Deadlines

Word came to me today that there's now a 10-day deadline for the first stage of a new project I'm involved in at work. Ten days to get as much as possible done, when parts of the project beyond our control are... shall we say less than complete? The second stage begins on Friday, from which point we'll have ten days to get as much as possible done for that, before the third stage begins, and then the fourth.

All this would be easy if I had nothing else to do.

As it happens, I have one of my usual deadlines on Thursday, then another two next week, and then it all starts getting really busy in the run-up to Christmas. And I'm expected to get involved in conference calls? When I don't even have my own office?

Being drafted into this project seemed like a good thing at the time, but it's being wholly mismanaged, and the folks who have to do the donkey work just aren't being considered. Nor is the extent of the donkey work required. In many ways, it's even up to the folks doing the donkey work to determine that... And the bad news is that, because of the way we operate, there's quite a bit of pissing about.

It does seem these days that, the bigger the business, the more generally inconsiderate they are. It's just a case of "Aha! We can make money by doing this! Let's hire someone to do half the job, then dump the rest on existing staff who clearly don't have enough to do if they usually manange to leave the office before 7.30pm and manage to have a social life. We don't know how we're going to make money out of it, but it bloody well better make us a tidy profit, or people will be sacked."

My problem is that, somewhere along the lines, I became hailed as a hero - entirely unjustly, but it suits the MD to say that one of his team is a key player (I have been told to "eat less humble pie") - and, as one of the few computer literate people in the company, I was a shoe-in for this project. Trouble is, I know how this "Man of the Moment" crap works, and the moment is generally very short. When they're done telling you what a great job you've done, they give you even more shit to shovel. I don't mind shovelling shit, per se... but I do know what my limits are, and I generally know when I've done something praiseworthy.

No, really, I do. I just have really high expectations of myself.

A prime example being the sketching I did this weekend. Really, not up to my own standards, but they were only meant to fulfill a very basic purpose. They are very basic, and really only took as long as they did because it was a boring job.

OK, that's not entirely true. It took as long as it did because I'm having as much trouble focussing on sketching as I am on writing. It's somewhat distressing... I used to be able to draw quite easily, albeit slowly, and put a lot of effort in to speeding myself up. While my average (halfway decent) sketch was still taking several months to complete, I managed to knock out a couple of really good ones in a little over an hour. These days, I can't stand to look at a blank page, however many ideas I have, because the act of sketching (or writing) feels like a chore, rather than a recreational activity, and whatever makes it onto the page seldom matches what I'd imagined... And I'm not convinced that doing sketches for work is doing anything the change that.