Too much going on!
That new client meeting with Vela tomorrow at 11 (Seriously. Must do the prep work for that this evening.) and then Louie Louie has yet another new client he wants to talk about so I scheduled that call for tomorrow afternoon.
Tomorrow's gonna be a day I need to work from home--I can start early and work late to make up the time.*
Another account I'm handing for Louie Louie goes live later this week, and let us all hope it performs better than the one I'm already handling for him. (Performance metrics are fine--it just doesn't produce sales.)
Gidget and I met with OldBoss Anais Friday morning so she could explain that that account is a gross disappointment. I agree--but at the moment I simply don't have the brain cells needed to do the kind of analysis needed to figure out the problem.
I've got the coming weekend earmarked, though. No play, no going out running around doing random things. The entire weekend has to be spent on freelance stuff. Between performance diagnosis for my two under-performing freelance accounts and monitoring performance on the one going live the end of this week, and whatever work comes out of the Vela meeting tomorrow--I just don't have time for a day off.
Corral-wise, things are equally as active.
Remember that training session I was going to produce some stuff for that I thought was taking place in early September? It's happening on August 1. Better put something together.
The presentation for the Corral conference? Is going better, now that I've stepped back, stepped back, and stepped back, to focus on preschool-level information. I'm kind of stuck at the moment but I'm sure something will come through my brain eventually.
The Corral is corralling yet another group in a week or so. Although it ain't got nothing to do with me, I keep getting dragged into 'information' sessions to tell me all about it. I don't care. I've spent 3-1/2 years with the Argonuts without finding a need to know anything about them so I think I can get along fine without a lot of extraneous information about people whose lives will never affect mine.
Webstrainer is driving me nutso. Not only are they changing things again (still) every two seconds, but they're providing more insight and details around performance--details that have shown a lot of us that things are not as good as we'd thought.
Also, they're very needy. I like being one of Mother's Little Helpers--it's fun to be recognized and have people think I'm smarter than I am--but not at the expense of my sanity. It's a volunteer gig--I can't commit to spending X numbers of hours a week on it. Some weeks I have time for XX hours and others I have time for 1/3X or less.
Also, I can't do a lot of calls and meetings and I certainly don't have time to check out and become expert on ten other Webstrainer programs. I have a job, people. Two jobs, in fact. If Webstrainer would like for formalize our relationship with some $$, I'll give up one of my current jobs and work for them. Otherwise, they get what part of me is leftover after my other commitments are met.
And then a microvolunteer site I post to occasionally is nagging me to be more involved and do more. I visit a couple of those from time to time. It's all an industry name-recognition thing for me, of course but I'm helping folks so I figure it's a fair trade. I like spouting off so it's not a trial but, again, I don't appreciate being nagged to give them more time than I can actually spare.
Professionally, I belong to three or four forums, have three 'professional' social networks to maintain, and a list of about 25 websites that offer analysis and insight and that I should be reading at least once a week, if not more often.
And then there's my actual life, such as it is. I haven't touched my quantum physics course in three weeks, I spent a scant 10 minutes crocheting and knitting one evening so I'm behind on those projects, I'd promised myself I was going to get back to sketching practice--that was six months ago and I haven't touched a pencil yet.
Fortunately I have very few friends, at least locally, so I'm not often tempted to spend time in that arena. *sigh*
I don't know how people who have, you know, family--kids and stuff--manage to get through it all. All I have is me and keeping my life under control is almost more than I can handle sometimes.**
I have a lot of life but not enough time to live it in.
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* I need one, or maybe two, work from home days anyhow. I need to run some massive reports and study the resulting 25k-line Excel spreadsheets in minute detail.
Those changes I mentioned that Webstrainer has made--I need to understand what they mean.
** Okay, if I didn't require 3-4 hours a day for reading, I could get through a lot more, but reading is what makes life worth living and I ain't giving it up.
Maybe I go to bed too early?
Posted by AnneZook at 10:00 AM | Comments (4)I had so much to say!
I was going to talk about building models of the Eiffel Tower and how the new Zelda game reawakened my love for RPG and how very amusing I'm still finding the Kindle (although I'm not longer allowed to mindlessly surf for inexpensive new books--not since I saw the grand total for the first such session).
I was going to go on and on about the craziness of freelance clients (not to mention the ones at the office) and my random satisfactions and dissatisfactions with the Corral Crew (not the least of which was being asked to give up my entire evening yesterday for the bonding experience of a group outing to a baseball game).
I wanted to celebrate a bit because I finally got my certification finished and moan and groan because the newest Must-Have Knowledge isn't covered by either of the exams I took, so now I have to start studying for two more exams.
I wanted to talk about my most recent MoPT adventure, wherein the machine refused to ticket me and the onboard inspector confirmed that during one recent weekend, as many as 50% of the available ticketing machines were out of order.
(Apparently the official procedure is for you to board the train, get off at the next stop, buy a ticket there if there's a working machine, then wait about 15 minutes to board the next train.
Should there be no working machine, you're supposed to repeat the procedure for the next stop.
A rough calculation shows that it would take six weeks to cross the city by this method--and up to six months if it's late in the evening and the trains are only running every 30 minutes and completely inactive from 1am-5am.)
I had complaints and compliments and all kinds of stuff but it's all old news now.
Also, there's no way I'm typin' all of that out.
Suffice to say I'm still me.
Still working a fair number of freelance hours--less than I should be more more than I want to, considering the number of hobbies and leisure amusements I'd rather spend my time on. New clients still coming every so often--have a meeting with one next week that could turn out to be a pretty big account. It's Vela's client, but one big enough for her to bring both Gidget and me in on if she pulls it off. (And she might land this one.)
Running interference for Gidget--she's been helping with one of my freelance accounts and, I'm shocked to have to say, making quite a few mistakes. (There's a reason everyone isn't good at what I do. You really do have to pay attention every, single second.)
Thinking about putting together a presentation for next month's conference sessions--they want me to and I said I would and and people expect it. I hate doing it, because showing slides and screen presentations really just distracts people from what you're saying but you can't expect to keep the attention of the television generation for more than 5 minutes if you're not showing pictures.
Have to put together another presentation for another session to be given during new owner training a week or two after that. Bleah. This comes directly under the heading of "things I do not do" but I'm sick of arguing with people about whether or not I'm allowed to spend my time on the work that needs to get done.
A couple of weeks after that, another conference in California but luckily I'm not presenting at this one. I'll be assuming my usual role as a back-seat heckler and I don't need advance prep to do that.
I just sent off for my last two COBRA reimbursements--another $800 or so for my "freelance emergency balance" savings account. I have three checks I need to deposit--but I've forgotten the account number for my brand new(ish) savings account and can't deposit them until I get actually get in to a bank during business hours, something I've been completely unable to achieve in the last two weeks. (Remember the goal--to have six months of living expenses in savings before I take the plunge.)
That, in a nutshell, is me these days.
It would all have been very amusing if I'd blogged it as I went I think.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:14 PM | Comments (2)