Work Life Balance Vent

There is something missing in my world this week.  Work-Life balance is completely off the hook.  Most of this is my own damn fault.  Some of those days where I haven't felt very happy or had focus at work, I've slacked and it's coming to bite me in the arse.

My week is usually comprised of 3 sets of good neighbours, Mondays with my employer, Tues/Wed with my client... um... Mad Men and my second client I've been with for all of my time with my employer so we'll call them Established.  I do not do work for Mad Men on Established days.  I do not do employer work on client days.  I might reply to email or answer questions, but if you're taking more than half an hour, then you can wait until your own day.  Each client is paying for 15 hours a week so they really should get 15 hours and I shouldn't try to keep track of an hour here or there that one client "owes" the other.  I get rented out at a far better rate than I'm paid for ad hoc projects so my employer really doesn't want me doing client work on their time.

Remember the wall maps I mentioned at the end of December?  That's still ongoing and is not being a good neighbour.  It often can't wait until Monday for the next step.  So I do it on client time or on my time.  Then because client projects are pushed back, I do that on my time.  Net result was me driving home at crying at 3pm on Tuesday because of an IT problem that wouldn't let me work on the maps at the Mad Men office and I had to get them done before 4pm.  Lovely to go home prior to rush hour, not so good to cry while doing it.  Maps are on a pause while samples are printing, but other client projects were coming due.

I have backed myself into this little corner, but it's not good.  I worked at the Mad Men office until about 6:15.  That's not so bad considering I had a dentist appointment in the morning so I had a late start to the day.  The bad part is working from 8-11 on it.  I was giving a presentation at one of the remote Established offices this morning.  It was suppose to be a presentation I gave a year ago just tidied up with examples that suited their business.  No big deal.  Then at 11, I realized I didn't have a copy of it with me. 

1:30am, I had the deck recreated.

8am I realized that a copy had been sent to me in setting up the meeting, I didn't look in those emails, I only looked at what I sent, not what others forwarded. 

Face to palm.

Anyhoo... meeting went well, presentation generated far more conversation than I expected.  36 slides (say 30 because some are just headings) shouldn't take an hour and 50 minutes to cover.  Thank heavens they booked 2 hours.  I thought 2 hours was ridiculous but people are happy to get out early, I didn't think we'd need it all.  It did remind me how much I like training and educating people on the data I specialize in.  It was a really good morning even on 5 hours of sleep.

Shhh... and it ended with someone hinting they forgot how close I live to that office... perhaps... if I wanted a shorter drive.... We'll see what comes of that, but it sure feels good to the girl who is stuck in a rut.

So, therapy tonight with Mr. Lina, then more work tonight to finish up the Mad Men project.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  There is an awful lot of open time on the weekend.  Dinner plans at a friends house Saturday (but nothing during the day) and Mr. Lina has plans Sunday that do not involve me.  What to make... what to make...