Work? WTF???

It has been almost 3 weeks since it was the last time that I set foot into work, and I'm better off for it. I took off from work on the 15th of December through some fancy footwork with my vacation schedule, and by sorting of fibbing to my boss a little bit. I didn't actually have 10 days left of vacation, but the days that I did have left, added into the days that I had from working those 90 hour weeks from July through October finally caught up with me. Leave work on 15-December-2006, and return on 2-January-2007. That's a good break right there, and frankly, one that I needed. The burnout factor on me was approaching scorched Earth policy (ala Sherman in the Civil War). The downside to being out for so long? Going back after being gone for that long. For example, I get to work today, log into the work e-mail, and what doth my eyes behold? 375 new and unread e-mails. Yeah, I said it, 375. I spent most of the morning getting over sticker shock, and then triaging the e-mail inbox. Here is the order that I went in. First, delete all work e-mail that didn't appear too important. You know, company wide notices, safety training schedule, network down notices, power is out notices, daily customer scorecards, and things like that. After I got through that stuff, I was left with about 365 e-mails. Next on the list, read all personal e-mail. Meaning, stuff from friends and family, and reply to that stuff appropriately. Yes, I know, it's work and I should be working on that, but go back a few sentences and read again that I have been out since the 15th of December, and I'm not really in a great mood to be working. I've got to ease back into this mess.

Now with personal e-mail out of the way, I can start going through the work e-mails and prioritizing things there. Let's see. Toyota Japan, nothing but issues there, we'll save that for tomorrow. In-house sweatshirt distribution... Why didn't I delete that one in the first round? To the trash bin with you my friend. Let's see what else here? Hmm, some e-mails I can write one word answers to (maybe up to 3 word answers as well), yes, let's hit those ones up first. The answers I wrote to these e-mails were as follows:

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Yes (again).
4. Maybe.
5. Crap.
6. You're joking?
7. Trash those.
8. Scrap it.
9. I hate SDS (SDS is a sister company of ours that is constantly screwing us).
10. HAHAHAHA!

Use your imagination, and think about me going through about 50 e-mails with answers like you see above in 1-10. Like I said before, got to triage everything, and work as fast as possible here. Lunchtime was approaching.

I did get to walk around the production floor a bunch this morning, re-connecting with some of the people that I work with, you know, the more "blue collar" folks who I really do enjoy being around. Most of the folks that work up front with me, well, I could take or leave them (leave most of them), but for the most part, the folks on my lines out there on the production floor I admire a lot, and enjoy a lot.

I do wish that I could take another few weeks off from work, but alas, now, I'm looking down the barrel of almost 11 months with little or no vacation time, but this will be OK, because then I get to get married in December in St. Croix, and take a couple of weeks off there, go back to work for a week, and have another week off at the end of December 2007. I just have to keep moving towards that day with that in mind. Focus on the wedding, focus on the wedding.

I did find out something interesting about my wedding today though. It turns out that the wedding coordinator, named Misty Hyman (no porn star jokes please) is indeed an Olympic Gold Medalist. Yes, it's true. She won the 200m butterfly swimming event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, which is pretty impressive I must say. And, a friend of mine that moved down to St. Croix lives right next door to her, and is trying to work out some deals for myself and the fiancee for when we do roll on down there for the wedding and all. It's good to have an "in" on the inside so to speak. So yeah, Misty, she went into her event as the complete underdog, she wasn't supposed to win at all. An Australian was supposed to be the end all be all in that event, but alas, the good old US of A took down Australia in that meet, and at that time. Check out this story about her win. Yeah, that's our wedding coordinator/planner, it's pretty sweet.

Anyway, it'll be back to work tomorrow to fit the remaining horde of e-mail remaining in my inbox. I can hardly wait, maybe I'll go back there this evening? Nah, on second thought, probably not.