Monday Morons

Well, I was sitting here debating on what to write about, and then I remembered that it was Monday and I'd already said what I would write about.

In case you forgot, last Monday my husband's boss called him to tell him that he didn't have to go into work that day. The day's schedule had been cancelled. That would have been nice to know, except that my husband had already left for work two hours before that. My husband works out of town a lot, and that week he was working in Paris (Texas, so don't get excited). He didn't leave for work at the crack of dawn or anything, but he certainly had to leave before lunch time when his boss called. And you would think that his boss would know that.

Anyway, someone in the company knew that the schedule was cancelled like on Friday (or perhaps earlier), but they didn't forward the information to the right person, so no one bothered to tell my husband or correct the schedule or any of that stuff. The photographers all have to work on Saturdays, but other people in the company take the whole weekend off, so no one bothered to mention the schedule change on Saturday either. Most of them have Sunday off, most of the time, so still no mention of the change. My husband usually doesn't work on Mondays, to make up for the fact that he usually has to work on Saturdays, but they expected to be so busy in Paris that he was asked to work an extra day.

Turns out that they are not that busy in Paris. Worse, they just aren't making any money in Paris. So when they found out that they didn't have to work on Monday, most of them were like that's no big deal, cause they usually don't work on Monday anyway.

Except that no one remembered to tell the photographer until lunchtime, and since the job starts right after lunch, obviously he had to leave about two or three hours before that.

People are always calling here, asking for my husband, when he is at work. And they are from the company that he works for, so they should already know that he is at work.

"I thought this was his cell phone."

No. This is not his cell phone. He does not have a cell phone. That is why on the forms he filled out the cell phone part is blank.

"Well, he needs to get a cell phone for situations like this."

Fine. Why don't you buy him a cell phone? If he needs a business phone, the business should pay for it.

"Well, what if there was an emergency? Don't you want an emergency phone?"

Yes, I would like an emergency phone. I can't afford one. My mom finally bought me one for Christmas. My husband still doesn't have one.

And it is an emergency phone. That means it is for emergencies. I use it about once a week or so, for one or two minutes, just to make sure that it still works. It is not a business phone. I will not be giving you the number. If my husband gets an emergency phone, he will not be giving you the number either.

Not that it would have helped in this case anyway. Even if he had a business phone, he wouldn't be trying to talk on it while he's driving. If the phone rang, he'd just let it ring. He's not going to risk having a wreck just to answer the cell phone. You could leave him a message for the next time he had to stop. But he was nearly in Paris when you called anyway. What was he supposed to do? Turn around and drive home, and then turn around and drive back the next morning. That would have been between almost nine hours driving.

The first few times someone from work called looking for him, I got upset. I thought that something had happened to my husband. If he left for work hours ago, and they call his house looking for him, then he must be missing, right? People from work don't call home unless someone didn't make it to work, right?

But instead I got someone explaining how they thought it was a cell phone. The first couple of times sort of made sense, but after that you'd think that someone would make a note that this is not a cell phone and my husband does not have a cell phone. But no, someone does not do that. So I used to get a call about once a week from someone at work wanting to talk to my husband. Even the ones who knew he didn't have a cell kept calling. "When you hear from him would you give him a message?" Sure, okay. But even that was dumb. They knew where he was going. Surely they could call where he was going and talk to him before I would.

They do other dumb stuff like that. Traveling photographers tend to get a lot of packages from work. A lot of it is important stuff that they need. Sometimes it is dumb stuff, like a box of pens. They spend more on the postage for sending pens that it would cost to go to the store and buy pens. Why don't they just tell them to buy some pens and add them to the weekly expense report? But some of it is important stuff, or at least stuff that really does have to come from the company, stuff that they couldn't just go buy at Walmart.

And where do they send these packages?

Well, they send them here, of course.

What part of traveling photographer do you not understand? He isn't here. He isn't going to be here until late Saturday night. And if I had a life, I wouldn't be here either.

Why don't you send the packages to the place where he's going to take the pictures? If I wasn't home most of the time, the packages would sit outside all day. And if he wasn't married, the packages would sit outside all week. How many packages do you think would still be here by Saturday night if I wasn't here to bring them inside?

Monday of this week was cancelled too. So was Tuesday. But at least they told him about like last Wednesday.

He didn't much care for Paris anyway.