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Rumors of my demise...
Feb. 8th, 2005 09:52 pm...have been greatly exaggerated. But seriously, folks...
Let's see...when last we left our heroine, it was just before Christmas, and I had some fond imagination that I was going to comment each day in the Octave before Christmas on the Great "O" Antiphons - while running into New York two nights in a row to rehearse and then perform at St. Patrick's with my chamber ensemble, finishing a vast array of last-minute year-end gotta-get-it-done stuff for the outgoing client, preparing to travel for two months to work for the incoming client, packing for Christmas week at my mother's, and doing the Christmas shopping. Right.
So the St. Patrick's gig was amazing. Lovely, lovely place to see - not as lovely to sing in as I might have expected. In spite of being enormous and very live, one feels very much as if one is singing entirely alone, even in the midst of a rather large group. Kinda scary. But a very good time was had, and we were well-received.
As is typical, there was a lot of last minute stuff to finish for the outgoing client - and a corresponding frustration in not being able to get attention from the people I needed in order to finish said last-minute stuff.
Christmas shopping! I did the Christmas shopping almost entirely in one six-hour marathon. Very tired at the end, but oddly very satisfied; it was fun, and I was particularly glad to find unique and unusual things for several hard-to-buy-for people on my list. Most fun had while shopping: Build-A-Bear!!! This is definitely a cool experience (even for an almost-40-year-old; I can only imagine how cool it is for kids).
Christmas! We had a grand time at my mother's house. For Christmas Eve dinner I made Minestrone di Castagne - a minestrone made with chestnuts, white beans, and ham. Very tasty stuff. Had a bit of a scare, at first: I had planned on buying my chestnuts in jar, at Williams-Sonoma, while I was out Christmas shopping. So I boldly walked into Wms.-Sonoma on the 23rd of December (all right, you know I can hear you laughing, right?) looking for chestnuts. And the first thing I spotted was actually Christmas ornaments - these glass snowmen-cooks. So I snagged a couple off the tree, and I asked the clerk if I could set them down until I was finished shopping - and she says, "Oh, those are only for decoration. They're not for sale." Oh.
And then I walk around the store, and I look and I look for the chestnuts - and there are no chestnuts. So I ask. And she says, "Oh, those are only a Thanksgiving item. We don't carry them for Christmas." Really. So "A Christmas Song" is mistaken, then? ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...")
And you know, you'd think that might have dampened my enthusiasm, but no. I forged ahead, and in a later store a lovely clerk asked if she could help me. I said, "What I need, you don't have," and she says, "Try me, you'd be surprised." So I say, "Canned cooked chestnuts," and she says, "Wegman's." I hugged her.
So that - eventually - was how I got my chestnuts for the soup. I have made this soup before entirely from scratch - starting with chestnuts in shells. And if you've got somebody whose fingers are insensitive to pain to peel them for you, you might start that way too. Or you might allow the possibility that sometimes a cop-out isn't a bad idea, and buy your chestnuts for soup in jars. Up to you.
Mom loved the soup - we ate it all week, and it only improves over time. We had a grand day at my cousin's house for Christmas Day; we went visiting various friends and other family all week; and then we arrived home just in time to freshen up and go out to a New Year's Eve gaming party - which was equally wonderful.
And then, of course, the downer: on the 3rd, I boarded a 7:10 a.m. flight to Nashville, TN to begin my current assignment. Not that having a job is a bad thing, really. But I'd been led to believe that this could be done remotely - and in point of fact, much of it could have been - and consenting to travel meant giving up participation in the chamber ensemble's March concert, which I'd been looking forward to.
And this is a nutsy-fagan project, for a nutsy-fagan client, if I may say so as shouldn't. There were some things that should have been done up front, and weren't, and the result is that I have to travel when I otherwise might not have had to. And, too, the days are very long - mine not as long as some; we typically arrive by 8 a.m., leave no earlier than 6 p.m. - and we don't go out at all during the day. Lunch is brought in. So I leave there usually around 6 in the evening (Central time), stop at the Kroger near the hotel for milk for the evening snack and morning coffee (ordinary hotel room, no fridge), pick up some fast food or other for dinner, and get back to the hotel between 7 and 7:30. I do my evening reading and the occasional fun stuff (like typing this journal entry), and tumble into bed to sleep before getting up to do it all over again.
It isn't without its rewards. The people - stressed as they are - are fun, and we had a very cool team outing to a local restaurant called The Aquarium (at Opry Mills Mall). I'm handling the flying much better than I used to, Volkswagen-sized planes and all, and I'm racking up frequent flier miles (though God only knows what I'll do with them). There are always compensations.
But in general, I'm looking at the stressed-out, burned-out people around me and realizing that they have lost their sense of what is truly valuable in life. They live from day to day and from crisis to crisis, ruthlessly suppressing all sense of regret at the things they're missing out on (like the day-to-day lives of small children at home), and criticize or mock anyone who displays "weakness" (like going to the doctor for an illness). I'm looking at that and saying to myself, "I will not become one of these - and that means that there is no career path for me among them." Which is a frightening thing to say, really, even out loud in print.
I don't know if it means that there is no continuing career for me in consulting; I doubt it means that there's no continuing career for me in technical writing. But I see no viable career path for myself at this company, because I insist on having a life in addition to a job, and eventually I think the powers that be at this company will count that against me.
More some other time on how truly warped and insane a world-view that is; it's getting late, and tomorrow is an early morning (Ash Wednesday and all).
Let's see...when last we left our heroine, it was just before Christmas, and I had some fond imagination that I was going to comment each day in the Octave before Christmas on the Great "O" Antiphons - while running into New York two nights in a row to rehearse and then perform at St. Patrick's with my chamber ensemble, finishing a vast array of last-minute year-end gotta-get-it-done stuff for the outgoing client, preparing to travel for two months to work for the incoming client, packing for Christmas week at my mother's, and doing the Christmas shopping. Right.
So the St. Patrick's gig was amazing. Lovely, lovely place to see - not as lovely to sing in as I might have expected. In spite of being enormous and very live, one feels very much as if one is singing entirely alone, even in the midst of a rather large group. Kinda scary. But a very good time was had, and we were well-received.
As is typical, there was a lot of last minute stuff to finish for the outgoing client - and a corresponding frustration in not being able to get attention from the people I needed in order to finish said last-minute stuff.
Christmas shopping! I did the Christmas shopping almost entirely in one six-hour marathon. Very tired at the end, but oddly very satisfied; it was fun, and I was particularly glad to find unique and unusual things for several hard-to-buy-for people on my list. Most fun had while shopping: Build-A-Bear!!! This is definitely a cool experience (even for an almost-40-year-old; I can only imagine how cool it is for kids).
Christmas! We had a grand time at my mother's house. For Christmas Eve dinner I made Minestrone di Castagne - a minestrone made with chestnuts, white beans, and ham. Very tasty stuff. Had a bit of a scare, at first: I had planned on buying my chestnuts in jar, at Williams-Sonoma, while I was out Christmas shopping. So I boldly walked into Wms.-Sonoma on the 23rd of December (all right, you know I can hear you laughing, right?) looking for chestnuts. And the first thing I spotted was actually Christmas ornaments - these glass snowmen-cooks. So I snagged a couple off the tree, and I asked the clerk if I could set them down until I was finished shopping - and she says, "Oh, those are only for decoration. They're not for sale." Oh.
And then I walk around the store, and I look and I look for the chestnuts - and there are no chestnuts. So I ask. And she says, "Oh, those are only a Thanksgiving item. We don't carry them for Christmas." Really. So "A Christmas Song" is mistaken, then? ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...")
And you know, you'd think that might have dampened my enthusiasm, but no. I forged ahead, and in a later store a lovely clerk asked if she could help me. I said, "What I need, you don't have," and she says, "Try me, you'd be surprised." So I say, "Canned cooked chestnuts," and she says, "Wegman's." I hugged her.
So that - eventually - was how I got my chestnuts for the soup. I have made this soup before entirely from scratch - starting with chestnuts in shells. And if you've got somebody whose fingers are insensitive to pain to peel them for you, you might start that way too. Or you might allow the possibility that sometimes a cop-out isn't a bad idea, and buy your chestnuts for soup in jars. Up to you.
Mom loved the soup - we ate it all week, and it only improves over time. We had a grand day at my cousin's house for Christmas Day; we went visiting various friends and other family all week; and then we arrived home just in time to freshen up and go out to a New Year's Eve gaming party - which was equally wonderful.
And then, of course, the downer: on the 3rd, I boarded a 7:10 a.m. flight to Nashville, TN to begin my current assignment. Not that having a job is a bad thing, really. But I'd been led to believe that this could be done remotely - and in point of fact, much of it could have been - and consenting to travel meant giving up participation in the chamber ensemble's March concert, which I'd been looking forward to.
And this is a nutsy-fagan project, for a nutsy-fagan client, if I may say so as shouldn't. There were some things that should have been done up front, and weren't, and the result is that I have to travel when I otherwise might not have had to. And, too, the days are very long - mine not as long as some; we typically arrive by 8 a.m., leave no earlier than 6 p.m. - and we don't go out at all during the day. Lunch is brought in. So I leave there usually around 6 in the evening (Central time), stop at the Kroger near the hotel for milk for the evening snack and morning coffee (ordinary hotel room, no fridge), pick up some fast food or other for dinner, and get back to the hotel between 7 and 7:30. I do my evening reading and the occasional fun stuff (like typing this journal entry), and tumble into bed to sleep before getting up to do it all over again.
It isn't without its rewards. The people - stressed as they are - are fun, and we had a very cool team outing to a local restaurant called The Aquarium (at Opry Mills Mall). I'm handling the flying much better than I used to, Volkswagen-sized planes and all, and I'm racking up frequent flier miles (though God only knows what I'll do with them). There are always compensations.
But in general, I'm looking at the stressed-out, burned-out people around me and realizing that they have lost their sense of what is truly valuable in life. They live from day to day and from crisis to crisis, ruthlessly suppressing all sense of regret at the things they're missing out on (like the day-to-day lives of small children at home), and criticize or mock anyone who displays "weakness" (like going to the doctor for an illness). I'm looking at that and saying to myself, "I will not become one of these - and that means that there is no career path for me among them." Which is a frightening thing to say, really, even out loud in print.
I don't know if it means that there is no continuing career for me in consulting; I doubt it means that there's no continuing career for me in technical writing. But I see no viable career path for myself at this company, because I insist on having a life in addition to a job, and eventually I think the powers that be at this company will count that against me.
More some other time on how truly warped and insane a world-view that is; it's getting late, and tomorrow is an early morning (Ash Wednesday and all).
