{ the difference between what you need and what you want to be. }

[delga]

I fucked up the use of the subjunctive in a team-wide email on Friday, and I am still pissed off about it. No-one will have noticed, but I know that I got it wrong, and it's irritated me since I hit send. And this, ladies, is why my life is difficult: because I tend not to make things easy for myself.

But seriously: the fucking subjunctive. Fuck.

--

I need to stop off at the suboffice first thing tomorrow to pick up the paperwork I dumped there on Friday afternoon, and then it's another week of whatevering and trying to get things done. I want the Co-conspirator to have a certain task done by Friday, but she's been dithering about, and I don't think it's going to get done, even though we set September-end as an absolute deadline. I adore her - she makes the days she is in go much more smoothly, and she is my colleague in arms over a lot of stuff, but-- jesus, woman, get things done, please. Stop faffing. I can understand being reluctant about new processes, but we need to switch over already, and holding up the queue is not productive.

I think I'm going to have to set tomorrow aside to copy and return countersigned contracts to service users' next of kin. That will free up the scanner, so hopefully she will make use of the time. She needs to finish the allocated task so I can train her on other stuff, like contracts. If she can take some of that up then I can finish my training on the invoicing system and start working on things that are about to be handed to me, too. But I'm worried about trying to handle the workloads in the office, and all sorts of other things, and I know that a lot of that is my need to Control! Every! Damn! Thing! but it's also a genuine concern regarding the way work flows through the team, and the new onus on the admin to get certain things done. UGH. CO-CONSPIRATOR, PLEASE HELP.

--

Merlin was delightful! Richard Wilson's face is brilliant, and whilst the humour was exactly what you'd expect, it was also much, much better than the troll episodes from last season. Everything was brilliant. Oh show.

Comments

[belantana.livejournal.com]

Will it make you feel better to explain to me what the subjunctive is? (Seriously do not know; learned English by osmosis.) (If not, feel free to ignore me and I will saunter over to google to correct my ignorance.)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

The subjunctive verb mood expresses a wish, or a hypothetical, or an opinion. Something that has not actually occurred. So: "if I were a bird, I would fly south". 'I were' is subjunctive mood; normally it would be 'I was'.

I am the worst at explaining this. I just always know when it's wrong.

[belantana.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh! That makes sense. Thanks. I do go back and correct myself a lot with are/were, so probably that's because I'm subconsciously using the subjunctive correctly. *headdesk*