What Was I Thinking?

Yesterday was my first day back at work, but it didn't really count because I spent almost the whole day sorting through the 1391 emails I received over the last 3 months. It sounds like a lot but I actually expected there to be a lot more. About 75% got deleted immediately ("Does anyone have any Tums?") and the rest gradually got filed away into their respective folders. The whole exercise was very satisfying and didn't require a whole lot of concentration which was a good thing because I was frequently interrupted by well-wishers and the curious wanting to know how I was and how my mom was, etc.

Today was another story. The morning saw me communicating frequently via both email and phone with our help desk trying to get my systems in order. Of course I had forgotten all my passwords but on top of that my access to some systems had been revoked due to the length of time I had been away. This meant sending an email to my manager asking her to provide authorization, yadda yadda yadda. Lots of bureaucratic red tape. I was scheduled to actually go on the phones and start doing my job at 12:30--I got access to the last outstanding system at 12:45. Phew!

Then came the calls--how could I have forgotten how to do my job in only 3 months? How do women coming back from maternity leave do it? That's a whole year, for crying out loud! I don't think I told anybody the wrong thing, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure. By the time 4:30 rolled around I was more than ready to get the hell out of there. And I probably only took about 20 calls!

So here I sit, glass of wine in hand, trying not to worry too much about how stressful the rest of the week will surely be. Whose brilliant idea was this again? Oh yeah, mine.