I hate to start the week off on a sour note, but I’m not having a good Monday. I’m having the worst bought of PMS in my life. My son is sick for the second time this month, and he gets asthma when he’s sick, so it’s an added worry for me. I’d like nothing more than to huddle under the blankets with him today, but I have deadlines to meet. Working when my kids are sick is still a foreign concept to me, and just feels wrong.

And yet, this is the week of Thanksgiving, for those of us living in the US. I’ve been thinking about being thankful a lot lately.
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Friday my kids were off school, and I took them to the mall to buy Emily, my nine-year-old, some much needed winter clothes. I got two hundred bucks out of the ATM, She looked at me, and I swear I could see the cartoon dollar signs in her eyes.

“You have two hundred dollars! How come you’re always telling me you don’t have any money?!”

“I don’t tell you that I don’t have any money, I tell you I don’t have money for the Webkinz, or the CD, or the poster that you’re asking me for at the moment. We have money, but we only have a certain amount of ‘fun money.’”

“How come all my friends have more fun money than I do?”

“I don’t know, probably because most of your friends’ parents both work full time, and I only work part time.”

“You should go back to teaching! You should get a full-time job! Then I could get a cell phone!”

“True, if I went back to work full time, we’d have a lot more fun money. But you still wouldn’t get a cell phone, because in our family, no kid under 14 needs a cell phone. Also, Will would have to go to full-time school, and I don’t think he’d be very happy. ”

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My mouse is dead. Well, it’s not really dead, or I would’ve replaced it a long time ago. But it’s very ill, and wants to be put out of it’s misery. My husband got mad at Microsoft a while back (who among us hasn’t), because some program wouldn’t do what he wanted it to, and he crippled the mouse. Also, I’m not sure what happened to our mouse pad, but I suspect it became a stuffed-animal mattress, or a flying carpet for some elated doll. In any case, I’ve been using a broken mouse, and a piece of cardboard as the primary tools for my job, for too long. At no time while using a mouse should you have to use both hands, that’s just six kinds of wrong.

So today, I will fling open the doors to Best Buy. A wind machine will start up, music will blare, and I will sweep down the isles to the computer department. I will slap my money on the counter and walk out with the best mouse money can buy. That’s on sale.

I think it would be great fun if we all did something today to make our work better. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, maybe not any. Or maybe it should cost a lot of money, and now is the time to write that check. Hire an assistant, buy some new office supplies, find a solution, clean your desk, or take a break.

Right now I also work nights and weekends in a retail job. It’s very boring, some of the people are jerks, and the pay is bad. But even in a situation like this I can find small ways to be happy ( although, maybe I’m being too upbeat about it because I only work part time, and it’s not my bread and butter). I try to connect with the customers, to really offer good service, and be helpful. I always bring a good book with me to escape during break, I make jokes, and I try to have empathy for the jerks.

So even if you’re stuck in a job you hate, and there’s nothing much you can do about it today, maybe you could find refuge in the small things. Breathe, buy yourself your favorite coffee, write an encouraging note to a co-worker, add some color to your cubicle. If you do something to make your day at work better, leave a comment. I’d love to read about it.