Guess What? Whiny Butt!

Friday, February 18, 2011
I'm tired.

Part of it is the normal stresses of living in the world.* Responsible adults living in a democratic society are obligated to stay informed about the world around them so that they might exercise their franchise responsibly. But doing so makes most people want to take their own eye out with a fork, including me.

However, my current issue is the current pace of my travel. By the time this current run is over, I will have spent six of the last seven weeks either traveling out of state or attending on-site training.**

Leaving aside for the moment my distaste at being away from my family, here's the trouble with such a schedule, at least in my current job: My workload is not predicated on me being unable to actually, you know, perform work 10-20 hours a week due to travel time. By the time today's over, I will have spent 20 hours this week in transportation related tasks like "being in an airport," "being on an airplane," or "driving a car." None of these venues are conducive to doing actual design and engineering - the work for which I'm paid. And since the systems engineering fairy isn't going to visit me in the middle of the night in order to perform those tasks,*** the inevitable result is that I'm behind.

This leaves me with a conundrum. I'm not really the kind of person who does not produce their deliverables in a timely manner. In fact, such a circumstance will keep me up at night. However, I'm not really keen on the idea of working nights and weekends to compensate for the fact that I'm spending all this time in transportation related activities - activities I'm being directed to perform.

Then there's the issue of health. If there's a sure fire way for me to ensure I have insomnia, it's to schedule me to fly. The night before I fly, whether I'm at home or in a hotel, I don't sleep well. This morning, for example, I was supposed to get up at 4:00 a.m. to leave for the airport at 5:00 a.m. But I was awake at 2:45 a.m., thinking of the Very Important Call I may or may not be on time for that begins at 3:45 p.m., all times Eastern.

In other words, travel messes with my hard-earned and much cherished ability to sleep on a regular basis. And with my hard-earned and much detested ability to exercise most days of the week. Neither of these things is good for my ongoing well-being.

I do recognize that these circumstances are better than being unemployed. But that doesn't mean I'm liking them, and it doesn't mean I won't have a talk with my boss about work-life balance if my travel schedule doesn't ease up. When the Smart Twins were still minors, I was pretty militant about not traveling. Just because they're grown now doesn't mean I'm available to be my company's beck-and-call girl.


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*Really, South Dakota Republicans? You think making shooting abortion doctors "justifiable homicide" is a really swell idea? While people of good conscience can disagree about the morality of abortion, I think we can all agree that you all are backwards motherfuckers. Way to be "pro-life." Seriously - seek help.

**While I recognize that crying about the stresses of my employment makes me a profoundly ungrateful git with no sense of proportion about her first world problems, I'm going to do so anyway. Hence the Whiny Butt moniker.

***But wouldn't it be cool if he would? And what would such a creature look like?

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