Weekend!
In the middle of November, the CEO called all of the people on our particular team (about 20 of us) “We’ve got a crisis with a due date. We need everybody to throw their backs into this particular project and we’re going to be handing it in at close of business on January 31st. If you want overtime, you’ve now officially been authorized to take it.” We looked in shock at our supervisors (because we’re *NEVER* authorized for overtime) and we got told, once again, how important (and impossible) the project was but they knew we could do it, etc.
And, since then, I’ve been working about 10 extra hours a week. Sometimes more. I worked Christmas (observed), I flew out to Doha on New Year’s Day (observed), and spend all day on a plane on the day I flew back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was allowed to “bank” these holidays and take them all off in a row on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week, and my boss told me “hey, take off a couple more. On me. You won’t have to use vacation time. Thanks. It’s appreciated.”
Well, he didn’t say those last two things. He’s kind of taciturn.
Anyway, on Tuesday night, we finished our Sisyphean task as much as any impossible task can be completed and now I am fixin’ to take a week off. I’d feel awesome about not using vacation time but… well, most of those were days I’d have been taking off anyway. I just shuffled them down the road a ways. The other two are nice, though.
It’s hard to get back into normalcy, though. Yesterday, I worked 10 hours because I forgot how to work 8. Today… I worked 8. Tomorrow, I have been told that I need to go home after working 6. Overtime is not authorized, you see.
As such, this weekend will be spent running errands, catching up on chores, hitting the various shoppes like Costco, PetsMart, Whole Foods, King Soopers, and doing laundry… sweet, sweet laundry. Saturday night will be spent with the gaming group doing gaming things.
And, Sunday night… well, for me, that’ll be Christmas Eve.
And next week I can begin to start to make up to Maribou for all of the crap associated with working overtime for two and a half months for a big project.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
You know what? I’m going to make my pasketti sauce.Report
Dang it, now I want spaghetti! I’m so susceptible to suggestion right now. A single mention of food and my imagination takes off. My doctor said to only gain 15 pounds with this pregnancy. That’s going to be tough.Report
Here’s my spaghetti sauce recipe. It’s even good for you!Report
Thank you!Report
Junior is with his father this weekend, so Friday night is Girls Night Out if the snow and freezing rain don’t arrive as predicted.
Saturday is a movie out with a different set of girls. Then pedicure. Saturday night is my annual dinner out with my oldest brother for his birthday at that amazing Italian food restaurant I only get to go to for his birthday in a town where neither of us live but is worth driving to for this restaurant. The only awkward part is how they always decorate for Valentine’s Day and I’m on a date with my brother…
Sunday is Junior’s last wrestling tournament. I would say it is bittersweet, but it’s mostly just sweet. I don’t like kids, expect for my own.
Man, if I wasn’t pregnant, I would consume sooooo much wine this weekend. I’m officially in the second trimester and loving it.Report
The wife is going up to Todtown for a few days to do a little bit of career credentialing and such, and I will be taking the Dog in to get vaccinated, as it was done by the ASPCA at adoption, but we will need to do some boarding in the spring, so might as well just do it again, it ain’t gonna kill the little guy.
I will be heading down to the bay area next week, so kinda trying to pack a few things in before I go also.Report
I keep emailing the City Council to rename us Todtown, but no one ever replies.Report
Note that “10 or so extra hours” is on top of the (legally allowed) unpaid overtime he was already working but started getting paid for more of … so we’re talking 55-65 hours weeks, sometimes closer to 70 or 80.
