Let me sum up work today. Two of my surveyor's got jobs with Fed Ex sometime last week (must have been on Friday, since I talked to them on THURSDAY) and so did not do their Saturday assignments (thanks for the heads up - real professional.) A third surveyor had yet ANOTHER "family emergency" which made him for the *4th* weekend in a row NOT do his Saturday assignment. THEN a fourth surveyor didn't take her Mega Battery, but took her older one - the one that's given us so many problems. So her Palm ended up dying on her - losing the program and all the data she had collected that day.

We did not have room for *anything* like this. We don't have enough equipment to hire enough surveyors to finish all the assignments next week. So, it looks like despite all the effort we've put into finishing by the 17th, we're STILL going to have to come back in January. It makes me so mad I could just SPIT! Oh yeah, the first three surveyors - the ones who have done NOTHING for FOUR weeks - they were told they were no longer needed. Should've done that last week, then maybe we wouldn't be so hard up now.

It really makes me wonder if people understand what it means when they take a job - or how to use some very simple tools, such as the TELEPHONE to keep their employer's updated. I would SO love it if any of those first three surveyor's asked to use me as a reference!!!! For two of them I could say that I really enjoyed working with them, although towards the end of the project when we were getting to major crunch time, neither one of them were able to help us finish the project because of various reasons. The third surveyor - don't know that I could even honestly say I enjoyed working with him - he would always keep me waiting - like today, he was supposed to come drop his stuff off. At 3:45 he told Jan he was on his way over. I called Jan at 4:15 to see if she'd heard from him. He told her he was just a few minutes away. At 4:30 I called Jan to let her know I was leaving for the day and had not seen or heard from him.

I just don't get it, don't get it at all.

Dad and I went to Kroger's tonight. Bought some of the things I had coupons for, plus Milk and bananas. Dad paid $4.97 for ~$10 worth of items.

Dad got a bit miffed with me. I asked him if I was supposed to meet him and mom on Thursday at the Macaroni Grill (they're taking me out for my birthday.) He was like, yeah, since we'll both be in Fort Worth. I told him that no, actually *I* wouldn't be. He goes "Since when have you not been working on Thursdays?" I *wanted* to say -- I TOLD you that my schedule changed THREE WEEKS AGO!!! But of course I didn't say that - that would be calling for outright war. So instead I calmly told him that a couple weeks ago my schedule had been changed to just Monday to Wednesday - although last week I worked on Thursday instead of Wednesday. He *still* got miffed at me and was all "So what! You want to cancel out on the whole thing, or go somewhere else?" I told him no that I didn't want to do that, I was just wondering about what the plans were. ARGHHHH!!!!!!! How much longer???????????????

No spending for me today. But a huge headache.

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura