As Busy as I've Ever Been

Yep, that's my mantra lately. I am literally as busy at my job as I have ever been, in my entire life. And as someone who always carries a heavy workload in comparison to my peers, believe you me: this is not fun. At all. I mean, it's one thing when the airhead across the way, for whom its all she can do to even show her face in the office for maybe 30, 32 hours a week, tops. You give her a bit of extra work, and even though she feels like she is falling off a cliff, I don't give a shit. She deserves it, in fact. Or the lazyshiat down the hall, who will complain all day about the hours he has to work but then somehow manages to "work from home" at least two days a week, when his IM shows him as being completely away from his pc for hours at a time during business hours. But when I get heaped on top of my pile another 25-50% more work than I am already carrying, that really means something, and frankly it takes me to a place where I literally cannot get anything else done in the day but work, work and more work.

Over the past few weeks, I am up at the absolute crack of dawn -- earlier even -- and I'm the first one into my office shortly after 7am, where I proceed to sit at my pc and bang out contracts, dial in to negotiations and participate in various and sundry meetings, conversations and strategy sessions, until around 7pm when the sun is already on its way back down for the night. This week will make a complete five-day work week where I was not even afforded the opportunity to go and grab a quick lunch, not from a deli and not even one of those carts that midtown Manhattan is so famous for. And as if it's not insult enough that I work 12 hours a day in my office when pretty much the entire rest of my colleagues show up for more like the usual 9 or 10 -- on a good day! -- lately, when I finally get home around 8 at night, I have to immediately fire up the laptop and am back working on that contract markup before my work shoes are even off, my lenses are out and often literally before I even sit down. That's just how much I have to get to, how much more than is possibly able to be done by a normal person in a normal day.

So if you've been wondering why you haven't seen me on the virtual tables almost at all in the past couple of weeks (or much here at the blog, either, for that matter), no I haven't changed my username to protect my anonymity, and no I didn't finally stick my head through my laptop screen after one too many 2-outers on the river. I just haven't even had the time to sit the fuck down and do something I want to do, even at night when I'm home after a long, long day in the office.

Here's hoping that Friday night will be my first night truly off from work in about 2 1/2 weeks thanks to a couple of marathon sessions over the past couple of weekends that had me sitting in my office for a full day all alone on Saturdays and Sundays. And if I haven't returned your emails this week, don't take it personally (well, you should take it personally, but the rest of you, please don't). This weekend I am desperately hoping to get that break to catch up on everything else in my life outside of work work work work work.