mybackup2022 | Aug. 6th, 2008

I don't know the exact reason - might be age, might be hormones, the moon or (most probably) the overall situation here - but I've never felt as fed-up, exhausted and just simply sick of it all as I have been these last weeks.

I haven't had a holiday since September 2007, and worked all the Austrian public holidays this year, except for Easter Monday. And right now, I'd just love to drop it all and... Yep, that's the problem, because other people won't do my dirty work.

On top of it all, I had to do the final report today on the financial part of the Federal President's visit. The last two and biggest bills were paid today, i.e. the hotel bills for the Hilton in Kayseri and the Sheraton in Ankara. The Hilton bill has been going back and forth between Kayseri and Ankara three times since we first received it at the beginning of June - first they billed rooms and extras that had already been paid, then they billed rooms and extras the Turkish Foreign Ministry had agreed to pay... In the end, they made another mistake, but since it was to their disadvantage (62 rooms instead of 63), I decided to call it quits and just pay. Luckily for me, we had booked a backup room, so I just noted on the bill that we didn't have to pay it, and transferred the effing money.

Then I got very angry (yes, my lucky day today) with the owner of the company that does most of our building and renovation work. I'd written him a rather long email this morning, concerning a) the updating of an offer he'd given me last December and which the Ministry had lost, b) postponement of the renovation of the office parquet floors, and c) a complaint about one of his technicians who'd completely fucked up our a/c the week before last and, when I told him to kindly leave the premises, because I'd found somebody else to do the work, was very reluctant to go and then pestered our janitor with phone calls the whole weekend, demanding an explanation.
Mr Dindar, the company owner, came to see me at about 2 p.m., with an enevelope containing the updated offer.
Then he asked whether the scheduled date for the floor renovation was still valid.
I asked him whether he hadn't received my mail and, if he hadn't, why he'd shown up with the updated offer.
Oh yes, he had read it.
Well, why hadn't he read it all? Because I'd written about the floor etc.etc.
He gave me a doubtful look.
I repeated that it had been a long mail, and hadn't he read it.
He said that he obviously hadn't read it very accurately. But there was something else he wanted to discuss with me: he was having problems with our janitor.
So I informed him, coolly but politely, that I had problems with his technician, that he ought to go and do his homework and come back to discuss the matter another day.
I fucking HATE it when people tell me stupid transparent lies, and I can't simply tell them to piss off and never come back!! God, I hate it.

Maybe it was all a bit much today.

BTW, there's also the lastest Ambassador-madness: Her first day at work was Monday 4 August. She went to greet everybody at our side of the Embassy but didn't even stick her head into my office to say Good Morning. It's the completely unveiled contempt and lack of respect that really begin to get to me. The fact that smebody can treat me like this, and nothing happens.