Consultant humor is weird. All I can say is that my team cracks me up and absolutely none of the jokes translate. They usually involve sound effects, economic references, and a constant understanding that the work we're doing here is out of control and ridiculous.

This week is better than last week. Last week was hell, professionally and personally. And I forgot my mother's birthday. Not even a glimmer of a memory til my parents called me over the weekend cause they hadn't heard from me in days. I had no less than three meltdowns (probably more), one involving the fact that the airline made me check my carry on luggage. Interestingly enough, I didn't have a meltdown when my flight on Monday was delayed for 5 hours. Anyway, this week is better, so far. There's a lot of big shots coming down to nc tomorrow so there's a pretty strong possibility that it will get tough.

And some how, I find myself writing bad poetry late at night.

work and play

I wonder if everyone is always stressed by work no matter what they do or who they are. I am. Not because my job is particularly hard. I mean it keeps me busy and I have to think a lot. But the stress comes from the amount of uncertainty I go through in any given week. That's mostly specific to my project. The client doesn't like us (his boss pushed us on him) and is trying to find ways to make us look bad. Unfortunately for us, the project has been mismanaged and that's not hard to do. Most of that doesn't get down to my level. The higher up people have to deal with the consequences of that.

But what does get to me is that on any given week, i don't know what part of the project I'm going to focus on and it frequently changes. On any given week, I don't know where I'll be traveling to the next week. And I don't know when the project will end because none of us do. Part of the project is scheduled to end Nov. 2nd but me and one other person we're supposed to stay til Dec. 15th. But now that's unclear. I'm comfortable with a degree of uncertainty but I have to say that constant changes of direction and a total lack of control over my environment does stress me out. I come home on weekends feeling drained and empty.

There's also not a lot of job security at my company. People get fired or counseled out pretty regularly. So if I'm on a couple of bad projects or rub a couple of people wrong, that's it, i'll have to start polishing up my resume. I think I'm doing ok but combine that with the fact that I have to spend 12-14 hours a day with the people I work with and it means that when I'm on the road, I always have to be on. Which is also tiring.

Next week I have to go to Detroit. I hate being in Detroit because it's cold, the building we work in is a dump, the Sheraton doesn't get Comedy Central, the team there works much longer hours and then goes straight to dinner so I can't run in the evening, it's dark in the morning so I can't run then and there's no really nice Y to swim at like there is in North Carolina. It's those little things that can make me hate an entire city.

One random North Carolina story..... we had dinner one night at a place called the Steak Barn where the parking lot was full of pick up trucks. I was in the back seat yelling "veto!" but the guys didn't listen to me. Stupid guys. So four of us, me, my manager, and the two associates, sit down and the food is awful. It's terrible. But THEN, the waitress comes over and starts talking. My manager is Indian. He was born in the US and he lives in Ohio but he is of Indian decent.

So, this waitress starts talking, "where are you from?" she asks him. He tries to say Ohio, but she won't have that, "No, where are you FROM?" He concedes and says India. "Oh," she starts, "We have Indian people here. They move down and open convenience stores in the ghetto. They make so much money selling fried chicken to black people. Those poor people love their fried chicken. The Indians make more money than KFC. And they sell cigarettes one at a time, because you know poor people can't afford the whole pack. But those Indians aren't very nice to their wives are they? I know one that got mad at his wife and made her wear that outfit. Why do they do that?"

The worst part about all that racism was that she thought she was being really welcoming and friendly. It was totally and utterly shameless. She just kept talking about the Indians in the ghetto and the time she lived in the big city of Durham. I don't know what she would have said if she had found out that the associates were both Jewish or if my director (who is black) had been there. It was ridiculous. Because of that and because our project is going so badly we went from there to the Applebees and got hammered.

I guess this post was all work and no play. My weekends aren't very exciting if things go according to plan. When I come home I don't want to do anything. Last weekend was kind of exciting I guess. I flew home to Boston and hung out with my mom and then came down to the city where my dad and my brother were visiting. That was fun.

Hampton Inn

I have to say I'm pretty impressed by the Hampton Inn. Free breakfast, cookies at night, and today they upgraded me to a suite with a huge ass whirlpool in the middle of the bedroom. Seriously this suite is bigger than my apartment. This week looks like it's going to be a little calmer than last week mostly because the very highest up guys don't seem to be around.

This weekend did not feel long enough. Mostly because Friday was so long and I didn't sleep enough. I was just trying to do too much. I didn't relax enough. I just don't feel right yet. I'm going swimming tomorrow morning. 6 15. Gross.