We all seem to insist on how busy, busy, busy we constantly are. Let’s put things in perspective: tell us about the craziest, busiest, most hectic day you’ve had in the past decade.
Most of my days are crazy busy – some more than others, however there isn’t really one specific day that stands out against the rest over the past decade – although let’s be honest, I can barely remember what I did last week, rather than ten years ago.
Let’s take the friday before I went on leave for example.
I had spent the previous night in the office until 8pm working on printing out a multitude of papers and booklets for an upcoming training course, as well as writing a handover document that needed to be written in specific detail in order to accommodate specific procedures that we have in place (it was 24 pages!). The next morning I returned at approx 7:30am stressing out that I still had quite a significant amount of work that needed to be done and completed before leaving for the day and going on annual leave.
I had left over tasks from the previous day that NEEDED to be done ASAP, however when I went to tackle those tasks, our database wasn’t working, as there was some kind of problem with the server. As issue that needed our IT person to look into… when he finally got to work at 10:30am.
In the interim, I decided to continue with the rest of my workload. I continued to print more papers and booklets, and then hole punch and collate them all into countless folders, all stacked up in boxes near my desk, ready for the day that I return – also the same day that training begins. I already know that day will start at around 6:30 – 7am.
I had numerous reports that I needed to get written for specific targeted emails that needed to go out to certain groups of people, but in order to avoid getting the same bounce-back emails, I had to go through and manually edit or delete email addresses, and change entries in the database – the section that actually was working. None of our reporting was working, which is what I really needed.
So whilst my head was so focused on getting all of this work done, I had to drop everything to go and have one meeting, and take pages of notes (to subsequently type up and distribute), and then returned to the office in time to go and sit in on another meeting (and again, take more pages of notes!).
The whole time I just kept thinking about how much work I could / should have been doing instead, but at the same time, I also had to attend these meetings as I’m a key figure in both of them.
Then by the time we finished, it was lunch, but rather than having lunch, I worked through my lunch break, opting for a 15minute walk out in the sunshine instead as I needed to get some fresh air. By the time I got back, I was stuck answering the phones for the afternoon, whilst trying to do all my other tasks at the same time. These moments really annoy me when I’m so under the pump with other work that MUST be done, and then I see another co-worker sitting at their desk READING A FUCKING BOOK!!
Oh my god, the rage. Coursing through my body. It was not a fun afternoon.
Throw into the mix a heated phone conversation with my partner regarding our plans for immediately after work, and I was under a lot of pressure as time was racing past and I wasn’t getting much finished.
Finally, I realised that not everything was going to be done, so I simply did everything that I could. I tidied my desk and literally ran out of the building at 5:10pm, to greet my partner and then sit in peak hour traffic for the next 45minutes, whilst a friend of ours continues to message both of us telling us to hurry up.
Really, WHO MAKES DINNER RESERVATIONS FOR 5:30pm ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON?! And then despite being told we’re in peak hour traffic that isn’t moving, feels obligated to respond with ‘hurry up’, as though we have some kind of magical power that will enable us to somehow make all the traffic simply disappear, or perhaps teleport ourselves instantly to where we need to be… already stressed out and in a pure rage, those are the kinds of comments that make me see red and want to completely flip out.
…but I don’t. I take a breath, swallow it all down, repressing it deep, deep below, and pretend that all is fine in the world.
And just fyi, dinner was great. The sliders were the best I’ve ever had.
adorablyobnoxious 