I'm done! The work craziness is over. I'd dance in excitement, but I'm too tired. Part of me wants to tell you all about the last two days. I want to share all of the excitement, the tears, the good, the bad and the ugly, but this blog isn't about that.
I will share a little, but this is mostly being written for me so that I can look back on this and remember this year. I worked about 20 hours the last two days and for me, right now, that's a lot. I try to limit things to 20 hours a week at the most, and most weeks I can stick to that, but this week, it was a big week. We did a big presentation / training yesterday and we had an important person there that we needed to impress so getting ready for the presentation / training involved quite a bit of preparation. And then it was nerve-wracking doing it. The important person was impressed and grew to like us more so that is good.
Today, as a follow-up since she (the important person) was still in town, we had to do an in-depth meeting with her. So last night and then early this morning we had to prepare--after all of our preparations for our big thing yesterday. This morning I was on the phone with the project leader at 8:30 am. I was also showered, and had been working for about an hour. I am often not up at 8:30 am so you know it is a big thing.
I got some of the scoop from the project leader about this afternoon and what an underlying purpose of the meeting. I just love it when people start throwing around the term strategic. The meeting today was a strategic meeting. We are in negotiations to get more money and try to make the project more influential. It is really a good project. I got put on this project back in 2002 when I was coming back from my first maternity leave. I don't exactly fit on the project, but somehow I am one of the senior people on the project. It's kind of an odd project, but it is good and every time we do a training or share this project with they love it. I really like the project leader. She's really smart.
I also really like two of the other contributors. One is a man who lacks confidence, but does good work. He's a bit older than me, and I've gotten to see him grow and improve over the last 4 years. He is slowly becoming more confident. His work is also improving. I think my work has improved slightly, but not as much as his. I have had 3 kids in 4 years though so I'm not too surprised that I haven't improved a great deal in my work. Actually, if you look across all of the work I have done on the different projects I have worked on I have learned a great many new things and I haven't yet had a chance to "improve" because I'm still acquiring a great many skills.
Anyway, the other contributor I really like is a woman a bit younger than me. This is her first job out of college. She's a trip. She's about 5 years out of college now. She has a new boyfriend and we (another colleague and I) think she's going to be engaged by the end of the year. This freaks her out when we say it, and we just laugh.
Okay, back to today... The O project... We're trying to get more money, but the project leader thinks that one of our competitors is trying to convince the organization that help us that we're not worthy. I think that the main woman at our competitor used to sleep with the man who used to be the "important person." About 2 years ago that "important person" was encouraged to take an early retirement. Apparently he had a history of philandering. I met him about 3 years ago and it is hard to imagine that he would be capable of that. He seemed like such a nice grandfatherly type. Anyway, he's out of the picture and the new important person is a woman and really likes us, but other important people at her organization, some who are more important than her, listen to the woman at the competitor...
Oh the drama! Who knows what will happen. The important person gave us some useful information about another important person at her organization. We don't know if the important person gave us this information to try and help us or if she just innocently gave us the information. It all sounds so X-file "cancer man-ish" as I write it this way, but we wonder.
Is the important person trying to help us or not? Will she really go to bat for us when things get serious? Will we be able to sway the other important person back to our side because if we do, he will go to bat for us. And he's more important...
So that was today. A big strategic meeting and then afterwards lots of dissecting of details from the meeting...
The funny thing is that I really don't want to work on this project any more. It's really difficult to get off of a project where I work. You don't ever want to burn bridges. If the project ended, then I'd be done with it, but instead, we are still going so I have to work hard on trying to keep it going and perhaps even expand it. If it expands, I might be able to make a case to try and find someone to replace me, but if it stays the same size then I will be the one who will have to do the work because it wouldn't be worth it to train someone new.
Anyway, if you read all of this, you deserve a medal!
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