thisiskindaboring

I’m taking a much-needed break from work for a few minutes to reflect. At the end of March, I took a ½ day off from my last consulting position to drive up to the Bay Area so I could start a new consulting job the next day. The people who interviewed me over the phone for this position let me know the project was… in trouble.

Typical. I love the problem-child projects. Anyway, I set their expectations pretty low on how much my involvement would help at such a late stage in the process. And then I jumped in, knowing exactly what I was getting into.

Ha. This job has been hard. Pretty much the toughest project I’ve worked on in my career. But I really did know that I would be challenging myself to do the impossible this time. We just launched a software tool to the company last week and it hasn’t blown up yet. Good sign. Very good.

I was just looking over what I need to do so I can transfer my work back to the project team at the end of next week before I get outta here and I laughed out loud. Like lol, laughing, you know?

I wrote detailed training materials for a system I’ve never used. I put presentations together, detailing processes as they used to be and as they will be in the future. For processes that I have never been a part of and don’t quite understand. I managed to track down and communicate with over a thousand staff members in 12 time zones, many the project team didn’t even know existed. I wrote 3 nice things about everyone who helped with the project, never having met 80% of them.

Today, I took a walking tour of some ghetto neighborhood in search of helium balloons and streamers. I found balloons (no helium), streamers, every strip club in San Francisco, and a club dedicated to Jack Kerouac. Then, I partied (well, had lunch with) the CIO.

I should have some down time after next week. I think my next job is starting the second week of June. Maybe I’ll take my tent and sleeping bag and my dog out to the river and camp for awhile. Also, a banjo. Yeah. Definitely need a banjo.