Emily, I can commiserate. However, I'm sure you're keeping it all in suitable perspective.
I've had one of "those" days some time ago. We were organizing a roof reconstruction for a very particular client. Due to scheduling constraints it had to be started on a particular day. I had the 5-man crew organized, the shipment of materials from three different suppliers on a clear schedule, our insulation contractor on standby, and the weather forecast was for clear weather (we were tearing off the roof down to the rafters, so precipitation was a no-no). That morning, it's semi-cloudy. Radar map shows some kind of front moving in. Got a call from my crew chief - he's sitting in traffic across one of the key bridges, due to an accident somewhere up front. There's no-one on site to organize things - had to drop everything and get there. One worker arrived on time. One got lost - he didn't know that part of the city. One never showed up. The insulation contractor showed up early - and the clock is ticking, on my dime. The first supply truck got there on time, had some difficulty unloading as we didn't have full crew on hand. Second truck - wrong order delivered - had to go back and reload. Third supplier - some kind of mechanical problem... will be arriving "soon". All this time the particular client is watching all this, and being the type of person who expects the worse... is beginning to suspect his fears are about to come through. What should have been a choreographed dance of fine precision was looking like a bad case of Keystone Kops.
It took four or five hours and probably a couple of years off my life to get everything back to a semblance of "normality". And of course, you have to be smiling through all this (smiling through gritted teeth, but smiling nevertheless), so that the client doesn't freak out, and the workers don't quit on the spot. We did manage to recover the schedule and finished more or less on budget. Client was very, very happy with the results. But... I don't know where/when I'm gonna get back those two years of life I burned through to get everything back on track.
Thankfully, these kind of days are rare.
