Warning: venting about work WAY too much.

Bonus points if you can find the movie reference in today's post.

I have had exactly zero time lately. My day is like this:
-Hit Snooze.
-Hit Snooze.
-Hit Snooze.
-Hit Snooze.
-Get dressed for work and make it there by 8:30. My company's hours are 8-5, but since I rarely take a lunch, stay late, and I work my arse off, they don't really mind. I'll miss this if I have to go somewhere else, I admit.
-Answer about 50 emails.
-Work until my eyes are starting to burn into the computer.
-Take a 5 minute lunch: vending machine food, something I threw in my bag, or a sandwich from downstairs. Or nothing. All consumed at my desk.
-Check my personal email on my phone. Forward it to my work email if I need to respond.
-Talk to whatever people are screaming at my team that day. I don't take it personally, but I've noticed that the field only calls me when something's REALLY wrong. And then they all let me know.
-Meetings/conference calls.
-Read and possibly answer 50-100 more emails.
-Work again until I look like a "before" picture in a Visine ad.
-Sometime between 5:30 and 7, leave the building.
-Drive home, let the dog out, and change clothes.
-Go running (on the treadmill, since it's too hot)
-Come home, check my personal email, facebook, shower and eat whatever heats up in 90 seconds or less.
-Get in bed. Watch an episode of "How I Met Your Mother"
-Sleep.

Yeah, so that's why 20 minutes to write a blog entry is tough to come by. I can't even go grocery shopping unless its a "rest" day on my running plan. All I can hope for is that SOMEthing gives soon. I had a meeting with my boss on Monday because NO ONE could handle the workload we have right now, and I needed her to just cut me a little slack on some things that she was going to be expecting of me in the future. She agreed, and she asked me about the status of the biggest project I'm on. This is one where I've had to be the bad guy to property managers in 6 states, and I'm getting literally 250 emails a day with URGENT problems that I need to solve NOW. I told my boss the status, and she said she sensed I was stressed and wanted me to be very frank with her, and not to hide how I'm feeling.

CUE MOLLY CRYING. I rarely cry at work. This was an all out UGLY cry. I said I was physically exhausted, I've had one day off in 9 months where I'm not either deathly ill or working from home, and that the expectations are too high - me and one other person are doing what used to be the work of five people, and we have almost double the volume that those five people had. My boss was supportive and said that I was doing a great job and better than any other person they had brought in for my work, and that I needed to go home and get some rest. I did, four hours later after my meeting, and I did feel a bit better just having gotten it out. But I HATE crying at work. I don't, as a rule, do it. It's not professional. But I'm just glad it happened in a conference room, not in front of people. To top it all off, though, I had an outright panic attack on Wednesday because I realized that I couldn't find an email. Yep, it's the little things that push you over the edge! Some days, I'm about thisclose to taking Erin and/or Carrie up on the idea of being a nanny for their kids. While I realize that caring for kids has its own set of stresses and lack of time issues, hey, at least at the end of the day, even if they were sick and crying all day, they go back to their parents. And I think it'd be highly unlikely in that sort of job for Charlotte, Ella or Emma to call me and scream that they have an "EMERGENCY" because, horror of all horrors, the lawn didn't get cut today at a bank branch. I swear, I am convinced that spreadsheets and data analysis workflows were solely created by drug companies trying to push the high-blood pressure and anti-anxiety meds that are necessitated by working with Excel. Anyway, yeah, it's been a rough couple of weeks at work. I'm going to a DG sister's bridal shower tomorrow in Athens, and I'm very excited to see people where I can talk about something OTHER than facilities management.

I promise, more happy posts next time, just had to vent a bit. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lunch meeting in 20 minutes with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons.