Busy busy busy

The number one word that people use to describe Charlie is "busy."  My mom spent the night last month, and when I woke up 3 hours after she did and inquired about her morning, she looked at Charlie and said, "We have had a VERY busy morning!" as if she had been baby-sitting a toddler.  He inspires that kind of talk, because he is VERY busy.  He has lots of corners to attend to, dust bunnies (made by his own fur, might I add) to sniff, and let's not even get into the busy-ness that ensues when I leave the linen closet door ajar.

The best part about watching him is that he is SO busy, he interrupts himself with his busy-ness and will suddenly look up at me with wide eyes that say, "I have been in the middle of FIFTEEN activities in the past three minutes!  That's like a record or something, right mom? Right? Right???"

Anyway, that's how I felt today at the store.  I had a bit of catch-up to do because of my days off, and every time I started a "project" I was interrupted.  One of the most frustrating aspects of a job like this is that if a customer needs help, I must drop everything to attend to his needs.  I'm the type of person that gets really involved in what I'm doing and I tend to get very irritated when I have to stop to accomodate another person.   Perhaps this mindset is why I often view my cell phone as an intrusion--I've been watching a movie for 2 hours and the killer is about to be revealed....RING RING.  Then I have the moral dilemma of, Okay, I'm here, what if they really need something?  Should I just call back in 10 minutes?  Wait, am I saying a movie is more important than my friend?  HOLY SHIT I'M AN AWFUL PERSON.

Anyway.  Today was a day of me being busy, busy, busy but rarely completing a single project.  I would be interrupted, switch gears, start on something else--a project where I could stand by the register, a project that allowed me to not face a wall, etc--and consequently I felt very unsatisfied at the day's end.  I mean, even my attempts to leave at the end of the day were thwarted.  It took me an extra ten minutes to take (well, rip) off my name tag because no one would let me have five freaking seconds to myself to actually turn and run screaming to the elevator.  In fact, I was berated for five minutes that another bookseller was not helpful about some random course information.  Oh, he wasn't?  Probably because it was also time for him to leave and your questions make no sense and it's the end of the day and now you're keeping me past my time too.
So I did the only thing I could:  I apologized.  Profusely.  (As a rule, I do not apologize for things that are not my fault.  I will address this another day, though.)  Just to get her to stop talking.  It didn't work.  So I just started nodding.  Uh huh.  Yes.  Of course.  Perhaps he didn't know the information.  Okay. Yes. 

I just got bitched out because someone in a different dept--someone I don't even know-- didn't have the proper information and was (possibly) rude. (I'm betting he wasn't rude at all and was more likely confused.  This woman made no sense.)

This job is SO fun!