Yesterday and the day before were two of those days you just hate, full of stupid questions, stupid actions and too many high pressure tactics to get me to do stuff ahead of schedule.  Marketing and Corporate Communications have been trumpeting an upcoming major change at work for the last two months.  Newsletters every week, bulletins even more often, staff meetings with management from the top on down, reminding everyone of when it was coming, what it would mean and what we should say to clients and suppliers.  So, on schedule, letters go out to clients and the expected questions start flooding in.  Do you think anyone read any of the materials sent out over the last two months?  Hell no!!  I spend the day fielding no less than 80 emails from frantic idiots who don’t know what to say to their customers and trying to shift the burden to someone else (quite often me).  My response to all of them was a nicer version of “read the damn FAQ posted on the damn intranet” with a link to the relevant documents.  A dozen phone calls from people who should have known better trying to see if we could postpone it.  And, none of it was even related to anything “legal.”  Why the hell were they emailing and calling me?

In the meantime, another deadline (this one definitely driven by “legal”) was yesterday.  Once again, do you think anyone read any of the material I’ve provided over the last month or paid any attention to the emails I sent out and the things I said at meetings?  Don’t make me laugh!  Frantic phone calls, questions about “what should I do” and “do you mean that XXX is going to happen today?” and “you mean my direct reports could get fired if I don’t do XXX before Monday?” took up way too much of my time.  And the problem here is that the people asking the questions were at the VP level and up, and I couldn’t tell them what I was thinking about the utter waste of my time.  What the hell to they think I’ve been talking about for the past month? 

All of this right at quarter end, when the sales staff is pushing, pushing, pushing to get contracts completed so sales could be made.  And another VP trying to end-around the contracting procedures to get his stuff done first.  And a deadline for submitting an important proposal to the CFO regarding some corporate governance matters.  And performance reviews for my team due on Wednesday.  And a deadline for scheduling training I have to give to some folks in April.  All of which deadlines I could have easily met if not distracted with dumb f**king questions about stuff they damn well should have already known!!!

It was a 12-hour day, and I’ll be working this weekend on performance reviews and some other stuff.  The only bright spot was that when I got home, Mom had just taken some stuffed salmon out of the oven and Dad had opened a bottle of wine.  I love it when they visit.  Went to bed at 10:00, but had a horribly restless night.  I’ve been up since 7:00am and have given up on the idea of sleeping.  So, I’m sitting here sipping coffee and moaning and complaining at my blog.  Sigh.  Rant over.

I chastised a friend for not posting on his LJ site, and then found out that he’d been posting but that I hadn’t been logged in, so I couldn’t see his private posts.  Then I started thinking about it and realized that I damn well better start posting more regularly if I’m gonna get all holier than thou about it.  Sigh.  Hoist on my on petard.

This morning is very weird.  It’s 8:30 and I’m still at home, in my PJs.  Because I support our Asia Pacific operations, I end up being in the office until 6:30 or 7:00 most of the time this time of year.  During daylight savings time, 4:00pm in Dallas is 9:00 the following morning in Sydney.  However, when it ends, because they’re in the southern hemisphere and we’re in the northern hemisphere, 6:00pm in Dallas is 9:00am the following morning in Sydney.  That means they either have to come in early for meetings or I have to stay late.  I usually end up staying late.  After a few 12 hour days last week, I decided that starting this week, I’m changing my work hours to 10-7 (except for Fridays, since it’s Saturday in Australia).  The nice part is that I get to sleep in and still have time to go work out before getting to work (except this morning cause I have some stuff I had to accomplish this morning before work).  The not so great part is that it’s pretty damn late when I get home.  Still it’s better than going back to 12 hour days.

I’m trying to get my house redecorated, but I’m never home on the weekends which is when I have time to actually do stuff.  I’ll probably start just not going to any events Herself isn’t going to so that I can get things moving at home.  On the other hand, she may not be going to stuff that I want to attend.  Gotta sit down and plan out my event schedule for the next few months.  Besides, the rest of the group needs to know.  OK, that’s a chore for tonight that’s small enough I can get accomplished during my now-abbreviated evening!

Oh wait, my parents are coming in tonight, so I won’t have time for much of anything else.   Aargghh.  Maybe I can steal a little time at work today . . .

Well, I definitely had more fun at GW than I did at the last one I went to (which was when I swore I’d never go back unless a friend was on the throne).  Actually, I quite enjoyed myself.  I managed to have a couple of days “off duty” (which meant that I only hung out with TRM if I wanted to), did some shopping and ran into a number of old friends from the East.  The week definitely brought home to me the fact that I’ve let things physically get way out of hand.  I really need to get myself back into decent shape.  It wasn’t only that I couldn’t even think about fighting; hell, I couldn’t keep up with a fast walking pace! 

Have started back to the gym as of this morning and am contemplating hiring a personal trainer again.  If only it wasn’t such a damn long, slow process!!  It’s hard to keep up the motivation/enthusiasm.  Sigh.  Oh well, it’s not like everyone else I know doesn’t have the same issue!  Hmmm, maybe if I goal-set publicly, I’ll have that added motivation of avoiding public humiliation?  Nah, won’t work – I wouldn’t find it humiliating (frustrating yes, humiliating no).  Well, at least I can try to be 15 pounds or so lighter before Lilies, which will make it easier to get around a relatively large site.  Then, we’ll look at the next goal.  Back to counting points!

Hmmm, not much to say really.  Disjointed thoughts.  Very busy at work – it’s like my visit to Asia Pacific reminded them of my existence, so suddenly they’re sending me a ton of stuff to help them with.  I’m trying to clear my desk before taking time off next week.  I’ve been working on HRM’s GW schedule, having fun with pretty colors, and thinking about starting to pack for GW.  Don’t leave until Tuesday afternoon, so there’s plenty of time.  I’ve got at least two groups of travelers stopping at my place on their way to GW, which will be good for some final last-minute coordination.  Once GW is over, I am getting started on finishing my house.  Need to strip wallpaper from dining room, kitchen and 3 bathrooms, texture the walls and paint them.  I’m hiring someone for that as I have absolutely no desire to play with wallpaper.  Once the painting is done, all the floors are being replaced (of course, there’s the small matter of picking out tile, hardwoods and carpet first) and  then much else to be done.  Gotta get started – want it done by the end of April if at all possible.  That’s all for now.