Most punishing work schedule in the history of man.... (possibly)

Okay, so it might not be *that* bad but it's pretty bad by my standards. Whilst in Seattle (yes I'm still here) I've got used to some pretty late nights and some fairly early mornings for conference calls and trying to span the timezones around the world to support the business as best i can.

At the moment I'm doing a big chunk of training activity for about 300 of our sales staff worldwide. Quite a lot of people you might think... not when you've got about 7,000 of the blighters and only 300 bother to register. I really hate sales people sometimes. Oh well, not my job to worry if they're doing their job I just have to impart knowledge... and impart I have. Over the most gruelling schedule I've yet faced... day begins at 5:30am for training for Europe, Middle East and Africa.. moving onto 9:30am for Latin America and North America, then finishing the day at 6:00pm with the session for Asia Pacific. Now try that, each one lasting 90 minutes, for FOUR DAYS. Then I find out I have to do it again this week... and follow up with support presentations...

bleeurggh.

So that's all a bit rubbish. On top of that they want to send me home before I finished all the really useful stuff.. typical, would bloody well wait until there's something I cant miss out on and then kick me out!!

"Lee's Disastersise!" Keep fit for the masses!

I've been here (Seattle) for bloody ages now, and work is getting harder and harder, days are getting longer. The future is not bright, my brain is orange.

But, I have lost weight! I've learned how stress and worry and panic does actually often lead to weightloss and that does seem to be working.. have lost half a stone in 6 weeks, without doing any kind of mad diet plan, without working out, still just living as usual! So I've thought, for those of us who have killer jobs (nail you before 40 thanks to a heart attack) are we better off actually just amplifying all the stress to lose weight?

So over the next few days (or whenever I can be bothered) I'll be giving all you blog reading wasters (get a life I'm not that interesting!) the step by step programme to achieving unhealthy weightloss by introducing anxiety, stress and despair into your otherwise happy little lives. But remember... happy = fat! Time for misery!


"Lee's Disastersize" (like exercise you see... only with disasters!).
Step 1 :Getting off to a bad start: Your Early Morning Routine
Begin by removing batteries and resetting clocks all over the house to the wrong time. Set mobile phones used as alarm clocks to totally the wrong timezone so that it wakes you up during the night. The important thing here is to ensure that it doesnt actually wake you on time in the morning. Inevitably it should wake you as late as possible. Causing total panic and dissarray when you reliase it's 11:00am and you were supposed to be in office or on conference calls hours ago. After a few days of this, your slacking at work should begin to create a sense of insecurity that they'll fire you any day for being generally rubbish.
If this doesnt work and you're one of these freaks with a body clock that wakes you up without fail there are a number of steps you can go through to make sure that you can really shaft the beginning of your day and begin with stress and building anxiety.

1. Never actually get around to filling the car up with fuel the night before, so that you're caused to be late to work by stopping at petrol stations on the way, or even better, actually run out of fuel on the way to work!

2. Introduce my old nemesis the steam iron into your life every morning. Never hang clothes, throw them into a small ball at the bottom of a wardrobe. Every morning panic because you have nothing crease free to wear. This is especially traumatic for women because they own lots of clothes that are difficult to iron. Chasing creases around for 30 minutes when you're already an hour late is a marvellous way of making sure you get fired quick, or just stay stressed for your whole working week!

3. Breakfast
Always keep in mind the three word breakfast stress mantra Anger, Frustration, Panic. First off always attempt things that result in total frustration. Realising the bread is off when you wanted some toast, or milk for cereal. Always purchase milk carton packages that are impossible to open, giving handy milk spilling opportunities. Secondly, burn the toast, fail to cook things, and generally make a total bollocks of preparing your breakfast, this should cause further delays or at least leave you hungry! Panic is fairly easy.. usually just make sure you set fire to the toast causing every fire alarm in the house to go off, running around flapping towels in front of ear piercing wailling devices is an excellent way to get your nerves on edge first thing!