As for me, I’m working my usual friday afternoon/night shift, Saturday is for downtime and gaming, and then on Sunday I start the weirdest 6-day schedule ever (night time coworker out of town) including stuff like 10pm-2am and 6pm-2am interspersed with a couple meetings that happen at 11:30am or 2pm and stuff like that. Fewer hours than a normal week though (I went a bit over normal 37.5 this week – I’m not allowed to work more than 40). I’m a night owl, so it should work out ok. And the weekend AFTER this one, I have an epic 3 day weekend with almost no plans. So that’ll help.Report
Small gathering for the Game at the girl friends. I only have to provide supplies not cook…woot. “course I’d rather be playing Duex Ex Mankind Divided but meh…
Over time: Reminds me of the time I spend two weeks on a team negotiating two contracts. I think I have 170 hours on my time card for that two weeks. In a previous company, my managed was chatting with me and said, “you have XXX amount of uncompensated Overtime. Since you’re going on vacation, later this month, take one week vacation and one week “mngt directed time off” (which is basically overhead) Save a week of vaca on the company dime? Hell yes.
Sadly, the current corporation has a policy prohibiting paid overtime.Report
OH YEAH! THERE’S A SPORTING EVENT OF SOME KIND THIS WEEKEND!!!
Since Tom Brady is, effectively, Ric Flair, I suppose I’m rooting for the Patriots just because he’s the greatest heel of all time and the Falcons are Yet Another Boring Babyface that I’m, apparently, supposed to root for just because he’s fighting Ric Flair and… how is that any way to live?
We may need to throw a Superb Owl thread up so more people than just me can say something about how they don’t care about who wins this one.Report
There was one time Tom Brady appeared on TV wearing a trenchcoat and my immediate thought was “he looks like a god damn sex criminal”Report
Confirmation Bias is a hell of a drug.Report
No politics!Report
I feel you. Last weekend and the weekend before that were largely spent writing a manuscript, which is now in (as Anne Lamott says) sh*tty first draft form. I have decided to let that marinate over the weekend and I’m going grocery shopping. (Woo.)
I know, grocery shopping sounds unexciting and I admit I’m apprehensive about the fact that there is a very large and popular football game Sunday (though not involving teams most people around here care about), but – I haven’t been to a proper grocery in nearly a month, have been living on wal-mart supplies since the start of the semester.
I’ve also told myself that if I can get this SFD at least typed up, I can go to the new Ulta that opened and look at nail polish and lipstick.
It’s kind of sad how little it takes to make me excited these days – getting out to a big-box “beauty” store and maybe buying a new lipstick….Report
I am weird in that I actually really, really enjoy grocery shopping.Report
I recently tried Lip Sense and really like it. Although, I’m not a fan of ordering lip colors without seeing the color in person first. Nothing is perfect.Report
A million things to do at home this weekend. I’ve been working 50-60 hours per week since I got promoted in October, trying to learn all my new responsibilities and manage a team that is determined to be un-manageable. And then I go home and check email and sometimes do paperwork on sunday morning when the wife is still sleeping.
So I have got to find some balance, be a better husband, and help out more around the house. Easier said than done.Report
I’ve had to stop doing the thing where you ask “wanna hear a secret?” and then when they lean in, burp.Report
@mike-dwyer It’s really important not to lose that balance, because otherwise what’s the point?
(I say this as someone who has lost that balance completely in the past.)Report
We had a deal that i would put everything I had into my career from 40-50 and then go on cruise control until I retire. The deal was not for me to be an absentee husband. It’s tough though. I’m just playing a lot of catch up because the last person in my spot let a lot of things slip. There’s always Another Thing To Do… plus, I genuinely like my job so it can be addictive to put so much time into it. Sick, but true.Report
I’m very behind with work on both fronts, so this is going to be a not-so-weekend-y weekend for me. A day or two ago I would have said this was definitely the weekend I was going to get out and see Roughe One, but alas that seems not to be.Report
Fledermaus is possibly working this evening and next – helping on strike for a show I think.
There’s a winter festival thing going on this weekend that we’ll probably go to, though a few of the events are cancelled due to not enough snow. Notably the fat bike chariot race is cancelled (last year the field it was in was more ice slick than snow, and it’s been much the same weather pattern this year – it would be ice slick with a light dusting of snow on top).
Should be kinda quiet. That wouldn’t hurt.Report