A Day in the Life

Today:
-Mass at 7 am for the Immaculate Conception. Beautiful!
-Get gas while freezing butt off.
-Stop at Meijer to buy lunch stuff and supplies for the office.
-Head into the office.
-Get buried in paperwork, phone calls, coordinating schedules, dealing with crisis...
-L tells me she needs me at an afternoon meeting. oy.
-Cancel meeting with J the crazy bookkeeper.
-Jump in the car with L and head out for the meeting. Hear all about a "more than a friend" situation she has... oy. Take down the sign Reenie.
-2 hour meeting.
-On the way back, we strategize (aka Reenie figures out how to solve the current problem. Quantify the backlog. We've put good processes in place to take care of the problem going forward, but still have backlog to deal with. And no time. And lots of work. And insanity.)
-Experience incredible sense of accomplishment being able to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it. L is relieved. I life coach a bit, telling her how critical it is that she find some work / life balance.
-Back in the office at 4.30 pm. Paper, messages, emails, the guys with things to work out on tomorrow's schedule, go go go.
-Work on quantifying the backlog so I can assign the work to other people. Done. Backlog quantified. L is thrilled. Isn't as bad as we thought (which I knew was the case somehow).
-While wrapping up the quantifying thing, I get into a long discussion with boss #1 about another of our guys who is way backlogged... and we have to solve it. We've got to make him more effective getting the unnecessary stuff off his desk so he can focus on selling jobs, which he is fabulous at. Long discussion about that with the same solution- quantify the backlog. Once it is on paper, we can know what needs ot be passed off, what needs to be done, who needs a phone call, etc. It becomes a solveable problem. Boss thinks I'm great. This leads into a discussion of the production side of the business.
- Walk back into the main office with L, discussion with boss #2 about the next day being overbooked, solve meeting situation, convince B to go to the meeting. B and L both leave. I should go home.
- Instead boss #2 and I get into a long discussion about the business, where they've been, how it came together, what we think of the previous bookkeeper, how the production crew works, the history of that one guy they fired, how we are quantifying the backlog to solve it (he also thinks it's brilliant), the history of him working with L, etc. Good discussion.
-7 pm I finally walk out the door...
-Walk in the door at home, collapse on the couch, trying to motivate myself to work on the family calendar, finalize my Christmas shopping list, contemplate a Christmas letter, and ultimately do nothing.

I love my job. It is totally nuts, but I love it. But I do have to find a way to get back to working 8-9 hour days instead of 10-12 hour days. Some day soon I'm going to find that balance again, figure out how to work normal hours and still have some steam at the end of the day. Some day...