February 18, 2005 Aspirations: Scheduled I woke up today feeling really cranky. The alarm hadn't woken me up (I've now been programmed to wake up early again), so I didn't quite know what was going on. Then I realized that I had stayed up until 3:30am again. This not sleeping thing is starting to catch up with me. It's not as if I can't fall asleep earlier, it's just that I get online after Mom goes to bed, check out all my usual haunts, generally get into a conversation with someone (last night it was Laurie, who was watching Survivor and commenting on it as it happened. She is a slave to TiVo), and try to write my entry in-between all that. Usually, when I'm finished with my entry, it's well past any reasonable time to get to bed, and I don't sleep in much, these days. I'm going to have to come up with a better strategy. Perhaps by updating throughout the day (if there's a computer close by), or by taking notes, or maybe even writing shorter entries. Last night's was 3,300-plus words long, which is about half of a good-sized short story. Anyway, upon realizing that I was simply tired, and not gazing down the gaping maw of despair, I hauled my sorry carcass out of bed and got ready to go to work. Yesterday, I bought a new pair of wind pants that seemed "sporty" and "fun" in the dressing room. When I put them on this morning, they'd transformed into "disco pants from around 1975." Could be a fashion statement, I suppose, but not that great for running. I went downstairs just to make sure I wasn't being too critical of the pants, and asked Mom what she thought of them. "They're a little..." she trailed off. I said, "Enough said!" and ran back upstairs to change into my regular, non-disco wind pants. I packed up my bag, remembered to put my lunch in with everything else, and left. The traffic patterns on Rtes. 128 and 93 can be erratic in the morning, so I left at about 9am. Turns out there was no traffic to be found, and I got to work at 9:30, which gave me an hour and a half before my shift started in which to work out. I dropped off my computer and coat at my desk; saying a hasty hello to Dan and Terry, who both looked frazzled. "Something wrong?" I asked. "It's crazy in here," said Terry. I didn't let that stop me from going through my workout. We have other offices, and lots of resources if things get crazy on Friday mornings, a luxury I don't have on Friday nights, or anytime Saturday. Today was a cardio-and-weights day, so I started the treadmill a little slow. Though I'd eaten before I got to the gym, I felt a little lightheaded at the first part of my run, but as I got into it, I felt better and better, bumping up the speed until I'd run 3 miles in 25 minutes. That's about the pace I'm most comfortable with when I'm running regularly, so I felt pretty good about that. I then hit the weights, which are still so light that they wouldn't hold books on a shelf, but I got through three sets of two different exercises for each muscle group (today was biceps, triceps and back), and didn't feel too beat-up afterwards. I checked my watch and realized that I had 25 minutes until my shift officially started, so I luxuriated in the neverending hot water for a bit. The locker rooms are really like a spa at the office. Feeling rejuvinated, I went upstairs to see just what kind of damage the consultants had inflicted upon the design office, but by the time I arrived, everything was taken care of and there was just a single, one-page document waiting for me. It didn't stay that way, of course. Things picked up as the day progressed, and we already had three (out of seven available) people out. Terry and Dan were scheduled to have a meeting about a big job coming in during the month of March, so they'd be out for awhile. Then at about 2pm, when Terry and Dan were supposed to go to their meeting, one more employee called in with car troubles, and said that he wouldn't be able to come into the office. He was willing to work from home, which is okay, but that meant that Laurie and I wouldn't be able to take a break together to watch Joan of Arcadia. It's sad, how much I look forward to that show. Mark Z. told us that he would tape the show and bring it with him to the October Project concert tomorrow night, so we wouldn't miss anything. It's a lot of work, being a TV junkie! You need to get other people involved in your addiction. I'd say my next big purchase would be TiVo, but I think it would just complicate things for Mom (who doesn't like a lot of remotes), and besides, I don't need another bill in my life at this time. I've already bought a bed, a computer, a digital camera, and put down half the money on a hotel room in Cancun. I think the spending stops right here. The rest of the night went fairly well, all things considered. Car guy worked on a large document, and I sent another to our contractor out in New Jersey, while Laurie and I took the shorter presentations. While I would have liked to have gotten a lunch break, it was fine having the office be a little quiet, for a change. This does, however, mark the seventh (out of seven) week that I'll have over 42 hours logged. I know that there are a whole lot of people who work many more hours than I do, but the atmosphere for the past couple of years here has been one of "do your work, and then go home." And while I have taken a lot of projects on for myself (and worked on them from home), I think I'd like to go back to logging in the required amount of time for a week or two. Of course, if I had something a little bit more challenging to take up my paid hours, I probably wouldn't be facing this problem. I think five years is quite enough at essentially the same job, and while I'm doing a whole lot of other projects right now (image database, intranet site overhaul, mentoring, forms creation, and some multimedia), the core skill of this job is always going to be fixing up PowerPoint presentations. Which is fine, in that it's not difficult (except on the rare occasion we get something totally out of the ordinary), but it's no longer even remotely a challenge. I could work a lot harder at some things and become a "pro" at them. I could learn advanced formulas in