Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Tiiiiime...is not on my side...

Okay, if you picture the stones singing it, it's funnier.

This one will be short, because as the Marshall has noted, time is something that is currently in shorter supply. Well, spare time. And that is kind of bad. didn't we all use to have a lot more time? I know that QueenDweeb and anyone else who essentially works hourly and has their pay tied to it, can sympathize. Salaried people get to leave work when they're done, and people who work hourly work until they run out of work, or are sent home. Because we get overtime. Anyway, I'm on one of those killer projects that takes up, generally, 12 hours a day actually at work, and time on weekends. (This is why I'm relatively uncommunicative. If you drop me a line, I swear, I'll write back. Work is boring, except that I found Porn in some guy's emails that I was reviewing. An opportunity to summon everyone in my few acres of Cubicle Farm and laugh at this guy.)

And, it's amazing to wonder where the time goes. Twelve hours at work, combined with about 45 minutes of (very pleasant) commuting each way. That goes to about 13.5 hours. Meals are eaten at work, so no time lost there. And I wake up at 6:00, and snooze until about 7:00, so that's an hour (again, a generally pleasant one). We're at 14.5. Showering and getting ready, kissing the wife goodbye, etc. ideally takes about another 1/2 hour, so we're at 15. The wife is actually generally dedicated to getting a good night's sleep, so there's sleep at around 11:00 or 12:00. So, that's 6 or 7 hours. (21 or 22 hours). So, basically, there are two or three free hours, assuming I sleep enough. Wow. I didn't write it out before. Yikes.

So yeah, that, my friends, is why there's not enough time in the day. Fortunately, this project won't last forever, and I probably could work less, but my last evaluation faulted me for not doing enough hours, so there's a balance to be kept. And there's the money. There's the tension between a better work-life balance with more interesting work, and the golden handcuffs locked around my wrist. (They're probably made of some less valuable metal, like copper or electrum. I do okay, but not golden handcuffs. Those are superduperfancy, and probably encrusted with bling and lined with fur from extinct/wholly imaginary animals.).

Anyway, It's not really so bad. Seriously. I know how it looks. As I often say to the wife, I just work long hours. It's not very hard work, and lord knows there are people who have it worse. I'm just bored, and slightly melancholy.

On a much funnier note, ask me sometime about a wedding gift from one of my coworkers. And, the wife and I just got a new couch and loveseat, which was delivered, amusingly, sans feet. After some vociferous complaining by your favorite Optimistic Cynic (or is it the other way 'round), the feet are being shipped to us from Wisconsin. Home of quality wooden feet.

And, TRASHIONALS are in two weeks at U of MD! Whee! We just have to come up with a new team name, and then defend the championship.

2 comments:

Paperpusher said...

My sympathies to you. Next week I have two trials and the week after that I have another trial in LaPlata. Not a whole lot of spending time at work but a whole lot of work and stress. Please note all of the trials involve different areas of law. Sometime in the middle of all of that I have a birthday.

OptimisticalCynical said...

And were it not for the aforementioned handcuffs, and your boss's potential propensity to fire people exactly like me, I'd be right in the trenches with you.