Great picture of the little dog getting her early morning dose of hanging out the car window.
And this. Two weeks ago I asked one of my bosses if I needed to send someone to Ireland to support testing. He gave an emphatic no. Yesterday he changed his mind and since we had not prepped anyone to be gone for two weeks with what was now 3-days notice, the only decent and practical thing was for me to go. Also, my new guys are too new and not yet embedded enough to handle this craziness. So now I am off to Ireland on Saturday for two weeks while also needing to keep my team here moving forward with the 1,000 things we have going on.
So I will also miss Larry and Shannon’s 60th and 50th surprise birthday party. But if I fly Sunday I will only arrive Monday morning and there is just too much going on to miss Monday and going straight to the office after an overnight flight is simply not great.
The travel planning did not go well. Since I have never traveled with Vertiv I had to get set up on the AMEX global travel website. Of course my log-on did not work so out of the gate a call to tech support; 20 minutes. Then I log on. Wade through the flights and hotels and with the severe restrictions my company has on travel find there is no way to get a decent Delta flight where I am a Platinum flyer and can get a decent seat. So I am on United in crap seats. But after taking the 30 minutes to wade through all this, while sitting in a meeting that I need to multi-task on, I find the AMEX technology is not working and it will not allow me to process the payment. It is not seeing my corporate AMEX details. So, back on the line with tech support. But while I am on hold and the lady is trying to figure it out, a process of 20 minutes, I have people standing in front of me that need to talk to me. The tipping point is when one of my bosses says he also needs to see me as soon as I am done on the call. So I bail on the call and lose the itinerary and go see the boss man for 20 minutes. Then I track down the 3 people and get them sorted. Then, since the last two days have been back-to-back-to-back meetings and the rest of the day is the same I decide to skip my lunch workout because I now don’t have enough time to go run and instead decide I need a minute to myself so will go for lunch. But I still need go get my flight booked. So I call AMEX after ordering a hamburger, which turns out to be a bad choice because I need both hands to eat a burger but can’t effectively manage with the phone to my ear. The AMEX call takes a full 40 minutes because the very nice lady is doing her best to get me a decent itinerary with a company that is now so cheap that the flight restrictions are beyond ridiculous. I finally get my flight and hotel booked and eat the cold burger. Simultaneously having made the decision to pull out all stops for a different job. I like my bosses but this equity company that owns us is way too lean and cheap. It is obvious they are just moving towards stability and maximum profitability and will either sell or go public next year or in 2020. When I did this in the late 90’s, Tom Siebel took very good care of his employees. We were all well compensated for the very hard work of going public and managing large scale growth. This company is not sharing the profits and they keep cutting staff so the work is distributed among too few people. So I need to find something else to keep me going for another year or two.
That is the bitch session. I need to stay calm, remain fully present in the moment and enjoy each day.
I was so busy the last 4 or 5 days at work that I just have not even had the time to make the 15 minute call to order the wood for my canoe. So it goes back on the list for tomorrow.
I got home and it was still a bit rainy so I am having a drink and relaxing before dinner. I will take Mandela for a walk after we eat. I got a couple of pork loin chops so will make pork schnitzel for dinner along with leftover sauerkraut from Saturday at mom and dad’s. The little dog is sitting staring out the window. She’s a truly beautiful and loyal companion.
Wednesday early am.
It’s raining outside. Mandela and I just got our walk in before it started coming down. Now coffee and NPR. I love NPR but between news cycles they run human interest stories that sometimes are great but other times just not my cup of tea. This morning they are interviewing John C. Reilly and he is doing is best to wax philosophical about human nature as he describes his new western. I just keep hearing Step Brother or him shouting ‘Shake and Bake‘ over and over.
I rode the BMW to work yesterday and the ride home across the city last night was spectacular. A perfect cool fall evening. Was beautiful.
I will miss that damn little dog while I am away. I always do. Or when she is with Ed-n-Rita; I miss her not being here when I come home. The walks that I now don’t need to take. The rituals of food and treats and walks and scratches behind the ears and snuggling at night in bed. She generates 5x the body heat she should and she sleeps hard up against my legs.
The Martini Tales 