Ever have days where you feel like you’re trapped in Office Space? I do. Today was one of them. I think I got a total of an hour’s worth of work done all day. Here’s what happened.

6:30: Wakeup. Blearily wander into the shower, stubbing my toe on a toy firetruck on my way to the bathroom.

6:40: Fall asleep in the shower, almost fall down and break my ass.

6:50: Get out of shower. Get dressed. Deal with (lovely) kids and (super-lovely) wife.

7:45: Get in the car and take the 4-yr old to school.

8:20: Arrive at the school and walk the kid inside. Look at kid drawings and stuff. Give my daughter a hug, then walk toward the door. Return at her request, and give her another hug. Repeat x3.

8:30: Leave kid’s school, headed for work. Depending on mood, either listen to Iron Maiden on iPod, or right-wing network on radio.

8:34: Get stuck in traffic on the way to San Jose.

8:35: Hear about traffic on radio and the detour around it. Too late to do anything about it.

9:00: Still stuck in traffic, lamenting the fact that I bought a stick shift.

9:35: Pull into the parking lot. Circle like a shark for about ten minutes, before settling on a spot in bum fuck egypt.

9:36: Get out of car and walk to door of building.

9:37: Walk back to car as I realize I forgot my badge in the car.

9:38: Enter building.

9:45: By now I have my computer setup, logged in, and am starting to check email. Signed onto AIM and IRC too.

9:53: Some joker pulls the fire alarm. What am I, back in the dorms at college?

9:57: Security kicks me out of my office. I can’t hear them, cause I have my iPod blaring over the alarm klaxon.

10:00: Arrive in the parking lot at the “emergency congregation area” and run into all my coworkers.

10:10: We get the idea to bail, since we’re standing around, and drive to Peet’s Coffee a block or so away.

10:11: We don’t go, simply because no one wants to lose their spot.

10:24: Security has proclaimed the building safe, and we return to work. I make it back to my office in time to see whiprush roll into work on IRC.

10:31: One of our group’s managers comes by my office and reminds me that we have an all-hands conference call today, right now. I feign illness, but he doesn’t buy it. I grab the FujiP and follow him to the conference room, filling up my mug with tea on the way.

10:36: I blog about being bored.

10:40: The concall finally starts. Some nimrod can’t run “mute” on his cellphone, so all 200 people on the call hear him coughing and hacking, along with the top 40 dreck he is listening to in the car. I sign on to IRC on the FujiP (thank god for the stealth access point I installed). Someone in the channel sees me and yells “PURPLE!”

11:10: The call’s still going. I hit the OpenForum and look for anything good. Sophomore and LordHunter are arguing about C vs. C++. I get bored and login to my Dell desktop that I just put ubuntu on and start dicking with DMA (mainly so I can watch DVDs, natch).

11:30: The call rolls on. The VP is droning on about paradigms and other stuff. Two engineers are asleep, another is playing with his cellphone, and I’m farting around on the internet. All the Indian contractors are listening intently, as if their job hangs on every word, which it probably does.

11:45: The call continues, but we’re in the Q&A phase. Unfortunately, its more of a “Q” than “A” phase. I get pinged on Jabber by a coworker on the east coast, and we start virtually heckling the guy asking the question.

12:00: The call ends, not because there’s more questions or things to say, but because everyone’s sick of it and we all stop contributing in some kind of massive telepathy exchange. My stomach is grumbling, so I gather a couple of buddies and we go off to lunch.

12:10: We are still trying to figure out where to go to lunch.

12:15: No lunch decision arrived at yet. Jay has to use the john, so now we’re waiting on him. We don’t have quorum without Jay, so we’re stalled on a decision.

12:20: We decide on dim sum, and head for the parking lot. (Weren’t we out there just a little bit ago?)

12:25: We’re now trying to figure out who is driving to dim sum.

12:30: We’re on the road to lunch

12:40 - 1:40: Pig out.

1:50: Return to work, but not before circling for 10 minutes looking for another spot. Finallly bail out of the back seat of buddy’s car as I was getting dizzy from all the circling.

2:00: Get back to desk, and start catching up on email. Find out I have 16 hot escalations and everyone is screaming for an update.

2:25: Jay comes by my office to remind me that we are interviewing our prospective new manager. (Yes, the engineers interview the managers.) We go and meet with the new meathead. No FujiP this time, as the director of the group may pop in and out of the meeting.

2:30 - 4:15: Talk with someone who has no idea about internet technologies, but has been a manager for 30 years. My idea of a fun time, let me tell you. I actually think the guy’s name was Lundbergh.

4:20: Leave interview and kibbitz with Jay about our opinions of the candidate. Generally cut him down from every angle.

4:30: Bio-break. Dim sum, you don’t buy it, you only rent it.

4:45: Return to desk to see another 40 emails - 30 regarding the 16 escalations I have, and 10 regarding the planned downtme on the call tracking system tonight. Seriously, one email would have sufficed.

5:30: Caught up on email. Begin looking at the actual escalations.

5:40: Wife calls, wants to know what time I’ll be home. I look at the clock, and realize it’s freaking late. Somehow the sun has gone down and I don’t know this as I work in a freaking cave.

6:00: Shit is all packed and I head to the car.

6:02: Return to my office because I left my jacket on the back of my chair.

6:04: Back to the car and begin the drive home. Put on the iPod again.

7:15: Arrive at the house, and get tackled by my 2-yr old son and 4-yr old daughter, and promptly forget all about my day.