Is it professional to want to bite someone's head off?

Today wasn't a great day at work. But my story starts yesterday, when a co-worker called in sick to work. Long boring story short, no one ever went in to photograph the babies. And despite Hubby's attempts late into the night, my car simply refused to start. Even though it lives in the garage, it freezes over, so Hubby tried everything he could to warm the garage up to the point of thawing. I swear, my car is such a baby. My sister gave me a ride to work this morning which was nice, but figuring out transportation issues always makes me crabby. And for whatever reason, I was EXHAUSTED this morning. Had I not had work, it would have been a sleep-on-the-couch-while-Sunshine-watches-Baby-Einstein kind of day.

So by the time I got to work today, I was ready to go home. I was, of course, greeted by a large stack of requests for babies being photographed, since no one came yesterday. I got half-jokingly chewed out by one nurse, and seriously chewed out by another nurse. I really like both of these women, and I love that they care enough for their patients that they take issue with the fact that some babies weren't photographed. I dealt with it extremely professionally, even when I had to deal with yet another nurse. I did everything I could to make them happy, as we contract with the hospital and making the nurses unhappy is a death sentence.

My job, by nature, involves a lot of waiting. Sometimes Mom isn't ready for pictures, sometimes baby is hungry or getting tests done or jaundiced or just circumcised or who-knows-what-else. It get all that. However, by the end of this extremely long day, when I had to wait for a Grandma who is "almost here with the outfit" for an hour, and stuck with virtually nothing else to do but wait... well, that just presses my buttons. Especially when the mother doesn't even order the pictures! And then, as I'm transferring the pictures I've taken via the Internet, a nurse approaches me and asks if I gotten such and such rooms before they were discharged (which I never saw the request form for)... I found it really REALLY hard to be professional. I managed, but just barely. I had completely lost the desire to pacify this nurse. Sorry, they had left. Sorry, I didn't see the form. Sorry, but I don't really care anymore.

Because you know what? The babies I photograph are cute and all, but I have something even better at home. Wouldn't you be eager to rush home to a face like this?

That's what I thought.