4. Drink Driving
Not the alcoholic variety (though death does inevitably mean you lose weight). I happen to have a car with no cup holders, buy one as well, and make sure that you are able to call into a starbucks or a coffee shop of some description on the way into work. Better yet one of McDonalds 2,000 degree kelvin beverages! Driving and trying to hold the drink at the same time will make your morning commute almost impossible, especially if you drive a manual transmission car! This should guarantee a low speed collision with somebody caused by you not being able to change gear, and likely will result in a spillage of drink. If it's the McDonalds beverage this also results in a diversion to the critical burns unit of the nearest hospital! Guaranteed instant stress!

So if you've been through these steps, you've possibly arrived to start your day at work hungry, tired, late, covered in coffee or tea, and looking a total mess in creased clothes!

Coming up next: Step 2:- Ruining your work ethic! Make every day a Tuesday!

Whinge time!!

Tuesday again..

I had to spend all day in a meeting which didnt really go anywhere.. I was 15 minutes late for that meeting due to spending 30 minutes trapped in a broken down elevator somewhere between floors 9 and 8 in my hotel. The wifi worked in there so I just caught up on emails for a bit (I rarely panic about those sorts of situations).

I've then had dinner.. arrived back in my hotel to a mountain of work which im going to have to ignore for one more night because I'm just too tired. I need sleep and I have an early start tomorrow.. probably elevator doom awaiting me!

Hello Angels...

Saturday night was the big charity ball oojit in downtown Seattle. Waaaaay up on the 75th floor of the Columbia tower. The tux didnt look too bad in the end, and the hotel was pretty good at organising transportation. Big stretched limo.. very cheesy but somehow works over here. I think it's because there wasnt a mad screaming girl hanging out of a sunroof on Haymarket in London. As it happened i was providing transport for three other girls, all lovely so my ego was pretty huge for the whole evening, until dahhhling DJ pointed out that we'd actually pulled off the whole Charlies Angels thing. Unfortunately that made me Bosley.. I have a feeling that's going to stick.

It's an improvement on "the lemur" which she's been calling me for a while. I've never seen myself as being small cute and with big eyes!

So anyway, aside from the sheer ego boosting moment of three gorgeous women stepping out of a limo, closely followed by me looking smug and terribly dapper in a tux, the evening itself was marvellous. One of our party has won dinner for 6 to be cooked by a top chef in their own home.. I didnt get too drunk and embarras myself. Left with the same women as well, but.. arrived back as usual in my hotel room on my own! Bloody typical.

Maybe I am bosley?!

Anyway, here's some smashing pictures.

Yet another post...

Yep, three posts in one day.. you lucky lucky people.

I felt I had to post this though. I finally escaped the hotel for a bit and wandered over to work using the wireless hotspot over in Starbucks in Bellevue. So, had my quad latte as per, sat down.. and I think the caffeine has started properly accelerating my brain. I started work on a design & architecture document at noon... it's now almost 4pm and it's already 113 pages long *with* diagrams.... cool eh!?

So.. I've decided to see how far I can push it. Before I left starbucks I've purchased ANOTHER quad latte just to see what happens to me. 8 shots of coffee in 4 hours. Not bad. Dont think it's lethal at that level just a bit stupid. Or mad. Poor girl in starbucks said "I've only had 3 shots and look...." at which point she held out her hand which was shaking more than a small old woman being threatened by a gang of pimply faced youths with piercings. So.. I held out my own hand which unnervingly is totally lacking in any kind of shaking. I had 2 cups of coffee this morning, then the quad at lunch.. I think m'colleagues theory that im actually vibrating constantly at extremely high frequencies may be accurate.

Lets see what the second quad does!

Milton Keynes, Magpies and Suicide

Here's another random musing.
Milton Keynes is the most boring place in the UK, possibly even Europe but I'm not a big fan of Belgium, (but Brussels is a lot nicer than MK!).. Milton Keynes also has the highest suicide rate of any town in the UK, including London.

Milton Keynes is also the place that has the highest concentration of magpies.. they're bloody everywhere.

Magpies are famous for being bad luck.. all these mad people singing odd ryhmes about them and saluting them and what not.

So, maybe there is a link? Maybe they really are bad luck and thats why people keep topping themselves in MK? More likely though it's the sould sucking blandness of the place that gets to you after a while..

I can't get no sleep....

...because I have too much work. Doing quite well now on less than 20 hours sleep for each week. Wondering when it's going to start affecting my health?! Probably not long to go now.

