I feel like the past two weeks have flown by in slow motion. I spent Thanksgiving day preparing my team for a physical inventory of our materials, but took a few minutes to live vicariously through the statesiders by reading the remarks they were leaving on facebook: i've eaten too much and now it's time for football tended to be the general theme.
For the next week, I clocked 14 hour days and impressed myself by getting up each day at 5am and walking into the office around 6.45. I convinced myself that I was being productive, and in all actuality, I was. However, by the following Thursday, I was noticeably tired, and about 10 people in a row commented as such. Thankfully, most of the remarks were caring and genuine; only a couple were of the "geez, you like total hell" type.
I popped into the pub last Thursday and ended up playing a bit of quiz and chatting with some folks I hadn't seen in a while. Unfortunately, I bumped into someone I wasn't expecting to see, and, after 80 hours of work in about 5 days, you don't always come across as you'd like to. Thus, I sort of made a shambles of a conversation with a friend, and foolishly drank myself through the experience as opposed to wising up and fucking off home to safety.
Alas, I was scheduled off for the Friday, but, upon waking at 11am, pulled myself together and went into the office. We'd just been notified of a business review scheduled the next week in Brussels. Crap timing, I'd say, since this was the third "day off" I'd taken in the past 4 weeks, which basically meant I went to work and told people I was on holiday anyway.
True, I was a bit hungover last Friday, but did manage to get some things done during the afternoon. I spent a relatively quiet weekend watching a few films and visiting the gym. I attempted to do a bit of Christmas shopping, but lost interest about 15 minutes after entering a crowded store, and elected to return home, where I stayed in most of the rest of the weekend.
Sunday afternoon I tried to do some work on the presentation we'd need to give in Brussels, but everything felt a bit disjointed. An executive in our company made a last minute decision that the PMs wouldn't make the business review trip. Instead, only the sales guy and the two General Managers of the repair sites would make the trek to lovely office park land right next to Brussels international airport.
After a few hours trying to put some stuff together, I basically gave up and decided to go to the gym. That turned out to be a pretty good outing, and around 8pm, I finished up and stopped off at the pub for a couple of pints and a chat. I was able to collect my thoughts a bit, and suddenly found myself really feeling in the spirit of the season.
I had a nice chat with a few folks, and all in all, it wrapped up the weekend rather nicely. At least things ended on a decent note.
Monday had me up and at 'em at the crack of dawn, and once again I strolled into the office at a quarter to 7, pretty fired up on coffee and Alkaline Trio. The day was relatively stressful (which is like saying Bryan is just a casual smoker), but brightened considerably that evening when I entered the pub to see a few friends sitting around to partake in steak night. My local offers a pretty decent sizzling steak on Monday evenings at a special price. I'm not the world's biggest red meat fan, but must admit that the steaks are pretty good.
I was already feeling a bit pensive and distant from everyone, but was enjoying the company all the same. However, it was hard to dismiss the fact that my boss was about to meet our customer the next morning in Brussels, and things are not particularly stellar in our repair program at the given moment, for a variety of reasons. I figured that he'd take a big bollocking during the meeting based on our recent performace. We all know that I've been married to the job for a long time, and I take this stuff way too personally. As a result, I've got one of the better programs going in Europe, but at the expense of me. Despite my efforts, though, the customer still expects more. Up til now, I've not quite been able to find the right balance. These thoughts were all racing through my mind for most of the evening.
Long story short, as everyone was enjoying the end of their meal and the post dinner conversation, I once again put my foot in my mouth with the very same person from the previous Thursday, and things quickly went south. A nice evening basically ruined in a 30 second statement.
I felt pretty lost after that, so paid up and walked out off the pub intent on going home to be where others weren't. Sleep was shit at best, and I woke up Tuesday feeling pretty lousy for two reasons: one, my boss was about to get a pounding in a city 4 hours away, and second, I was finding myself once again on the brink of losing a friend that I don't want to lose.
The day was actually rather quiet, maybe too quiet. Besides a 15 minute conversation with my boss around 8am, I heard nothing else from him the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I wasn't thinking too much about work, anyway. Too many other thoughts on the brain.
At any rate, I found enough tunes to help me plow through the day, and the next, and even today.
The end of the year quickly approaches, and we're all racing around trying to get a bunch of stuff done before everyone jumps on their holidays. I'm away next Wednesday to Spain, and there's a lot to do between now and then. And who am I kidding, I'll be on the clock (and probably participating in a conference call or three) while I'm mucking about in Valencia, but at least I'll be mucking around in another city. It's time to get out of town for a few days.
Here's hoping I can pull everything together between now and next Wednesday.
keep the faith
bryan
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