March 7 - No Costco

Today I hit my breaking point.

I started working before 8am this morning, trying to crank out a 20 page presentation design in time for a 3pm review that I had not yet touched. To come to my own defense, it’s not really my fault that I hadn’t touched it yet - I’m in a period of work where as soon as I finish one thing, I’m behind on the next.

My boss is a really good remote boss in the sense that she doesn’t care when I work as long as I get my stuff done. So when my friend asked if I wanted to go to Costco at 4, my answer was absolutely. By 4pm I would have already been working for more than 8 hours, and, more important, my work (at least for today) would be done.

I chugged away at the presentation, painstakingly laying out each page and then beginning to design everything section by section. I’m not really a tedious designer - I started my art career with an obsession with oil painting - so work like this can be tricky for me to get excited about. Plus I was working in Keynote for the second time ever, so I was learning all the keyboard shortcuts and design tricks of the app as I went. By noon, I had a slight headache and was just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - Costco.

Around 2:15pm, my computer dinged with an email. Someone had just put a 4:30pm meeting on my calendar.

I stopped what I was doing, took off my blue light glasses (that I don’t really think do anything), and put my head in my hands. After a good five minute cry, I let my friend know that I wouldn’t be joining her at Costco. And then told my project manager that I needed to push a couple things back for my own sanity and therefore hers as well.

The review of the presentation, I will have you all know, went unbelievably well, and instead of Costco I managed to squeeze in a workout in between my review and the 4:30pm meeting. So it wasn’t all a wash. But man, I was really looking forward to a batch of Costco pierogis.