I'm on a general de-tox (with the exception of caffeine, I'm mad not suicidal!)... after scouring the place and speaking to the concierge I've found somewhere that sells Voss water. People who know me really well know that I'm picky, fickle and often rather boring. One of my picky-boring habits is my needless hatred for most drinking water that isnt evian. Until I found Voss anyway. It was served to me on Saturday in a lovely chinese restaurant called PF Changs in Bellevue, presented in an extremely chic glass bottle, it's artesian drinking water all the way from Norway, and is far far better than Evian. Down side is that it's $2 per bottle.. worth it though! So I've bought "many".

Anyway back to the no sleep subject, went off on a tangent there... I have SO much work to do!! M'colleague is no longer m'colleague and more m'friend because he's cleared off back to the misery and drudgery of working for a local group of the company rather than the heady heights and political misery of Corporate. It's getting a bit Bob Cratchit again.

So anyway, the caffeine is doing it's job as best it can and keeping my feeble dross ridden brain propped up long enough to have the occaisional idea, string a sentence together on a conference call and remember to hurl vitriole and spite at romantic couples wherever possible. Trouble is it cant stay on one subject very long.. caffeine is a great stimulant but not very good for focus. I feel like I'm on screensaver... if somebody wouldnt mind jiggling my hand a bit maybe the windows logo will stop bouncing around in front of my eyes for a bit.

Another tangent.. dont small children make the most wonderful sound when they fall over on polished marble shopping centre floors... such a satisfying stinging SLAP. One ricocheted off my knee yesterday afternoon on a brief foray to starbucks. Very pleasing sound.

Who says I have A.D.D?? ..........oh look an eagle!

Noscope

For anybody who spends all day, tired and stressed in front of a laptop or PC, or Mac... have a look at this.

It has to be the most creative and relaxing thing I've found from the web...

Nomadic work ethics and useless business cases...

Still in Seattle, but not complaining. Well I am, but that's more about the conditions under which I'm in Seattle. I'm still in a bloody hotel. I have the room service menu down to a pathetic three items now: eggs with stuff, stuff with eggs, or burger. Oh but at least they serve Amstel light which is a very nice beer.

Anyway, the three ranks of management between me and the main board of directors have finally dropped their objections to me being rellocated. You'd expect knowing my grand plans to relocate to Washington state that at this point I'd be cart wheeling about the place and whooping like a lottery winning jerry springer guest (though I dont think in my life I will ever say "go girl" or use the word Party as a verb... or for that matter pronounce it par-tay), but I have another stage to get through. It costs about $30k to move me and get my US green card and everything sorted. So it has to go to the main board for approval, for spending, plus obviously it means I'll report into the US bit of my employer rather than the UK bit. At least I get a sensible corporate credit card and expense procedure out of the deal.. what I dont get is a fuel card and car allowance! It'll work itself out..

So I have this HUGE business case to write now for relocation and justification.. I've investigated all the financial aspects down to the last dot, so when the flag goes up that I can relocate, there's apartments to choose from, I know (between 2) which cars I want, what the lease term is and I know how much it will cost and how long it will take to box things up and move them here.. so, this is it. The final move thingy. Blimey. Nerves and everything playing havoc now, but fingers crossed this blog will become a tirade of complaints about immigration processes, international moves and costs of selling and moving things. I have a feeling that if I move I'm going to become very familiar with eBay!

Anyway, this Saturday is set to be very promising, I have a big charity ball to go to.. dead posh, on the observation deck of the Columbia building which is the tallest building downtown.. I've been to get my tuxedo sorted out, cost the earth to hire for just a couple of days, I'll attempt to look dashing.. but I think ultimately things will go pear shaped and I'll just look like some sort of derranged penguin.. still I've lost a lot of weight and things seem to be looking better on me! Also I actually have 'a date' for the evening, okay so it's a semi-work colleague (she works for a different company), who's basically taken pitty on me and was going anyway who's just agreed to hold my arm for a bit, but hey.. a date's a date!

This is the general look im hoping for..













unfortunately due to the general luck I have, pessimism and likely a massive conspiracy of events during Saturday when I have to collect the suit, put it on, successfully make it to the pre-func, organise the limo, get from the pre-func to the actual func.. I will likely end up looking like this...