40 hours this week

Regaining some verve

After the 16 hours of work last week, I got up for a new week unsure of how I would pull through my first full week of work in almost a year.

I got given some tasks that were a tad repetitive; repetition is fine for a finite number of systems but for a large number your approach has to change to consider automation.

There is usually no time for something sophisticated but a crude set of algorithms to batch together those tasks and produce a result you can clean up and use is fine.

I did not seem to have lost the knack for doing the absurd to get the sometimes incredible and soon I had completed the activity.

Breaking the week

By the end of Tuesday, I got home and literally crashed out, I got home and just went straight to bed, exhausted, and tired but unable to attain rapid eye movement but another inspired thought crossed my mind.

Just about 8 weeks from 5 months of chemotherapy, it appeared I was pushing my envelope of recuperation, everyone had been saying I should take it easy, apart from friends, the hospital staff had been on my case.

So, I had a chat to the programme manager of the project and was granted the request of having Wednesdays off having consulted with all interested parties – the idea being breaking the week in two meant I had some recovery time giving me some balance.

Albeit, I did complete a 40-hour week, though towards the end, I felt I was wilting but in all, there were incidental insights into certain bottlenecks that saved some situations.

Getting in the flow

And though I am just a technical hand helping others I suddenly found myself working with aspects that were my key area of expertise and then to learn that the environment was built and managed by an ex-colleague whose activities I once oversaw – the world is a very small place and reputations are just priceless.

I also found the social and communicative part of the technical persona coming out in certain discussions, I am usually for full disclosure that allows users to understand how things might affect them; the jury is usually out on that in the heat of the moment but hindsight always prove that the best approach and experience shows I have kept my job for being informative where heads might have rolled.

No worries for form on forms

Whilst I did make it through the week, I also had to register as an employee of my company which was an inscrutable online application process that my highly educated native Dutch-speaking neighbour found extraneous – spare a thought for those of us who have to tackle double Dutch.

That request was granted which allows me to send my timesheets, invoice charging value-added tax, and other documents to my client I did wonder how I would make it to work on Thursday knowing it would all run out on Wednesday but following the advice of “a day at a time” from my good friends, the unemployment benefit part of my entitlements which just covers a month arrived on Wednesday.

Phew!

A long weekend, and without the mobile phone alarm to alarm me in the morning, I was up in time, but realised there was no need to prepare for work, I rolled over and …