Still Thankful
All I can do is count my blessings and laugh. So let me do that first before I explode and just rant about what today brought, which in the big picture, is nothing too catastrophic. I have a wonderful, handsome husband that I love with my whole heart and soul. I have an amazing family. I have food to eat and a warm house. I have dogs and cats. I’m in reasonable health, and all my senses are intact. I have a vehicle to get around in, and clothes to wear. I have faith, confidence, and a strong sense of self. I have a gorgeous landscape of natural woodland outside my window with chance of wild birds stopping at my new feeders hung in the nearby trees. I have music. The gift of music that will soothe any soul no matter what the cause of stress or ailment. Or, so I thought; that I’d have music that is. Argh.
Okay, now that things are sort of in perspective, OMFG. People, one more day like this and I may just have a teensy eensy meltdown for the first time in history. My shoulders are broad, as they say, but not THAT broad.
First, the day starts with a strong wind of suggestion that it might, just might, be a productive day where I actually get some of my work done. I get to work and get two reports knocked out right off the bat. I reward myself with a cup of steamy coffee with cream. I have my first conference call at 8:30. Second at 9. I’m on the phone until 12:30. E-mails and faxes and notes going on in the multitasking sidelines all the while. My cell phone kept ringing incessantly during the meeting, so I turned it off, determined to use all the principals of good project management and time control. “I can only handle 59.2 things at once” is a good idea of the mantra those training seminars and classes give the pupils.
I have an hour and a half to polish some things off, tackle my to-do list, actually eat lunch for the first time in over two weeks aside from grabbing drive-thru on my way between buildings, and make it a great day! My next meeting is at 2, with a supplier, and I expect it to be short and sweet. Then, I will leave to run over to a customer site and pick up some parts that need to be sent overnight to Windsor, Ontario. A perfect day in the making, and I was so overdue!
At 12:30, one of the VP’s walks by my office and leans his head into the door I left open. He informs me that he heard out at the plant that [insert customer names who are very high up on the food chain] are planning to stop by at 2 pm. I call one of the chaps that is apparently planning to squat in my conference room unannounced and uninvited. I end up talking to two of them one at a time. They are planning to squat, yes. They have no agenda, no. But eventually, yes, I dig and find what they really need, and determine both that I can help them and the meeting would be worthwhile, although not the least bit timely. The call to the first chap identified their desire to actually come at 3. Well, at least that gets me out of my conflict with already having a 2pm. So I call my guy coming at 2 pm to make sure he agrees we can be done in less than an hour. Next comes a call back from the guy who is helping me get the parts released from the customer this afternoon and overnight to Windsor. He is leaving early. I’m booked the rest of the afternoon. I look at the clock, and it says ten past one. I grab my keys and run.
On the way there, I found out my husband had a standing 2 pm meeting to receive an offer from the company he works at, currently as a contract. He was very nervous.
When I got to my destination, I pulled up to the front door area, parked off to the side, and tried to turn my hazard lights on. They didn’t work. Neither did my turn signals, headlights, or anything else similarly electric after that point.
I called my mom on my way back, remembering she had a doctor’s appointment, and found out she’s getting another scan on Monday and likely surgery the day after. About halfway back to the office, after tinkering with the switch, I got the headlights to work. No turn signals or hazards, though.
I got back to the office at 2:03. Hardly finished that meeting and the folks are there for the 3 pm spontaneous snafu. I spent about 7 minutes preparing information packets for everyone, and invited them into a conference room. They left at quarter to 7.
I walked into my office and called my husband back. His offer was hardly justified as a “lowball.” They made him an offer that would be half his current take home pay. Now had this happened to me, I think I’d look at it differently and see that it was a HR punk earning his keep and opening the bargaining on the low end. But my darling husband is an honest, forthright, straight shooter who doesn’t like those sort of stressful games that I do. I felt terrible. I told him he should counter, and recognize the worst case scenarios. No problem. I also crunched numbers for him quickly so he’d know right off the bat that if he took the initial lowball offer, the truth was, we’d have no improvements happening on the house, things would be tight, we’d eat at home even for date night, but, we wouldn’t starve and our lights would remain on. Not a bad deal, really. Many have it much worse. Much, much worse.
I left the office at 10 minutes to 8. Exhausted. Got home, and was hardly in the door when our shepherd promptly threw up a foot from my shoes. I scavenged for something to eat in the house, fed the dogs, and reached for a knob to create some music. The radio was broken.
