S.L.O.W.
Ryan on May 10, 2005 9:05am
This always happens...inevitably, always happens. I\'ll be slammed at work, busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kickin\' contest. I\'ll finish it right under the gun, due at 5:00, done at 4:59 and seconds...never fails.
Then everything that was making my life a pain in the ass just stops...the silence is golden at first, quite usually welcomed. However, not long after, the slowness get really old. It\'s not that there aren\'t things to be done, I work on the litte piddly things that make it next to impossible to track my time so I at least get some small things off my plate, (usually non-billable).
During this \"calm before the storm,\" you get to feelin\' pretty useless and then it hits you like ton of bricks. All of a sudden, this client needs this yesterday, this client broke something and needs it fixed NOW, and another client is ramping up. Suddenly you\'ve got 10 fires to put out all with nearly impossible deadlines and while it makes the day go fast, it really scares you into not coming back.
This has been the story with me for quite sometime now. So much so that I have learned to anticipate the storm during the calm and it makes me not even want to show up for work at times. I know its coming and there\'s nothing I can do about it except take it right in the face.
For instance, this month on the 18th, I\'ll be pushing hard to get a large update done for one of our larger clients (form which I have no content yet), following that...probably the same week...I\'ll be pushing more email for them (again, no content). We\'ve just put in a quote for another very large project with a different client that has quite a bit of complications going into it and I am sure that will be coming down the pipe really quickly. Finally, there\'s an internal project that I will be working on today and I can\'t help but wonder, \"Is this the beginning? Is it about to open up a shitstorm of deadlines and demands again?!?
Such is the life of a techie I suppose. I just wish sometimes that I had enough sense to run when I see the floodwaters rolling down the hill, of course by then, its usually too late.
Then everything that was making my life a pain in the ass just stops...the silence is golden at first, quite usually welcomed. However, not long after, the slowness get really old. It\'s not that there aren\'t things to be done, I work on the litte piddly things that make it next to impossible to track my time so I at least get some small things off my plate, (usually non-billable).
During this \"calm before the storm,\" you get to feelin\' pretty useless and then it hits you like ton of bricks. All of a sudden, this client needs this yesterday, this client broke something and needs it fixed NOW, and another client is ramping up. Suddenly you\'ve got 10 fires to put out all with nearly impossible deadlines and while it makes the day go fast, it really scares you into not coming back.
This has been the story with me for quite sometime now. So much so that I have learned to anticipate the storm during the calm and it makes me not even want to show up for work at times. I know its coming and there\'s nothing I can do about it except take it right in the face.
For instance, this month on the 18th, I\'ll be pushing hard to get a large update done for one of our larger clients (form which I have no content yet), following that...probably the same week...I\'ll be pushing more email for them (again, no content). We\'ve just put in a quote for another very large project with a different client that has quite a bit of complications going into it and I am sure that will be coming down the pipe really quickly. Finally, there\'s an internal project that I will be working on today and I can\'t help but wonder, \"Is this the beginning? Is it about to open up a shitstorm of deadlines and demands again?!?
Such is the life of a techie I suppose. I just wish sometimes that I had enough sense to run when I see the floodwaters rolling down the hill, of course by then, its usually too late.
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