"This Will Not Be a Good Day for You"

So it's our year end at Carswell. And I still have one outstanding order to be shoved through. The person who signed the order had inadvertently crossed off the name of the service the organization is subscribing to, and he had told me that to make the necessary correction would take quite some time and wouldn't make the March 31 cut-off. Could we please work with what we have?

I try to access an Excel report and my laptop bluescreens.

We finally decide after much to-ing and fro-ing that we can indeed work with what we have.

As I wait for the verdict I call my Dad: he had invited me to lunch because Bronwyn and the boys were visiting. I have to tell him I won't be able to make it as I need to remain close to my phone and computer.

I try to get to a shared drive to pull up a report for my director and my computer bluescreens.

Many phone calls and emails later, the pro forma invoice arrives in my inbox. I check the numbers: they all compute beautifully. I shoot the thing off to the recipient - it's this organization's year end too, and they have to have the invoice in order to process it on last year's books.

A few minutes later, I get an email: the pro forma invoice doesn't have even Carswell's name on it, let alone our address; the invoice is invalid for their purposes. Now it's after 5 p.m. Toronto time.

I hop into my car - my second appointment in Edmonton is put on alert that I am running behind (the first appointment I had already moved until Friday as I saw the writing on the wall earlier this morning!). The roads are not too congested and all is well until I get behind a WIDE LOAD - three semis bearing buildings and rig equipment and blocking two and a half lanes of the QE2 ...

Fortunately my dinner partner is more than gracious and we talk publishing and the Mandarin language lessons she is taking and cats and travel. She notices that I don't have a coat on. Did I mention that in my haste to leave Three Hills I had rushed out to the car, flinging my bag into the back seat and roaring off without so much as a sweater? She graciously lends me a colourful warm shawl to get me through the evening and tomorrow morning. I can return it whenever I see her next.

I check in at the Delta South Hotel, room 1030. By now it's just after 10:00 p.m. And for the next hour and twenty minutes I try to get an internet connection. I call the tech desk. There is nothing they can do. They send a hotel employee to my room with a new cable. She tests it in the room and determines that there IS no internet in the room. We move down to room 1008. No internet connection there either. Huh. She can't figure it out - no one has complained except for me. She calls the front desk. It seems the internet has been down for a couple of hours with no estimated time of restoration. They will try resetting it, though, they assure me, and will call me at room 1030. The employee has to leave because it's now 11:08 and she gets off work at 11:00. She first lets me back into room 1030, where I wait for the call.

And wait. And wait. Finally I call the front desk; Oh, sorry, they say, it's not working. I ask to transfer hotels to the Delta Edmonton Centre. This is month end and year end for us, and I have reports galore to get done. I am already convinced that everyone in sales management and administration at my company already thinks I am either (a) a fool or (b) a fraud when it comes to my endless computer issues. No one will believe that I couldn't get the reports done because the hotel's internet connectivity is zilch. I'd rather move across the river and down town than risk that.

They have reserved me a room at the Delta Edmonton Centre Suites. I get here at 12:28. Before unpacking, I plug my computer in and open up my browser: INSTANT ACCESS!

The whole reason I am recounting all of this is because earlier in the morning someone sent me a link to see what my birth date says about me. Not much, as it turns out. But along with some fairly interesting general facts about this day in years past was this one statement, standing forlornly in its own paragraph: "This will not be a good day for you."

Really? And to think that tomorrow (today, really) is April Fool's Day - I can hardly wait ...

Now, off to work on my monthly report, my roll-up and my forecast for the new month and the new year!