Excel, for instance. Right now, I can do basic formulas and a few "if/then" statements, but that's it. I don't even remember how to do a pivot table correctly anymore, and that used to be an essential part of my job, back when I worked for the Publishing House. I don't think that's the direction I necessarily want to go, however. I really need a new challenge; a challenge which won't be turning away from something, but rather going towards something. I haven't had a non-reactionary job since I took on the Publications Coordinator job at the infrared camera company, and I think I've been a bit timid to expand my horizons, work-wise, since then. (I was given a project that was way beyond the scope of my responsibilities and skill set, and I had to leave.) There are plenty of opportunities right here at the Consulting Company, if I'm willing to look hard enough for them. I've come across a bunch of folks who are doing things that don't fall under the category of "consultant" work, and I've been making inquiries about them. Luckily, because I've been here as long as I have, I know just about everyone in the office building, at least by sight if nothing else. And more importantly, they know me. I've been pleasantly surprised over and over again by the response I've gotten to the question of, "Can I just have a brief conversation with you about something?" It's as if some folks have been waiting for me to step out of the design department on my own and look for something different. Since I have the luxury of time right now, I'm going to be picky. All my excitement over the Producer's job is still there, but I have to weigh it against what was described as "very long hours" and the travel that would be involved in the position. Two Producers have been moved to offices across the country, and I've already made the discovery that I'm happiest when I'm near Boston. I pulled Terry aside and talked to her about this, and she said, "Go for it! I tried for a couple of years to get out of the design department, but nothing ever came of it. But others have, and I think it's about time you gave it a shot." She's right. Others have left to go on to other positions (executive assistant, training coordinator, office manager, consultants, and other jobs I don't know about, because I wasn't here when they left), and have had great success at it. I'm not going to let this get in the way of doing a fantastic job in the position I currently hold, however. That would be plain stupid. I already have the next page for the intranet site planned out in my head, and it can come together very quickly. Just a bit more information that a lot of our customers ask about and is hard to describe without a visual. I have to get going on importing pictures into the image database, and streamline the process (with some documentation) so that someone else can do it, as well. There is a new employee orientation going on at which I'll be speaking, and then taking photos of each of the new hires for a facebook. Lots of stuff to do. But still, I have my eyes and ears open, and more importantly, the fear of talking to others has largely dissipated in me, and I feel that I can move on without losing out on the experience of working at a really good company that I didn't appreciate nearly as much as I should have the past couple of years. And then there's the flip side of that. Non-paying work hours I need to start approaching in an orderly manner. I've been motivated, but I've also been slipshod in my approach. Get art supplies here; build part of a website there. I need to stop, take inventory, maybe break out an Excel spreadsheet, and work on things in the correct order. First of all, I need to get the potentially-professional website up and running. That means one column to write and one story to finish (after some editing...hint to my editor!). We already have two stories, a horoscope column, half of the advice column and all the guidelines in place to make a launch. I don't know how successful it's going to be, but it feels right for now. Concurrently, I have to finish Chris' website. That one will be easy, as it will essentially be a splash page (done), pages with pictures of his work and a little bit of text about those pieces (pictures ready, format almost worked out, verbiage to come from Sean), and a feedback form (need to see what GoDaddy has for simple forms.) Chris' website should be done (in beta mode) by the middle of next week. The other website should be ready to roll (provided we get some graphics) in probably two weeks. That will leave me time to get the collaborative art site up and running (I already have created most of the supplemental materials for that one), and start to advertise it. The site itself will be simple, the logistics of the art project will demand a lot of discipline, but aren't all that difficult to pull off (I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the post office). As I'm working on that, I have to create about 15 hand-bound books with my stories in them for the company art fair. That will be pure relaxation, once I get the stories printed on the paper I want. Bookbinding is to me what knitting is for some other people; something to do while watching TV or listening to music or whatever. Once I get into it, I find it soothing, and at the end, I have something tangible to hold in my hands. During all of this, I have to find the time to write. My average (as mentioned before) in the journal is about 1,500 words per day. That ain't bad, and if I can find a hole in my schedule to sit down and devote to nothing but fiction and plays, I'll be golden. I figure 90 minutes per day (what I used to spend at the gym) will be sufficient. I can do a lot of that on my days off, rather than obsessing over work projects. If I do it right, everything can fall into place, and I won't suffer from the schizophrenic way I've been approaching everything lately ("Let's do this! No, that! No, over there!") I think my project for tomorrow (if it's slow) will be to mark out a timeline to get everything done and get myself into the habit of those things that need to become habits. I see the track. I'm near it. I just need to get on it.