Like A Tuesday . . .

. . . Made entirely out of six Mondays all stitched together into one unholy mother of a Tuesday.
We've gone into "pre-audit" mode at work with the intention of lessening the stress of the audit itself. While the idea is noble, the workload is oppressive.
And, like every effort in a workplace like this one, there is a constant need to engage other groups to assist with various tasks related to their areas of expertise.
This process is annoying.
Actually, someone driving 25 in a 40 mile-an-hour zone is "annoying". The guy with 35 items in the 10-items-or-less lane is "annoying". Someone scraping a chalkboard clean with sharpened stakes of bamboo is "annoying".
The process of getting people to simply do their freaking jobs is like rolling a boulder uphill all day. A boulder which is on fire. And the hill is covered in ants.
I would expect a little push-back, sure.
Like when someone asks me to do something I'm going to completely make sure the task is mine to do. If I just did it, and the responsibility for the activity belonged to someone else, suddenly it belongs to me. Then the next request for me to repeat the task might start to carry the weight of history until eventually the scales tip and my role expands.
Also, I hate it when people ask me to do stuff, so it is only natural for me to push them off in other (sometimes random) directions in their quest to get something done.
But that's me.
It is totally different when I'm acting in the "requester" capacity.
At those times, I just need something done.
I need a firewall port opened or closed, for instance.
I don't do firewall stuff.
I don't have the password.
I don't want the password.
I just want to call the firewall person and have my request processed.
I don't want to put in a Change Request Ticket, have my simple freaking request passed to Engineering for assessment, get vague and noncommittal emails in response, have to reply with a solid block of question marks, and then get a call at home at 8pm to discuss it only to have the Engineering guy say "Oh, yeah, that does sound like a good idea -- Only I don't make that change and I don't know who does".
I want my port opened or closed.
I want my network traffic to be able to get where I expect it to get.
I just want stuff to freaking work, you know?
Sometimes I have to assume that Karma is working against me. If that is the case, and Karma is indeed making an example of me, I'm comforted by the philosophy which tells us that Karma - precisely for treating me so horribly/justly - will, in the end, get what's coming for it, too.
Take that, Karma.
Eventually, Karma will be drowning its sorrows in alcohol in a darkened room, gently rocking back and forth and slowly curling into the fetal position before blacking out.
Or some less sad activity, possibly.