I’m not sad. I feel entirely blessed beyond words. However, I feel stressed out and spread so thin I could break. Everything will be okay. It helps to blog again on my own blog, and take a break from the other chapter of my life that has been sucking me dry. Life, overall, is good. I am thankful.
Okay, now that things are sort of in perspective, OMFG. People, one more day like this and I may just have a teensy eensy meltdown for the first time in history. My shoulders are broad, as they say, but not THAT broad.
First, the day starts with a strong wind of suggestion that it might, just might, be a productive day where I actually get some of my work done. I get to work and get two reports knocked out right off the bat. I reward myself with a cup of steamy coffee with cream. I have my first conference call at 8:30. Second at 9. I’m on the phone until 12:30. E-mails and faxes and notes going on in the multitasking sidelines all the while. My cell phone kept ringing incessantly during the meeting, so I turned it off, determined to use all the principals of good project management and time control. “I can only handle 59.2 things at once” is a good idea of the mantra those training seminars and classes give the pupils.
I have an hour and a half to polish some things off, tackle my to-do list, actually eat lunch for the first time in over two weeks aside from grabbing drive-thru on my way between buildings, and make it a great day! My next meeting is at 2, with a supplier, and I expect it to be short and sweet. Then, I will leave to run over to a customer site and pick up some parts that need to be sent overnight to Windsor, Ontario. A perfect day in the making, and I was so overdue!
At 12:30, one of the VP’s walks by my office and leans his head into the door I left open. He informs me that he heard out at the plant that [insert customer names who are very high up on the food chain] are planning to stop by at 2 pm. I call one of the chaps that is apparently planning to squat in my conference room unannounced and uninvited. I end up talking to two of them one at a time. They are planning to squat, yes. They have no agenda, no. But eventually, yes, I dig and find what they really need, and determine both that I can help them and the meeting would be worthwhile, although not the least bit timely. The call to the first chap identified their desire to actually come at 3. Well, at least that gets me out of my conflict with already having a 2pm. So I call my guy coming at 2 pm to make sure he agrees we can be done in less than an hour. Next comes a call back from the guy who is helping me get the parts released from the customer this afternoon and overnight to Windsor. He is leaving early. I’m booked the rest of the afternoon. I look at the clock, and it says ten past one. I grab my keys and run.
On the way there, I found out my husband had a standing 2 pm meeting to receive an offer from the company he works at, currently as a contract. He was very nervous.
When I got to my destination, I pulled up to the front door area, parked off to the side, and tried to turn my hazard lights on. They didn’t work. Neither did my turn signals, headlights, or anything else similarly electric after that point.
I called my mom on my way back, remembering she had a doctor’s appointment, and found out she’s getting another scan on Monday and likely surgery the day after. About halfway back to the office, after tinkering with the switch, I got the headlights to work. No turn signals or hazards, though.
I got back to the office at 2:03. Hardly finished that meeting and the folks are there for the 3 pm spontaneous snafu. I spent about 7 minutes preparing information packets for everyone, and invited them into a conference room. They left at quarter to 7.
I walked into my office and called my husband back. His offer was hardly justified as a “lowball.” They made him an offer that would be half his current take home pay. Now had this happened to me, I think I’d look at it differently and see that it was a HR punk earning his keep and opening the bargaining on the low end. But my darling husband is an honest, forthright, straight shooter who doesn’t like those sort of stressful games that I do. I felt terrible. I told him he should counter, and recognize the worst case scenarios. No problem. I also crunched numbers for him quickly so he’d know right off the bat that if he took the initial lowball offer, the truth was, we’d have no improvements happening on the house, things would be tight, we’d eat at home even for date night, but, we wouldn’t starve and our lights would remain on. Not a bad deal, really. Many have it much worse. Much, much worse.
I left the office at 10 minutes to 8. Exhausted. Got home, and was hardly in the door when our shepherd promptly threw up a foot from my shoes. I scavenged for something to eat in the house, fed the dogs, and reached for a knob to create some music. The radio was broken.
I’m not sad. I feel entirely blessed beyond words. However, I feel stressed out and spread so thin I could break. Everything will be okay. It helps to blog again on my own blog, and take a break from the other chapter of my life that has been sucking me dry. Life, overall, is good. I am thankful.
articulated by the bold espresso bean at 9:16 PM
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