The Patron Saint Of Grumpiness

Even the most mild-mannered among us may don the demeanor
and raiment of King of the Grumps on Saint Churlemond's Day.
After consuming a Fuji-sized mound of cocaine (a traditional holiday dish),
Tony "Ever-So-Slightly Peevish" Montana celebrates
the anxiously-awaited arrival of Churlemondtide with his little friend.

Greg:

First things first. Sorry I haven't written in so long, but it is now the NFL preseason and I have been all ghey for the football. You will notice (if you put down that greasy turkey leg and click the link in the previous sentence) that I have moved all of my football-related correspondence over to a blog (no - clog) designed specifically for that purpose. Hereafter I won't bother you with it, as it only falls on deaf ears in this forum. I often fancy that I can actually see the disinterest cloud your eyes like snow on a dead TV channel the minute I so much as mention the word "football". So there, I've done you a favor. Thank me. And I'll try to stick to my word and not mention football here. (Offer may not be valid in Seattle, and may be complete bullshit elsewhere. Check your local blogroll for details. - Ed.)

May I say this, though? I have tickets to 6 of the 8 Seahawks home games, the exceptions being the two Monday night games. Don't matter none to me. In a completely sold out season, I'm happy to have what I got. Oh wait. Your eyes have gone completely back into your skull. I'll stop with the football.

So - work. We're building up to a product launch. Everyone is stressed out and grumpy. And let me preface my comments that follow by pointing out that I, of all the people in the office, am King Grump of Bitch Island. I rule the grump roost because it doesn't take a product launch to make me grumpy. I'm grumpy on principle - that principle being that mere humans to not meet my exacting standards of excellence, and as such, are as annoying as clouds of stinging gnats, what with their "talking" with "words" and asking me "questions" like "how are you" and making "statements" like "boy don't you look nice today". RRRG! Jesus! Talk about knowing exactly how to piss me off! Inasmuch as I hold myself to the same standards, I also piss myself off with my "being pissed off". Grump without end, amen.

So yeah, so it seems that not only are people stressed out and grumpy, it seems that the expectation of stress and grumpiness was set long before the product launch ever occurred. (Pre-postscript: I wanted to put the phrase "Don't freak out. It's only work." in my email signature just to point out what ridiculous stress levels we were maintaining, but I was told not to because that alone might freak people out. 'Zat give you any idea? In a week, people will be crapping diamonds around here.) Weeks ago, everyone was already talking about how stressful launch was going to be, and regaling each other with nostalgic tales of grumpinesses and stress festivals past. So it looks as though we're living up to that projection so far, so that means we oughtta be happy, right? Tell me I'm crazy. Things are exactly as screwed up, bass-ackwards and stress-inducing as we expected them to be, so we should revel in our astounding prescience and good fortune! Otherwise we're like people going to a bull fight and wanting our money back because the bull was too mean to that poor man.

Actually, let's not screw around. Since these events seem to come with so much anticipation and folklore attached, let's just put them on the calendar as movable feasts dedicated to Saint Churlemond the Fractious, Patron of Grumpiness. Then we can all don costumes of hairshirt and steel wool, drink bile, and give each other the bras d'honneur when we pass in the hallway. I think that sounds like a capital idea, don't you?

So on a final note, I'll probably get fired tomorrow for throwing this into the middle of what sounded to me like a rather, shall we say, contentious email string regarding some ball that got dropped somehwere on some damn thing or other. (I'll save you reading the rest of the string and just put in the good part.)

DATE: August 17th, 2006
SUBJECT: Stakeholder review - 8/17

Going forward, could we change the spelling of "stakeholder" - at least in internal communications - to "Steak Holder"? I think it might make things, you know, funnier. Besides, a "stakeholder" sounds like half of a vampire-killing duo. (The other guy would be the "stakepounder" of course.) And besides... Mmm! Steak! Know what I mean?

-------

Wish me luck at the welfare office, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus