The Week From Hell continues.

So far, this week has featured:

• The city deciding this week was the best week to block off all the routes to the babysitter's house, so that it took me 30 minutes to get past one single intersection (four trains plus four lanes cut down to two on two intersecting streets).
• Every possible thing going wrong that could at work--like this morning, when I couldn't sign onto either of the databases that I'm working on, which took an hour's worth of fiddling around before finding the problem.
• People ignoring the sign on my office door that, translated from the niceness, meant "GO AWAY", to come in and ask me questions that other people could have answered.
• A horde of tradesmen grumping and kvetching about having to learn to use a new system.
• People demanding my attendance at meetings which I don't have time for this week.
• Beautiful torrents of rain that fell at our office, with only a trace falling at our house.
• Being able to see my brother, SIL, niece and nephew--who I haven't seen for two years--for all of a day out of the seven days they're in the state visiting family.

All of which resulted in:

• Me getting furious at OmegaDad because he's known for months now that this week is Hell Week, but he still went out in the field for three days, leaving me to play Single Mom in the midst of all this.
• Me shouting at poor OmegaDotter Wednesday night.
• Me feeling guilty.
• Me giving OmegaDad the cold shoulder on the phone Thursday.
• Me breaking down in tears on the phone at OmegaDad today.
• Me weeping on OmegaDad's shoulder when I got home tonight.

The silver lining to all of this is that it's just work stress that will be over with Very Soon Now. There is a definite End in sight; unlike home stresses that I've encountered previously, where it seemed to stretch out forever with no relief. There are people who are dealing with some very serious issues in life right now, and when I read their posts, I slap myself upside the head and try to remember that it could be much worse.

OmegaGranny, in a very motherly fashion, huffed at my workplace via email, asking why they expected so much of me when everyone knows that even Micro$oft can't meet deadlines! The difference being, Micro$oft won't come to a grinding halt if Office and Vista don't make their deadlines, whereas my department will, because the new financial system--going up this weekend--doesn't include this component.

Ah, well. In a few days the crunch will be done, and in a few weeks, this will all be over with. At which point, I will take a week off and sleep late every day, pad around the house in my sweats and t-shirts, and go hiking with my Dawg.