Slow Down and Recharge

Continuing down this recent trend of positive posts...

The last couple of weeks have been spent getting beat up.

I know, I know. I'm just following the usual trend of describing getting knocked down before climbing back up. Someday, maybe I'll just stay on my feet from the start. Probably better for me but certainly a lot less interesting in terms of things to talk about.

Anyway, yeah. The past couple of weeks at work have been demanding, largely because we're babysitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 packages that were supposed to be delivered to Fort Mac before that town burned down. And that number has plummeted as people have shown up to collect their stuff. That collection has meant a lot more work, as has maintaining scans on all of that crap in a system not designed for situations like this at all. And this is before we factor in picking and packing things up once Fort Mac opens for business again and wants all of this, to say nothing of the masses of added material that will be heading their way.

It has been a busy couple of weeks regardless. And for more than a few of those days, I've pretty much taken on 90% of the warehouse stuff solo (...it wasn't suppose to be solo, but let's just leave that off of easily accessible social media type stuff...look, I'm growing!) while others take care of the rest. My usual average of 150 scans a day (every package or document we put anywhere gets scanned) has tripled. This is on top of the usual 'push containers around and shove them down the length of an airplane' type stuff. Frankly, I'm a little beat up (though I have remained a good boy in terms of not trying to solo giant crates that I cannot put down without injuring myself. It's rather depressing that this represents actual progress on my part).

Add to that some previously hinted at...let's be diplomatic (I know, right?) and call them 'personnel issues' involving specific persons, and work has been rather trying. Now toss in the imminent hours cut. Now toss in my freelance site of choice (Upwork, the biggest one online) screwing everyone using their service. And finally, let's spray a dollop of family drama over the top of the whole thing. Now I'm feeling beat up across the spectrum.

And today was supposed to be a big 'town hall' meeting with a bunch of higher up executive types telling us how awesome things are. The same higher up executive types who decided to cut our hours starting next week. Yeah, that sounds like a fun meeting.

So I said fuck it.

I took a sick day. This was the first time that I've taken a sick day in over two years. The last time I took one, I actually had to take three because I had a highly contagious viral infection in my left eye and was basically quarantined at home for awhile (winter tip : when you're sneezing/blowing your nose, close your eyes. Otherwise you're getting stuff in your eyes, and you might end up with the viral equivalent of pinkeye. Trust me). But I finally decided to be honest with myself. I was tired. I was frazzled. I was exhibiting classic 'Cliff is not doing well' behavior by making massive leaps in terms of trying to do way too damn much myself. And the last thing I needed was to sit through some 'rah rah' bullshit from the very corporate level of people who just axed my hours while asking me to do more.

So, sick I was. First thing that I did after my normal morning routine : nuked my Upwork account. All that it was giving me at this point were bad reminders of just how badly the wheels had fallen off that entire enterprise. And even if they did decide to change back to the way things had been set up prior to last week, would I really be able to trust a site run by the sort of idiots who thought those changes made sense? No. So it's gone. I have hard copies of all of my work that I can use as samples for new clients elsewhere, so good riddance to the account. Incidentally, anyone have any good ideas of the best way to set up a site somewhere purely designed as a content showcase? I'm not sure which setup makes the most sense for that.

Then I signed up for a new one called Fiverr. Horrible name aside (it really does have 2 r's at the end. No, I don't know why), it's pretty neat. You set up ads for what you'll do, create a series of different levels of job packages you're offering, and toss it out there. Plus, you can search through jobs being offered to the general user base. In fact, I already scored one of those. It isn't big money, but I'm getting paid to review some dude's RPG system rules and mess around with them for a bit. Seriously, I'm GETTING PAID to do that? Fuck yeah! Besides, it's just a start point. And I feel like I'm starting fresh, away from the metric tons of baggage that had become associated with my Upwork account. Now I can get back to stretching out creatively and not being shoe-horned in to just being 'website content guy'. And it was fun to get back to doing a chat interview with someone and scoring a job while working on the 4th beer of the afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago, I did some board gaming with a couple of guys who I've met through various game transactions over the years, and we had a blast. It sounds like the follow-up night will be this Saturday. Assuming that doesn't somehow end up in tragedy, chalk one up for getting out of my social comfort zone a bit. And seeing as this endeavor was successful, what else might end up the same way? Perhaps it's time to find the fuck out.

Beyond that stuff, I just relaxed, watched some Netflix and read a book. I've always seen that cliche about 'recharging the batteries' as a bit of a hackneyed load of crap. But I was wrong, because I feel a lot more energetic right now than I have at any time in a while. I'm feeling all kinds of creative (Perhaps it's time to revisit a certain collaborative story and see if I can come up with some new ideas). Were I the subject of a cheezy rock song, I would probably be described as having 'fire in my eyes' because I'm jacked up right now. So sure, I have to go to work tomorrow. And next week. And keep looking for more jobs. And deal with everything else coming my way. Fine with me. Bring it.