Lemme just describe a typical day to you. This is not to be like “the lists” or anything else that I typically mock, but to show people that I’m not really the bored day-dreamer that comes across online.
My alarm goes off at 5:40 a.m. I know that most people don’t even know what THAT EARLY looks like, but let me tell you, even to a seasoned veteran, it’s pretty damn early. Some days, I’ll “sleep in”; some days, I’ll get up. The latest I’m out of bed is 6:20. I’m out the door by seven, if not earlier.
I’m at work at 7:15, if not earlier.
My morning routine basically involves kissing the ass of Boss, whom I really do like. It’s my job to get him in a good mood for the day. So no matter how crappy I feel, I have to be okay with fetching him a Diet Pepsi (even if the machine isn’t working and I have to see if the cafeteria has any), color-coordinating his calendar to his liking, and making him laugh hystercially.. usually at my own expense.
Now we’re to 7:30. This is when the rush starts. I receive “daily status inputs” from twelve different groups, which I have to coalate and put into one Powerpoint presentation, as aesthetically designated by Boss. I have to make sure all fonts, colors, and templates are identical. Every day.
At eight, I have to start three different meetings, in three different conference rooms, two of which are on different floors. And when I pass Boss’s office, if his phone is ringing, I have to stop what I’m doing and answer it.
At 8:45, I have to set up the first of three management tag ups. And I should mention that, until I’ve done this, I don’t even get to sit at my own desk. So files and programs that I may need that morning are most likely unavailable to me.
At nine, I sit through a management tag-up. I take notes of action-items and then run up to my real home to type them up and distribute them.
At 9:30, when I finally make it “home”, there are usually a group of ten people waiting on me, all needing something. Chances are, they haven’t sent me an email or a voicemail.. so I have to write this all down as they talk.
At 10:30, another management tag-up for me to sit through. I flip charts for this one.. IT’S RIVETING.
At 11:30, I’m finally back “home” for the day. I can finally start on those ten people that were waiting on me.. but look, there’s ten more! And I’ve got ten emails and four voicemails! All needing something!
I’ll spend the next hour or so on hold with: Travel, Accounting, Corporate Cards, or The “Help Desk”. And get nowhere.
We’re now to one p.m. I have two meetings to go start, both on opposite ends and floors of the building. I’m usually stopped in the hall going to or from and given several more tasks that they — AGAIN — haven’t sent to me in any traceable form because they’d “probably forget it”. (But no, me, with my photographic memory, will be FINE.)
At 1:30 p.m., I will have a diet soda. Which, most likely, contains no caffeine because God has a sense of humor.
It’s now two. I can FINALLY start spending time on travel arrangements, expense reports, work tickets, and other things that DEMAND my full attention, and usually for lengths of time. I can work, almost uninterrupted, till three.
At three-fifteen, I’m needed downstairs. The reason varies. Sometimes, it’s to support a meeting. Sometimes, it’s to answer phones. On occasion, it’s for me to pack up some absent employees belongings. But it never fails that I’m needing to become engrossed in something around 3:15.
Right after four (after I set up two different meetings at 4:00 p.m. on-the-dot-and-not-one-second-later-or-the-whole-program-will-come-tumbling-down-in-a-hurl-of-fire-and-tears), I can return to my desk and try and figure out what the hell I was doing before I was called away.
Around 4:30, every day, regardless of anything else, it is reliably “SHIT WILL HIT THE FAN” time. Some emergency will come up, I’ll have to book some international travel leaving THAT NIGHT, and I’ll spend another hour on hold with some lovely muzak, trying in vain to compile the list of the needs from the first ten people who needed something.
Around five-thirty, I realize that I’ve hit an eleven hour day. And my boss will tell me to go home before I accrue any more overtime. I leave, but my brain is still on. I honestly have taken to the habit of laying on my back deck, back on bare wood, for thirty minutes to unwind.
Then I cook dinner. Then we eat dinner. Then I do dishes. I may be off to rehearsal, Book Club, or maybe just a girls’ night out. I usually get to bed around ten. Then the whole day begins.
Just so we’re all clear, I support 15 managers on a daily basis, and all of their staff below them. I am the only administrator on my floor, so I tend to “absorb” everything on that floor, even if they’re not in my org. I’m in charge of supplies for my entire organization, travel for all of my “group”, and upkeep and maintenance of all of the electronics, desktops, seating, and technology in my building.
So if I let something slip my mind like, say, I don’t know, something I was supposed to do for someone else THAT NO ONE HAD REMINDED ME ABOUT IN THREE WEEKS, you might want to understand that I’m a bit occupied.
I am sorry. I am also busy, stressed, and a bit pained.
