Going Crazy

I
have
to
take
a
break.
My head is hurting from staring at numbers all day. I have been dealing with the not so fun part of managing a research project. I am responsible for collecting, entering and making data make sense. I recently found out that the data I had been collecting for over the last 1.5 years was not enough. So I have to go back through all 700 some odd records and re-record some data. It really is a good thing because the reason I am doing this is to secure another grant for developing training materials to go along with the assessment we are already administering. It is just a lot of numbers. A lot of numbers that I have to compile. And a lot of numbers that I have to make sense out of. Out of all 3 statistic courses I took in college, not one taught me effective methods of actually presenting data. Lame.

Anyway, I thought I was having a bad week until I had to make a dreaded phone call. I dreaded this phone call because I had to tell someone who was requesting a free re-take that we weren't going to give it to her for various reasons. I hate doing that. I just hate being the bearer of bad news. So I call her hoping to just leave a message. No such luck. I explained who I was and what I was calling about. She then profusely thanks me for returning her call (which makes me feel even worse that she is being so nice) then she starts crying. So I come to find out that she was just fired from her job that day because she didn't score high enough on the before mentioned assessment. She was just diagnosed with a serious illness and I'm sure her dog died or something. So I then had to spend 10 minutes grief counseling (see how my education does come in handy from time to time?) and then I have to break the news that even though she just lost her job she will have to fork out another $250.00 just to re-take the assessment to get her job back. I just wish she was mean about it. Then I wouldn't have felt so bad. Anyway, after hearing about her bad day, my week doesn't seem so bad.