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After pulling nearly a 60 hours week, here are my weekend plans:
Have a great weekend everyone. Here’s hoping your week wasn’t as stressful as mine.
You know your trip to Hawaii wasn’t very good when the 9 and a half hour flight in each direction is the highlight of a trip. Between the unusually rough weather, the problems with the rental car, and the death of a customer, I was happy to leave the island. I didn’t even mind going straight from the airport to a 9 hour meeting on Thursday.
Having a great boss does make a week like I had a lot easier. We talked on my way home on Thursday, and he told me to take Friday off. I never logged in, and my phone was off. So now that I’ve had a full three day weekend I’m ready to start work bright and early. I fully expect to work 20 hours of OT this week, but at least it will be here at home.
I’ve managed a few projects and worked on several others, but today my team faced something new. We were at the customer’s site when the news broke that one of their employees died. It’s sad, and it’s surreal. No one really knows what to do in a situation like that, and it’s even stranger being a vendor and in the middle of it all. We spent a lot of time in our meetings today talking one on one with the director over our project, and he mostly talked about his now deceased friend. Needless to say, it was a sad and very unusual day.
Only business travelers can really understand why I’m not excited about another trip to Hawaii. There’s no point in trying to explain it to everyone else. But I’m heading out. The good news is that I get to see my family two days earlier this time. The bad news is that I won’t get to see them until the end of the day on Thursday because I’ve got an all day business meeting in Suwanee right after I land.
Remind me to shoot my project manager next time I see him. Oh wait, that’s me. Hmmmm
Sometimes I think it’s better to know nothing about yourself then to have taken a dozen personality profiles. It’s even worse when you fail those stupid things. Based on the Myers Briggs I’ve taken I’m an XXTX, and I think the T is changing these days. Damn!
Some places are great for business travel. When you’re there you know that there are other people just as focused and miserable as you are. Honolulu is not one of those places. Everywhere you look here you see couples or groups of friends laughing and having a good time. There are so many single (especially Japanese) women here that some single guys could have a great time, but for a half-way introverted married man who’s spent all day talking to people in a conference room it pretty much sucks. I’ve had just enough of people that I don’t want to see another one, yet I feel so alone that I just wish I had a real friend (preferably my wife) here with me.
I’m trying to find ways to enjoy myself, but the schedule just isn’t allowing it. Work starts too early and ends too late for me to continue my surfing lessons; the light doesn’t last long enough to spend much time trying my hand at photography; and I really hate shopping. I think I’m the only person I know who could come to Hawaii and not have a good time. Dangit, now I feel even more alone. Hmmm. 8:00. I think it’s time for bed.
How can this be? I’m trying to take someone on an all expenses paid two week trip to Hawaii, and I can’t find anyone to take. I mean, all I’m asking is that they be qualified and work for me for about a year…
A year ago I had just returned from our sales trip to Hawaii. The trip was a massive success, and it was clear that we were going to win the contract. It wasn’t a question of if, just when the project would begin. I started lining up people to work for me on this project, including one of my old bosses. We had a great relationship in my old job to the point where either of us could work for the other. Unfortunately the start of the project has been delayed and delayed, and today he told me that he’s got an offer that he can’t refuse from another company.
I’m mad and I’m sad. I’m mad that our company’s policies wouldn’t let me bring him on earlier. I’m mad because now I’m going to have to use someone who doesn’t fit the bill as well. And I’m sad because I won’t get to spend the next 18 months or so working with my friend. Them’s the breaks sometimes, I guess.
