Ok – so I may have made a horrible, horrible mistake.

When you think about it, it takes so little to ruin someone’s day, doesn’t it? Seriously, try it. Tell a stranger that you pass by on the street that his or her shirt is ugly. Tell a waiter that it was the worst meal you ever had. Tell a host that his/her party sucks. A handful of words, a few seconds, and that person will stew over your asshole comment all day long. So little can affect such a significant and damaging impact.

And so it is something so little that is ruining my time in LA. What is it, exactly? About a half-second.

Though my firm has an office out here in LA, I am working "remotely." I don’t know exactly what that means since I’m a technical retard, but when in my office in NYC, I sit down, turn on my computer, and everything I need is right there at my fingertips. LA employees have this luxury as well. Like I do in NYC, when they sit at their computers, everything is right there, familiar and easy.

But I am not in the NY office. Nor am I an LA employee. Because I am basically squatting in the LA office for a few weeks, I’m remotely accessing my NY computer. Again, I have no idea what this means or why it’s necessary, but instead of simply logging on and finding everything at my need at my fingertips, I have to enter a series of passwords and navigate through multiple log-ons, only to get kicked off the system every few hours. While the getting kicked off would be enough for some people to seriously damage their computer with their fists, feet and possibly teeth, I don’t mind it (I time each log-off with a poop/soda break). What bothers me most, perhaps more than I have ever been bothered before by anything in the history of my life and humankind, is the half-second delay for everything I do.

During my work day, every single time a letter is typed, there is a half-second to full-second delay before it appears on the screen. I touch a key, and instead of appearing instantly, it appears a fraction of a second later.  The result is that I type faster than the words appear on the screen.  For example, under normal circumstances, I can type the following sentences in a few seconds:

“I like balls because they are delicious and nutritious and STICK ‘EM IN MY FACE!”

But because I have this delay on the computer, in the same amount of time I can only get out:

“I like balls because they are dicliosou and nutritiouos”

Notice if you will the typos.  Because of this delay, everything I write is riddled with typos.  I then have to go back and correct these typos, which, again, appear in everything I write.  All day long.  Every day.  The result is that I’m taking up to three or four times longer to do simple tasks at work, like discussing fantasy sports trades via messageboard or emailing my old roommate Brian to argue which is the best Bad Company song, “Shooting Star” or “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love.”

(Even if this is your first time visiting this site, you can probably guess that I’m in the latter camp, since, truly, I can’t get enough of your or anyone else’s love.  Brian argued that the two really can’t be compared, since “Shooting Star” is “more of a story song, a story about a guy who F’s and fights who he pleases.”  He’s got a pretty valid point.)

This delay does not just apply to keystrokes either. If I move my cursor to "File" in Word, it takes a half or full second before "File" is highlighted. If I click on "File", it takes another half or full second before the drop-down menu appears. If I move the cursor immediately down to "Save," it’s another half or full second before "Save" is highlighted.  I know that it must have been very tedious for you to have read that description, but imagine living it.  Every day.  All day long.

I consider myself a generally rageful person, in that I often fill with rage and like to curse and pull the hair out of my beard and celebrate anger in all its forms.  But I will only embrace rage up to a certain point; I like being angry, but I’m able to cool it before people or cars start getting pumped.  But this delay…it’s pushing me to the brink.

You’d think one would get used to and adapt to this remote working and the delay in everything that it causes, but it’s quite the opposite really.  I’m able to deal with it in the morning, but as the day drags on, and things seemingly get slower and slower, my anger grows and grows.  It does not help that because I have to wake up for work at 5:30am, I drink anywhere from six to eight caffeinated drinks per day.  This combination of a slow/1996-speed computer, my easy anger, and lots and lots of caffeine can only mean on thing: I am going to rip my penis off and beat my computer to death with it sometime in the next 48-72 hours.    

(Yes, I’m being generous in writing that I’m able to destroy my computer using my penis as a weapon, when I know full-well that it’d be more akin to trying to attack a refrigerator with a thimble.  Please allow me this exaggeration.)

But other than the brutal work situation, the homicide-level rage that I leave the office with, the bucketful of money I’m spending on my hotel, and the DUI that there is a 264% chance I get in the next two weeks, everything is great in LA.  Just great.