Screwing Up

There's a resident who is a few years younger than me with whom I've always enjoyed working and whom I would like to get to know outside of work.  Her boyfriend is a huge fan of board games, as am I, so long ago she promised to invite me to her house the next time they hosted a games night.  A few weeks ago the invitation finally came, and I was looking forward to meeting her boyfriend and bringing some tasty snacks.

This morning, I was driving home from dropping the girlfriend off at work, when I saw a sign advertising monthly games nights.  My first thought was "Oooh!  I love games nights!".  My second thought, accompanied by the horrible feeling that I might spontaneously vomit all over the inside of my car, was "OMFG.  Games night was last night."

Yes, after waiting for months, I had managed to completely forget about games night.  It was in my calendar; I had reminded the girlfriend about it earlier in the week; I had even thought about what to bring on Friday night.  But when the day actually arrived, I'd gotten lost in dreading the multiple presentations that I have scheduled for this week and dreaming about my last day of work*, and all thoughts of games night completely slipped my mind.

This, sadly, isn't the first time I've done something like this.  As a teenager, I twice (TWICE) forgot to go to my regularly scheduled after-school babysitting job.  In my working life, I've more than once forgotten to go important meetings, usually involving the boss and a collection of bigwigs.  A year ago, I forgot to attend morning case conference, where I was scheduled to present one of the patients.

Sigh.

It's not that I'm an idiot.  It's not that I don't put these things into my calendar or check my calendar regularly.  It's that I get caught up with something else and completely lose track of where I'm supposed to be.  And I hate it.  After writing a very long apology to the resident, I've spent my day today feeling like a total shit who can't do anything right.

Guess it's time to start setting reminders on my iPhone.

*Thursday.  Exactly 95 hours at the time of writing this (check the counter below the Blog Archive for the most recent update.)