Pounding away, pounding away

Friday was a very busy day. Ned and the Boy were Frogbound for the day so I walked the dogs before going to work to hold the hand of the trainee. I'm not sure that she's going to last. She's very nice and all that, but she's taking ages to get to grips with the job. When the person before me started she had five accompanied training shifts (15 hours) before having to go solo. I was luckier - I had eight (24 hours). The new girl had seven (21 hours), tried a solo shift and had to call me in to help, so was taken to the main branch for some intensive training. She had another 25 hours training during the week but still needed assistance on Friday morning. She's written the procedures in a notebook but doesn't refer to it, and stands staring at the computer screen waiting for it to tell her what to do while the waiting clients get fed up.

The trouble is that, although everything's quite straightforward, you do have to multi-task. A client will come into the reception area to buy something and immediately the phone will ring. The phone has to be answered (it might be an emergency) but the client who's there mustn't be ignored - you have to smile and apologise and if necessary take the phone client's number and offer to call them back in a few minutes. This is the PR side of the job and is very important. None of the things we have to do are difficult in themselves, but they do all tend to happen at once! Tomorrow she's supposed to be going solo for real - if she can't manage after all this training I don't think she ever will.

Anyway, I did the (very busy) afternoon shift (all appointments booked) on my own (apart from the vet for the second half of it) and felt a headache brewing. And it built and built. Nothing would shift it. It was still there yesterday, and when I woke this morning as well. Pound, pound, pound. Over the course of the day I tried ibuprofen, aspirin, feverfew and paracetamol, but nothing made any impression on it. The next step was going to have to involve sawing off the top of my skull to let the pain out.

Now it's just getting dark, and the pain is starting to ease up a bit. What a washout of a weekend this has been.