Juggling

KfW2 started her new job recently and I've been picking up the pieces. Quite literally.

I may have pointed out that I had concerns about KfW2 moving off - her preparation, knowledge sharing and training was non-existent and that turned out to be true.

I was left holding a particular difficult baby who needed lots of care and attention. And as if that wasn't bad enough, KfW2 would pipe up every now and again and "remind" me of yet another task to add to the already-large list.

And it's not like the stuff she had left me was in good condition - it wasn't and I've been trying to fix things all this week.

It's been stressful - I've been literally panicking all week, trying to juggle an ever-increasing list of urgent items.

There was a specific state I wanted to be in by the end of tomorrow, but that's looking unlikely, even with KfW2's help.

Juggling lots of things is something I'm not good at, especially under pressure and that's coupled with trying to learn extremely technical things at the same time.

I'm due some holiday time, but that might have to be shortened to make up for the fact that I'm nearly a week behind where KfW2 told our boss we would be.

I have spoken to my boss, though I wasn't pointing the finger of blame, it was more about trying to manage my stress. Sadly, my boss was more interested in getting the work done.

He doesn't really understand though. Deadline after deadline this year with little time for holidays is taking its toll, just as it did last year. I need this time off, so I am definitely taking a week, though it should be two weeks.

It could all turn out OK - I could get a load of work done tomorrow and can leave work on schedule, but that's not been the case this week.

The last thing I needed this week was stress. I was hoping that KfW2 and I could get 90% of the outstanding work done and this week would be a tidying up and winding down period. But that was before I knew that KfW2 didn't have a complete "to do" list written down, that we were under-estimating the amount of work needed (that was on the list) and that we'd be continually side-tracked by unnecessary distractions.

Sigh.

I love working beside KfW2, but working with her is another matter.