It's... Complicated

Thanks, Joe, for the kick in the rear to post. I have been lack in posting. Ok, more than lack. Totally and utterly absent.

I have had a month... really, six weeks... like none I have every had. I don't know that I have ever felt so busy and overwhelmed and utterly out of time to do anything, including last year when I went to 18 cities across the country in under 30 days. I have not read my Feedly, kept up with Twitter, slept enough, or, for Pete's sake, plucked my freakin' eyebrows in six weeks.

It's a difficult thing, blogging about work. Because it's so out there for everyone to see. Including current, past and future employers, clients and colleagues. Even if I don't mean to complain, or boast, or reveal some client confidentiality, the potential is so high.

Let's just say that working for an agency with multiple clients, so many personalities, not enough hands, processes I don't understand (because I don't have the institutional knowledge), and workstyles different from my own is... exhausting.

And it's two different types of exhausting. There's the physically exhausting, like yesterday, when I arrived at the office at 7:45 a.m. and left at 9:15 p.m., only to be back in at 7:45 a.m. again today. It was work, work, work, work, all hands on deck -- because there were only a few of us, with others traveling. I came home, slept, and got up to do it all over again.

But there is also the mentally exhausting. (Here's where I don't want anything to be misinterpreted.) Go into any thriving company that has been around for a long time, has incredible talent that has been loyal for years, and yet has expanded with new talent over the past year because the firm has been lucky enough to continue to accept clients, and, there's roadbumps. There's the old way and the new way and neither is necessarily better, and it all depends on who happens to be the most senior person in the office on any given day on what direction you're given. There's the optimistic "we're going to set a system to run more smoothly" with the realistic, "this shit needs to get done, and get done now."

I have been awed by the creativity, commitment to client services, and general goodness of the people. I have laughed at going from a place where there were four, relatively quiet people working, to a place where the water cooler talk never ceases. I have gone from being the top of the pyramid in my office, with the bosses over 1,000 miles away, to... not. I used to have pretty set hours, which I chose myself. Now I cancel happy hours and don't get home to make Mike dinner because I never know when I'll be able to leave.

And I hope none of that sounds complaining. It's just... different. I am tired, that's no doubt. I'm also learning tons, and feel like this is a tremendous opportunity.

I'll aim to be better about posting. First, though, I need to actually DO something other than work to actually blog about...