Me, for instance. I'm already starting to forget how this was the job I enjoyed, the one I actually looked forward to coming in to each day. I guess I had it better than most people. I got nine months of "hey, I'm having fun and they're paying me!"

Now I've got, "If I don't show up, they won't pay me" and I've done that before. Often.

Bleah.

Vela is still wonderful and still taking on 125% more than she can possibly accomplish, in an attempt to keep me from wigging out and to give me time to do the part of my job that actually produces results, but I know she's stressing and knowing that stresses me.

She's organizing and eliminating projects and outsourcing where she and I both agree it's a good idea* and generally doing everything humanly possible to make this a do-able thing for both of us - at least for the foreseeable future. (She may reach the end of her rope before I do. I expect her to bail out after the first of the year.)

She had a call with the Bowery Boys today and (bless her little heart) left me entirely out of it. I need to buy her a present.

Maybe, although she made it clear that she doesn't 'expect' or require me to work a lot of unpaid hours, I can see that she does have very high hopes that I'll come in to the office on Monday mornings with a nice chunk of my workload already completed over the weekend. So, I guess, starting this next weekend, I need to start giving the company a few extra hours.

After all, it is a paycheck. And health insurance.

Still.

Bleah.

____________________

* Remember the Crazy George company - the group I mentioned a few weeks ago who were hired, as very expensive consultants (and paid up-front) to massage our s e o efforts and give us some high-level advice on how to be entirely more wonderful? (You know the ones - the ones who came in with a "plan" for how to make us wonderful that was practically a carbon-copy of Gidget's NLP from this past spring.)

Anyhow.

Remember the Argonut Afield, the Hissy 'Nut who pitched a fit because no one left at the office is willing to take his calls at 9:00 on Saturday night or whatever other weird time he decides he wants to talk about his account?

In what I instantly warned was an ill-advised moment of enthusiasm, our Crazy George Company Rep offered to take on the Hissy 'Nut -- take him off our hands and give him the 24/7 service he was demanding. I was overruled and today, the Crazy George Company Rep and the Hissy 'Nut had their first one-on-one conversation. At the end of the call, the CGCR called Vela and said he wanted nothing to do with the Hissy 'Nut. He was, in his words, "scared of the guy" after listening to how many 180 degree turns the Hissy 'Nut got through in that one phone call.

So, you know, it's not just me. These 'Nuts really are--nuts.

(You may not have doubted it, but I know I'm prone to exaggeration sometimes, and I value an objective opinion when I start thinking things are getting ridiculous. So, you know, I'm happy to have the "experts" say that the Hissy 'Nut has unrealistic expectations and they don't want to work with him.)