Thursday, September 22, 2005

Work is Very Much Fun

So.

It’s Wednesday. Well, technically it’s Thursday. But I’m still in the Wednesday workday, so I’ll count it as Wednesday. If it’s Thursday then I have two projects due to clients, three to the printer and four meetings. I don’t want it to be Thursday yet.

I just did the math and I’ve already worked 50 hours this week. I don’t like that math.

That math means that I already have three TV show tapes stacked here waiting to be watched. Falling behind at the beginning of the TV season can be crippling to a professional television-watcher like me. Fortunately the same skills that allow me to spend hours movie-hopping also allow me the drive and focus to watch a good 20 hours of TV tapes in one sitting. Try not to be jealous. It’s really not that amazing. I fast forward past the commercials, so I’m really only watching about 48 minutes of actual programming.

That math also means that any hope of a life outside of work has all but exited the building for the time being. In fact, I think I just saw it get in its car and drive away. My adorable little cousin, who I make a point to see every week because I am positive role model and she still thinks I’m cool? I picked her up tonight on the way to a photo shoot. We needed pictures of people eating for a piece we’re working on. So I told her we were going out to dinner, then I plopped her down with the other eaters and she became part of the photo shoot. That’s quality time, right? I bought her an ice cream afterwards, so she definitely seemed enriched.

And finally the most tragic consequence of my work schedule: very little sleep happening. Things are starting to move a little slower in my brain, as well as the rest of my body. I sat at the toaster oven for about 5 minutes this morning before I realized that although my bagel was inside, I hadn’t actually turned the thing on. And the day was kinda downhill from there.

I once worked in a job where I was done every day at 4:30. Sure it was boring and pointless and made my brain melt out of my ears from lack of stimulation. But now clients call me up at 8 pm (for the 5th time that day) and say things like, “You know that inch of green space between the words and the pictures on the back? I know we’ve gone back and forth on this about ten times, but I think if those words lined up and then moved down about a quarter of an inch, and then maybe you could rearrange the columns and the pictures so that when all the columns are lined up they look like a smile on top? I think that might work.”

It turns out my brain can melt out of my ears from too much stimulation as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stop bitching about all the work you're doing and take on less...hate to dole out the tough love but I'm tired of hearing about your 12 billion projects. Think of all these exciting things you can blog about if you did more fun thing!

And yes, I'm PMSing.