What a day

[mousme]

Yesterday did not go very well at work.

I got only about 200 words done on BTP, between work and having to finish tonight's script. Then the computer system shat itself and died, leaving me unable to print my script.

As it turned out, that was a blessing in disguise, because there were a couple of HUGE mistakes that needed fixing. Luckily I had a USB key at work that I used to copy over my document in plain text and rtf form and brought it home, where tcaptain very kindly talked me down from a metaphorical ledge so that I could fix it.

Work itself was a nightmare starting into the second half of my double shift. Something Big And Dire™ happened, but I'm not sure what, as evidenced by the flurry of phone calls among all the white shirts for the better part of the afternoon and evening. We had officers all over the place on the road, and they kept us very, very busy.

Then there were the crazy people. Tomorrow's the full moon, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Nonetheless, we seem to be getting way more crazies than usual since December. In December I attributed it to the holidays, but now? It's way past Epiphany, so I've got nothing.

I talked to the Queen of the Universe again, and this time she also sent me a ten-page single-spaced fax in ten-point font to explain her problem. Needless to say, it was completely incoherent. However, I discovered via this fax that she is not only the Queen of the Universe, she is also the President of the World, and she is also God, Creator of All Things.

Then another frequent flier called. I won't give his real name, so let's call him Valentine. He's a problem caller, because he's incoherent and won't shut up ever. We're not exactly supposed to just hang up on them, so convincing him that he needs to hang up is a hell of a chore.

Then there was the woman whose computer wasn't working properly, and therefore she concluded that she had been hacked and that it was the WORK OF SPIES!!1! National security was at risk, and we had to do something right away!

Then a guy landed on our doorstep with a wacked-out story of having been defrauded by his business partner in Cowansville. COWANSVILLE! He'd driven all the way to Montreal to talk to the RCMP. I sent an officer out to talk to him, but let's just say he was a giant waste of time.

The crowning glory came when a man called me, told me his "code name" was Paul and asked to speak to an officer whose name he completely garbled (he only knew his first name, and it wasn't in our database). The officer in question had worked the roadblock during the Oka Crisis, he assured me, and they were great buddies. When I told him I couldn't find that name in our directory, he became agitated and incoherent and started spewing nonsense about having the key to a mechanism that would make everything go "boom" the next day. Of course, that sounds like a bomb threat, so I had to at least make the effort to figure out if this is legitimate (even if he didn't have a bomb, he could still be planning to do something stupid and desperate). Then he talked about killing himself, at which point I put in a conference call to the Montreal police. Unfortunately he freaked out and hung up when we got him back on the line, but he'd already told me where he was, so the SPVM told me they'd go see if they could find him for me.

All this while three-quarters of the computer system was down, and I'd already worked twenty-five hours in the last two days. By the time my second double was over I was cross-eyed, stressed, and just wanted to go home and drown myself in the bathtub.

I really hope today works out better for me.

Comments

[crowgirl13.livejournal.com]

Full moon fun for everyone it seems. :P

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Apparently, suicides peak on January 29th each year - so it would seem that crazy season lasts longer that just the holidays, unfortunately!