A short cut to the AOA department

Summertime and the living is easily on the way to driving me bonkers. Fun weekend with the grandkids! Lazy Sunday afternoon nap! Monday mowing and cooking and sitting around reading--perfect! And then comes Tuesday.

Don't even get me started.

Today I have been running from pillar to post while trying to wrangle mounds of pettifogging claptrap standing in the way of a grant project. It's an exciting project--five-day Creative Writing day camp for local high schools students funded by the Department of Job and Family Services--and I'm working alongside some very creative and energetic people. 

But! 

I have to reserve rooms, but another organization has reserved EVERY ROOM in my building for three out of the five days of our camp. So I have to find space in another building, except I'm not familiar with room numbers in all our buildings so I have to walk around looking at rooms to see if they'll suit our purposes, and then I have to walk back to the administration building to confer with the room-reservation guru, who fortunately keeps a well-stocked candy dish on her desk. (Or, maybe, unfortunately.)

The grant was approved last week and the camp starts on June 9, so we need to buy some supplies; however, I can't submit a purchase order or use the College Amazon account until an account number is assigned to the grant. Unfortunately, the grant paperwork has not yet made its way to the person in charge of assigning an account number, so I have to email the grant-writer and all the grant-approvers to try to unclog the pipeline and get the paperwork flowing smoothly.

Further, at our planning meeting this morning I assembled a list of about a dozen questions that can be answered only by the people who normally inhabit three offices whose doors today are tightly shut and locked. Out of the office, apparently. I mean, it's as if these people had lives or, I don't know, summer vacations. Let's hope they're watching their email.

My plan was to spend one long morning on campus taking care of every little pettifogging detail, but all those dead ends and closed doors mean I'll have to come back and try again another day. Next time I'll head straight to the Department of Aggravation, Obfuscation, and Angst. All roads lead there eventually, so why not take the short cut?