sincerely understand why people split services like this, and I'd be the last person to say we are infallible, but this arrangement very rarely works out well for the pet.

Our petsitter is worth every penny when we go out of town. The pets know her, so they're not stressed by an unfamiliar person. They like her, so they're happy when she comes over. If we split it up, the pets would be pretty stressed out, and that's not worth it to us.

That reminds me, I need to find a pet sitter for the second weekend in March. Hmmmm, now that we have moved, I'm not sure who to ask.

Back to the TJ's conversation. K-Bug's first job was there and it was a great fit for her. When CJ went to fill out the application yesterday, they were actually holding interviews, so he got interviewed also. This location doesn't open for another 3 months - but they are looking to hire soon, send them to other stores to get trained up so they are ready to go when the store opens.

Kalshane - congrats!!!

I know there was more but my brain is not firing this morning.

Suzi, I recommend petsit.com pretty much every day. We are members of PSI and I trust their vetting process much more than rover or other 'app' based services. Something about the uber of pet sitting gives me a stomach ache!

If we split it up, the pets would be pretty stressed out, and that's not worth it to us.

This is a basic truth for many pets. The stress can be enormous...especially for breeds like this dog (a Whippet) and, frankly, I don't trust anyone to provide a consistent quality of care when they are not 'relatives' of the dog (like I am for many) or are not trained to handle the roughly quadrillion details associated with pet care.

In this case, the friends used the wrong equipment inappropriately and injured the dog, who is now actively trying to bite my care giver...with whom she had had nothing but a great relationship with for two and a half years.

I'm just so sad for the dog. It's taking a huge amount of sleepless restraint to not call the client a coward and discontinuing service. I don't want the dog to suffer even more though, and they clients aren't home for another two days. If she DOES bite my person though, it will be even worse for her.

I'm sorry about all the stress ND and bonnie.

I met with the new therapist today and I like him. His office is in a therapy practice and feels like a therapists office. Plus they have therapy groups which I'm going to consider and see what insurance will cover. And an informal board game night on Thursdays at 7 pm. I won't go today I'm killing time until I see the shrink. And if I see him Thursday mornings it means turning around and going back the same night but might not be so bad.

So when I see the shrink I'm going to get the other therapists direct line and leave her a message. Not what I wanted to do but I felt ... comfortable.