Hang On Lucy

During my evening prayers I thanked God for giving me such a stress free, relaxing day. Simple days of prayer, worship, bible time, family (wife and mom) time, naps, and walks are few and far between but yesterday came at just the right time. Outside of going to church, there was no schedule to adhere to. I ate when I pleased, slept when I wanted and actually spent little time on the PC. It was very relaxing.

I knew I needed the stress free day because I had plans to talk to my boss (and his) on Monday (today). My role is beginning to wear on me since I cannot go far from my home area and my wife would really like to be able to take day trips with the dogs once in a while. I also wanted to make sure that there is coverage when I took vacations, which right now that coverage is non-existent. The work may not be hard but it is time consuming and rather silly at times.

I talked with my boss and he has committed to finding a way to have someone fill in once in a while so I can have some off time. During the same conversation I found out that he is dealing with some rather serious issues with his adult kids. I do not envy him.

I also chatted with a few other people that came back from time off last week (Sec Mgr, the Inc Mgr, and my old TL) and got caught up. Everyone has a lot to do and we all feel the stress. To quote Drowning Pool, "Somethings gotta give".

Just as I was settling in to create this blog entry, I get a call from my dotted line boss in Europe and he hands me a VIP issue that has gone beyond the time allowed for an issue of this type. The customer wants it escalated and since it is for my region (North/South America) I get to run with it. I really hate these "VIP issues" because they normally are not that severe and there are processes set up to handle them but because no one follows them, the whole issue gets muddied up. So here I am trying to track down people to look into a mailbox issue for a "VIP" who transferred from Europe to South America. From what I can tell the issue is based on replication so we will not know anything until much later...but that most likely will not be good enough the "squeaky wheels" in the organization.

I have never understood the value of escalating something when the actions are being worked on by the correct team. Maybe I am not being open minded enough...who knows.