if it's not one thing, it's another :/
Feb. 13th, 2011 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafShould I attempt an update? I get twitchy if I don't post anything here for an entire week or more.:) On the other hand, I don't really have the time for a lengthy rant - and after a week of not posting, a lengthy rant is precisely what I'm in the mood for. *sigh*
This week has been extremely exhausting. It was bitterly cold for most of it, and my car door was frozen shut, so I bundled up like a crazy Eskimo each morning and shivered miserably at the bus stop. By Thursday night, I was so fed up with it that I almost did a tribal dance of joy when I was finally able to pry the car door open. I decided I no longer cared if my tires might be losing air or whatever. So I drove to work on Friday, and to my favorite grocery market yesterday - and then, again, spent an absolutely ridiculous amount of time looking for a parking spot (there was one not too far from my building, but it was surrounded by such a massive snow pile that I wasn't able to get my groceries out of the car when I parked there - so I had to park much, much farther away and walk home with half of those heavy bags, and then walk out to the car again for the second load; might as well have walked to the closest grocery store without bothering to use the car at all, but who knew?... *sigh*). I don't know what's worse, to be honest. After several days of freezing your ass off waiting for buses & trains (which hardly ever arrive on time), you come to the conclusion that surely driving wins; but then you attempt to drive, and waste even more time because of bad roads, snow, lack of parking or whatever. It's just... winter sucks, no matter how you look at it. In nice weather, both driving AND commuting by bus/train would be a breeze. Thankfully, it is warming up already - I can hear the wind outside as I type, and it's not the bitter Artic wind any more; it's the damp, mild kind of wind that usually heralds the arrival of early spring. May it come real soon...
Now for the other reason why this week has been extremely exhausting: the boss handed everyone ANOTHER spreadsheet with MORE phone numbers to call, and this time we have even less time to get those advertising rates verified/updated, so we are supposed to be persistent and "go after" the people who don't immediately respond and give us the information we need. Which means I can't just email all those people and then wait with my arms crossed until they deign to email me back. I have to make a second attempt within 2-3 days - and then, if that fails, a third one. So I can't really avoid calling some of them on the phone, at least once. The thing is, I still can't force myself to call from my office phone, unless most of my teammates are away from their desks at the same time (which isn't a particularly frequent occurence); so I have resorted to "cheating" and calling from home, in the morning, before I leave for work. Which is, of course, something I hope my boss will never know. If I get up early enough, I can manage 2-3 calls before I need to leave. I did this on Friday, and I am planning on doing it again tomorrow. Hopefully, those will be the last three calls I have to make. We are not supposed to contact anyone more than three times, so I am not calling those people again, even if I end up just leaving a voicemail, and they never call me back. But I need to at least be able to say that I tried. The boss is under a lot of pressure from top management to get good results on this project; and I know that advertising personnel at daily newspapers is often too busy to respond to all their emails, but if you ask them a simple question on the phone, they will most likely give you the answer (in many cases, all we need them to say is: No, our rates have not changed). If only I didn't have to fight this stupid mental block every time...
Oh, and the boss also handed everyone ANOTHER self-assessment form: much longer and more elaborate that the first one. It consists of a series of "competencies" (for example, "accountability", "results orientation", "problem solving" etc.), and we have to demonstrate in detail what we are doing to fulfill each and every one of those. It's a tremendous pain in the rear, which reminds me of the worst high-school/university assignments; and we are supposed to turn in the completed forms by this coming Tuesday (I'm not even half-way done with mine, btw). I actually printed out the damned thing and took it home with me for the weekend, in the hopes that I might be able to finish it faster in the quiet of my own apartment (where I am not distracted by actual work needing to get done); but those hopes were in vain.:/ So tomorrow isn't going to be fun at all.:(
Speaking of which - I really should be in bed by now... *sigh*
This week has been extremely exhausting. It was bitterly cold for most of it, and my car door was frozen shut, so I bundled up like a crazy Eskimo each morning and shivered miserably at the bus stop. By Thursday night, I was so fed up with it that I almost did a tribal dance of joy when I was finally able to pry the car door open. I decided I no longer cared if my tires might be losing air or whatever. So I drove to work on Friday, and to my favorite grocery market yesterday - and then, again, spent an absolutely ridiculous amount of time looking for a parking spot (there was one not too far from my building, but it was surrounded by such a massive snow pile that I wasn't able to get my groceries out of the car when I parked there - so I had to park much, much farther away and walk home with half of those heavy bags, and then walk out to the car again for the second load; might as well have walked to the closest grocery store without bothering to use the car at all, but who knew?... *sigh*). I don't know what's worse, to be honest. After several days of freezing your ass off waiting for buses & trains (which hardly ever arrive on time), you come to the conclusion that surely driving wins; but then you attempt to drive, and waste even more time because of bad roads, snow, lack of parking or whatever. It's just... winter sucks, no matter how you look at it. In nice weather, both driving AND commuting by bus/train would be a breeze. Thankfully, it is warming up already - I can hear the wind outside as I type, and it's not the bitter Artic wind any more; it's the damp, mild kind of wind that usually heralds the arrival of early spring. May it come real soon...
Now for the other reason why this week has been extremely exhausting: the boss handed everyone ANOTHER spreadsheet with MORE phone numbers to call, and this time we have even less time to get those advertising rates verified/updated, so we are supposed to be persistent and "go after" the people who don't immediately respond and give us the information we need. Which means I can't just email all those people and then wait with my arms crossed until they deign to email me back. I have to make a second attempt within 2-3 days - and then, if that fails, a third one. So I can't really avoid calling some of them on the phone, at least once. The thing is, I still can't force myself to call from my office phone, unless most of my teammates are away from their desks at the same time (which isn't a particularly frequent occurence); so I have resorted to "cheating" and calling from home, in the morning, before I leave for work. Which is, of course, something I hope my boss will never know. If I get up early enough, I can manage 2-3 calls before I need to leave. I did this on Friday, and I am planning on doing it again tomorrow. Hopefully, those will be the last three calls I have to make. We are not supposed to contact anyone more than three times, so I am not calling those people again, even if I end up just leaving a voicemail, and they never call me back. But I need to at least be able to say that I tried. The boss is under a lot of pressure from top management to get good results on this project; and I know that advertising personnel at daily newspapers is often too busy to respond to all their emails, but if you ask them a simple question on the phone, they will most likely give you the answer (in many cases, all we need them to say is: No, our rates have not changed). If only I didn't have to fight this stupid mental block every time...
Oh, and the boss also handed everyone ANOTHER self-assessment form: much longer and more elaborate that the first one. It consists of a series of "competencies" (for example, "accountability", "results orientation", "problem solving" etc.), and we have to demonstrate in detail what we are doing to fulfill each and every one of those. It's a tremendous pain in the rear, which reminds me of the worst high-school/university assignments; and we are supposed to turn in the completed forms by this coming Tuesday (I'm not even half-way done with mine, btw). I actually printed out the damned thing and took it home with me for the weekend, in the hopes that I might be able to finish it faster in the quiet of my own apartment (where I am not distracted by actual work needing to get done); but those hopes were in vain.:/ So tomorrow isn't going to be fun at all.:(
Speaking of which - I really should be in bed by now... *sigh*
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Date: 2011-02-14 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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