Cry Wolf

Wow, so much has happened in the last weeks. Mind you I am not sure how much I can remember about it.

I’m going to start at the end though.  I feel awful about now – stress from work (just so much happening in such a short space of time) has just not been my friend. On Sunday I did some work for our site that had to be done for an appearance on a consumer program today.  Actually I spent most of today polishing it off too (and at 7pm was removing some cool code that I made to minimise database access as I underestimated how many servers we had, oops!).

It was stressful, a fight to make it do what I wanted it to do without putting too much load on the servers, and a lot of fun in between.

But by yesterday 3pm (2 hours before I finished) I was sitting at our dining table, typing, struggling to get something working and doubled up in pain from my IBS.  It was really not fun.

So today I made sure that I had a chat with my boss.  He has offered me some tips and tricks, told me off for not saying that I could not do this weekend.  Complimented my for being committed enough and caring enough to get so stressed about it.  And scolded me for taking it home with me and not leaving it where it should be.  Informed me that it’s great that he doesn’t need to keep a constant eye on me as he knows I do my job without interruption and tried to teach me that I can go to him if I feel he is not giving me enough notice because of this.

Told me off for not spending enough time planning, and trying to get me to see that by spending an hour a day planning my time that maybe I can spend the other 7 productive and not worrying about the things I am not doing.

Got me to realised that ‘I want you to think with me on’ does not have to translate to me doing.  That it’s also my job to ruin other peoples weekends sometimes and not kill myself because I don’t like doing that.  Not often, if this came up every weekend it would be totally different, but sometimes.

I like my boss.

So, I have a plan of action for the coming time.  Let’s see if I can stick to it!

So what led to this turn of events, which went from me feeling ill in the afternoons as my to-do list was too long, to being doubled in pain…

Well, the last real post serves a good indication of what went wrong.  At least the start.  Just a series of events that were not expected in a time period when I am totally rushed off of my feet.

After that week I knew what I needed to do before the end of it.  A few technical and functional issues with some reporting that I write each month meant that I was a day behind my schedule on Wednesday.  A day when I was planning on being in team meetings for most of the day (moving everything back one more day).

And on that day we had a couple of consultants in for our TFS server. I assumed that they would both be working on the technical side and that I would be needed occasionally just for information.

I was wrong. There was a technical guy doing the migration to a new server and version, and a functional guy who was helping the technical guy when needed and helping me figure out what we wanted to do with the new version for the rest of the time.

Oops.  We had not counted on that!  So instead of a day in meetings and a day doing other things I spent two days organising on the fly meetings so that the right people could see the new features, and figure out what they could use them for.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a great two days, we saw some great things and I think that everyone saw something in the new version that they liked (I just have to learn how to implement it!). It’s just that it wasn’t in my schedule and put me another 2 days behind where I wanted to be.

Friday was spent playing catch-up.  I put on my out of office auto reply for email (even though I was in the office – that confused my boss), set my phone to ‘Do Not Disturb’ and set about trying to get up to date.  I actually made a nice attempt at it too.  In the morning I spent time organising what I was going to do, and splitting my to-do list so that I wasn’t looking at a scary list of 40+ tasks, but a manageable list of only 5 or so.

By the end of the day I was happy, relaxed and saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  Until I reached my home town and the phone went.  10 minutes from home and I saw my Sunday disappearing (I had decided that catch-up was not going to happen on a Sunday, it was going to be an R&R day).  And then the pain started to hit.

So ‘Cry’.  Well, nearly – like I said before it’s not something I do often; but I felt on the edge!

So…  Saturday.

Those of nervous disposition should skip the next few paragraphs.  I’ll let you know when it’s safe again J

Saturday was zapping day again.  North and South (a colleague liked that description!).

So the morning was going to be leg exercises, breakfast, shower and anaesthetic cream and  get dressed ready for the drive there. (Thank god you can hide the anaesthetic under your clothes!)

The reality was waking up at 10am (the time I needed to put the cream on) quickly having a cappuccino (sorry, I need that before I can move in the mornings), showering, getting myself sorted 40 minutes late.  Breakfast, another cappuccino (1 less than normal!) and legging it out of the house.

I got there, we had a chat about various things, and I asked if she could give my face a quick zapping as it had been a while.  Sure.  Zap zap zap.

Now the uncomfortable bit…  Get half undressed and lie down as she looks at the results from last time (oddly enough much less embarrassing than last time) and she got to work.  She was using a higher power than the previous time and so I could feel it (especially with the cream having a substantial amount of time less to work).  Painful, but doable. Zap zap zap.

Suddenly I jump that violently that my whole body leaves the table.

I guess I did not go far enough backwards with the cream in the rush of the morning then J  Lesson learnt for next time.

Again ‘Cry’ (real tears this time too! J)

I’m still a little red, but it’s nothing I can’t live with.

One last thing on the subject.  A colleague of mine asked what I was doing this weekend.  I told him he really, really didn’t want to know.  He pushed for an answer so I told him.  His face was a picture.

OK, those of you with a nervous disposition can look again now!

And the wolf?

Well…   I was in a skirt on Saturday, one of my favourite blue Mexx skirts.  With a matching Mexx jacket and mint green jumper underneath.  Black tights and red shoes and handbag finished the outfit. It’s one of my favourites and I love wearing it when I need confidence.

On the way back from my laser session I was walking down the street to where I parked and for the first time got whistled at.  (The wolf).  I tuned me head to see a not too unattractive man smiling at me on the other side of the street.

Now, I’m still into women, and still adore Mrs Stace.

And obviously I was disgusted that someone would do that in this day and age.

But still, I couldn’t help but have a small smile as I walked back to my car and a grin from ear to ear as I drove home.  I’m sorry, but it has never happened to me before J