Long way to fall from the skies

{melodramatic}
The past week has seen me at both ends of the spectrum; from the brief, dizzying heights of elation, to the proverbial gravel pits of frustration, ending back at the bland realities of normalcy. {/melodramatic}

While I've now been staring, spitefully at the above sentence for the better part of ten minutes, trying to find some marginally more elegant way of saying it, I've failed gruesomly at that; and in protest, I've taken to capping it with the {melodramatic} tags. Take that.

As you're no doubt aware, I work for an ISP, doing technical support. Well, not entirely, as it is; I work for a company who handles outsourcing for other companies. How it becomes economically viable, I have no idea, but apparantly it works. The reason I say I work for an ISP, is because I feel more connected to that, than the company that actually pays me - it's a lot easier to identify with an employer whose company name hasen't changed 4 times inside 18 months. No, I am not kidding.
From Excellent, to Excellent-Tradimus, to Tradimus, and now to Aditro. Fuck's sake. Fusions may look good on paper, and probably on the stock exchange as well, but for the average working joe, it does fuck all apart from the technical difficulties of redoing mailsignatures and addresses.

Anyways;

About a month ago, our Operations Manager forwarded a mail to me; he had suggested me as a candidate for the employee of the quarter. That is, quarter of a year. Quarterly employee? Whatever.

I had pretty much forgotten all about it, largely as I didn't really see it happening. Doesn't matter that I do acknowledge I've done some passably well-performed work, but crux is that I have long hair, wear black clothes, and generally make the higher-ups look weirdly at me whenever fate leads them through our department.

So, waking up monday, and realizing that I had grossly overslept, didn't bode well for the 3rd out of 7 workdays in a row. 14.25 read the alarm clock, and apart from me having trouble catching my breath (yet another riveting dream), I held no concept of a day worth writing home about.
Called in, apologized for being late, and promised them I'd be over as soon as possible.
At 15.05, I clocked in.
At 15.10, one of out TeamLeaders walked over and told me we'd be having a kickoff shortly. A kickoff is basically a 5 minute heads up on the situation at work, usually in the case of focus subjects or specific challenges (I guess I should love the fact that 'challenges' is the positive form of "oh fuck, we're half-staffed all week, and all gateways have just choked!", but I digress);

Well.

In walks the HR-director, a kindly, but strict man with protruding ears and a red tie. Smiling.

This can't be good...

But it was.

After a few minutes of introductionary speech, he proceeded to tell the gathered department that the quarterly employee was indeed to be found amongst us. And that someone was me.

Out of the ~500 people in the building, 400 are neither staff, HR or teamleaders. Out of 400 employees, I appeared to be the chosen one. Go me. Having all your colleagues clap, as you're being praised is definately one of the more memorable things.

Of course, the irony is, that on that very day, they had planned for the award-thing for just after 14, where I was indeed expected to meet. I managed to, unintentionally, oversleep my own award; and thereby forcing our HR-director to go on standby for a bit over an hour.

I told you, I'm the resident rockstar of the support. Hardcore to the bone. Etc etc.

So, what's in it for me?

First off, glory everlasting, and whatnot. And a paid day off, which is nice. Couple of cinema tickets with soda, popcorn and whatnot tossed in as well. A basket filled with weird stuff, ranging from some obscure wine, balsamico, and mustard of some exotic origin that I can't place; as well as a plethora of other strange things.
And a trophy.

Before I get all misty-eyed and start thanking my colleagues and stuff, I could, with usual flair and panache, point out that Balsamico holds no interest to me, mustard I care little for, and the trophy's base was splintered to a degree where I could hardly lug it back to my seat.
Story of my life, I guess; "Here, have a trophy to show how awesome you are. Oh yah, be careful with it, the base is broken."

But well, it did make the day quite a bit different than I had expected.

And from the dizzying heights...

You see, I had forgotten my cell phone at home that morning. After work, unsurprisingly, I ended up drinking to celebrate my new title. Came home moderately intoxicated, and forgot all about my cellphone. Next day, I failed to find it before heading to work. After work, I could find it. Even better, the net at home died. With no cellphone, and no internet, one suddenly feels very cut off from reality. The neccesity of communication is evident at such times. You don't need to use it, but you need to have it.

Luckily, a few days later, my flatmate, when asked if he had seen my cellphone, told me he had found it in the bathroom a few days earlier, and had put it next to his computer in his room. No frickin' wonder I didn't find it - I did manage to completely overturn my room (compounding the mess), and sweep through the living room, which was at the time only lighted by a lava lamp, a TV and my two monitors, as the lightbulb in the living room, when last attempted switched on, knocked the power in the apartment. Not as much fun as it sounds, and reading it, it doesn't even sound that much fun.

Well, coming to a grinding halt here at the last moments of the weekend, the net is back, light is on in the living room again, and I have my cellphone. A return to normalcy, in all its bland lack of glory.
Tomorrow starts a new week for me, although it's only three days of work before two days off again; and the cycle begins anew.

Something's got to give. And something's got to change. This everyday doesn't really do it for me...Although I could reason that it's preferrable to being offline, lost in the darkness of a living room with no lighting, and lacking both cigarettes and a cellphone. Some existential gratitude might serve me well, alongside a slice of the ol' humble pie. Until then, though, I'll remain defiant. Hah.