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It is hard being on the road over 200 nights a year...away from your family, isolated in many ways. It definitely isn't for everyone. This blogs represents the thoughts of just one such person. Read along and find out if the road is for you.
This is my new blogchalk:
United States, Georgia, Gainesville, Unity of Gainesville, English, John, Male, reading, RE Investing. :)
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Wednesday, January 08, 2003
The times they are a’flying….
Yikes, it is already Wednesday afternoon. This week is passing me by!
There are always two sides to every story and like my other stories, this one is sad as well.
While, it is nice to have a few days off the road in the friendly confines of my own home, I am not always happy to be home.
Call it a nervous anxiety or just trying to jam too many things in too short a time frame, but I always feel like I am two steps behind and losing fast.
Since I had the time off this week, I was going to catch up on two presentations that I need to have completed this week, do two trip reports for last week, one expense report and to visit a local company where their system administrator is a wizard who I have been wanting to shoot the breeze with.
I have done the expense report, as well as one of the presentations. But as always, life gets in the way.
In their infinite wisdom, Da Company switched my trip for next week for the third time in two days (a record for even them I might add). That alone has caused me to re-write several travel requests. Not that I mind having some trips rearranged, but in this case, it caused some unnecessary grief for Rebecca. She originally had the trip that I now have. I didn’t angle for it. In fact I didn’t even want it because it was going to cause me to leave early on Sunday and not get home until 8 PM Saturday evening. I just hate that I got this trip and at the same time it feels like Da Company is trying to push her out the door. And that just isn’t right.
So with what little I have actually accomplished, I have also been asked to perform a couple of phone trainings. Actually, that turns out to be a good thing. I am much more focused when I have structured things to perform during the day.
I am not really a slacker, but usually (and this week doesn’t qualify) when I have a day off during the week, I am prone to not do too much. In fact, in many cases I use the time to catch up with personal issues and friendships. I get the necessary stuff done, but not a lot more. I haven’t had the luxury of doing that this week and today in particular. I still have two conference calls to go before I have to rent a car for the next couple of days for local work.
On the other hand, I was speaking with Cheryl yesterday. One of her co-workers had emailed me and said they expected me out there this month (which is impossible because I am booked pretty solid). It was great to hear her voice and how the things that we worked on have actually worked beyond expectations.
Added to all this angst about getting what I want accomplished, performing the phone trainings and such, I have the added pleasure of having to deal with the fact that the medical that Da Company hap hazard set up in Mid-December is still not in place. I have tried to get prescriptions filled and dental appointments met only to be surprised that the new coverage isn’t in place. So, I am now out of pocket $1,000 until this fine mess gets taken care (if it ever does, since I have heard some disturbing news about the dental plan).
Blog on!
posted by John Panico at 2:11 PM
Monday, January 06, 2003
Just another Manic Monday!
It is Monday. And I am happy to say that my Monday Mission is in and on the books.
The weekend has left me perplexed somewhat. I am glad that my client for Monday and Tuesday has postponed their engagement. It gives me a little down time to sort through things and catch up with others.
But here it is Monday afternoon, and I have feelings of “Where is this thing called life going?”
Part of that has to do with reading “Nat’s” log and getting a voice mail from Rebecca.
Rebecca is getting jerked around by Da Company. I don’t know what is up between the two, but whatever it is, she doesn’t deserve the treatment that she has been getting. I wish I could help her in some way, but am unequipped to do so. I have thought about her often lately and we have played a little tag between us.
Natasha is just getting deeper into life and finding out which things are important to her and which things are just that…materials that we covet. It has been a most interesting 6 months or so to see her transformation. Not to say that she hasn’t always been this way, I just never knew her enough to see it. In any case, I am happy to have her as a friend that I can tell secrets to and not have it come back to hit me in the head.
I am pretty much going to be home over the next few weeks. The clients later this week are local and the one next week is about 80 miles away. I am not sure if I am going to commute back and forth yet or what.
I guess this feeling has also come about from yesterday’s service at church. Not really a message per se, more of a spiritual exercise in that you write down the outcomes for the coming year. And although things are going relatively well at the moment (except that I still haven’t bought a house, decided where to live, haven’t actively been pursuing a business that might take me off the road more, etc), I didn’t have any “revelations” or feeling the proverbial “tap” on my shoulder to go in one direction or another. And that in itself is disconcerting.
Today’s Monday Mission also brought up the issue of regrets over the last year (I know it seemed a little late to rehash, but it was the mission that was written). Although I didn’t articulate it, I wonder what if…. a lot. I am probably better off but it is going to take awhile for that feeling to remove itself. I hope I don’t have that feeling this time next year at least.
I could live with it for a period of time though. By and large, it is a great motivator. That and I just found out that I have to go back to Da Company at mid month to perform my “practice” teach of the classes I will be doing later this year at annual meeting of our user’s group. So I am going to be down to a 38” waist by then. And I am proud of that less that a year ago, I had a waist that was bordering 52”.
That’s a good place to leave for now. Blog on!
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