Thursday, March 15, 2007
Your "Inner Truck Drivers"
Ever feel like you’re actually living two different lives? Or, said differently, have you ever felt like you’re NOT living a life that, perhaps, you should be living? I’m not talking about having different personalities or moral positions, rather, multiple purposes and aspirations. I get this sensation all the time. I often feel like I’m competing with myself for how I spent my own time. Sometimes I think my mind is a truck’s cab with two drivers, both taking turns steering the cargo of my thoughts in their own desired directions. While they don’t argue, each driver takes a different course when it’s his turn. They don’t seem to agree about how to get to where I’m going.
Each moment can trigger a change of the drivers. When I’m about to do or say something, interact with someone, or make a decision, the drivers contemplate switching seats and a course correction. One of these drivers seems to have much more time at the wheel than the other and the result is predictable. One driver gets frustrated with inactivity while the other becomes tired and burnt out.
I’ve given names to my drivers. For simplicity sake, “Ty”, is the husband, father, son and friend. When Ty is driving I get up, go to my regular 8 to 10-hour job, answer to a boss, request time off, get a paycheck, and come home. This is the guy with the gorgeous wife and 2.9 kids, a hefty mortgage to pay, yard work to do, a list of honey-do’s awaitin’, and hang out buddies to spend time with. This part of me worries about how much is spent, how well I’m providing, and how to out-do my last romantic gesture for my bride. When I’m living the life of Ty, I go to church, rough-house with my kids, watch TV shows & movies, and eat too much of my wife’s fantastic cooking. I’m a family guy…no different than any other.
When Ty, isn’t driving, “Tyed Art” is. This trucker is the very embodiment of the phrase, “Me, Incorporated.” Depending on the day, I’ve could also refer to this driver as the entrepreneur, LittleLDS, business, or ambitious driver. This driver is tenacious. Tyed Art only drives when it’s convenient to do so. He only drives during Ty’s down-time, or when special scheduling arrangements have been made. It’s during the hours of this driver’s navigation that I find my time slipping away effortlessly. It’s during this time that I feel empowered by doing something I know I’m good at. While Tyed Art drives, I only spend Tyed Art money. I act like the person I wish I was. I’m bolder, riskier, and certainly more sophisticated. When Tyed Art drives, my moods don’t fluctuate as much either. If given the chance, this driver would ALWAYS have me in my home office working on my projects. I get consumed by it.
This perspective is a little weird, I know.
But don’t we all have a life that we’re NOT living? A life that we always either talk about living, or just dream about living? Although I’d felt this way many times, I’d never really analyzed it until I heard someone else express it in words. Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, puts it this way in another book entitled The War of Art:
“Most of us have two lives; the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance. …Late at night, have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn’t write? A painter who doesn’t paint? An entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what resistance is.”
Unless you have a strong tolerance for harsh language, I don’t recommend you actually read that book though. It’s unfortunate because the net result from the book is VERY positive. Anyway…
Although I inherently know where each time-consuming activity belongs on the totem pole of priorities, I’m still hounded by the desire to fulfill my cravings for success, recognition, and accomplishment. Reconciling the two routes is an ongoing challenge. I think the key is to develop a gradual and harmonious merge of the two. Just like two different drivers, I think they can co-exist, but they can never simultaneously drive. I think those who are doing what they LOVE (for a living) are blessed to have inner truck-drivers who are in agreement about where their cargo is headed and how to get there. No matter who’s driving, they’re still heading in the same direction. That balance is my goal.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Moving right along...
As usual, inspiration has been hitting and missing me the last few days. I’ve been working recently on a project with Building the Kingdom that has offered me a lot of creative license. After seeing my LittleLDS website and artistic style, they have invited me to work with them on creating a Farside-like comic, based on LDS humor and culture, which will be positioned on their website’s home page starting next month. The project has a lot to offer us both. There’s a bit of a vacuum in the LDS comic market, so it’s hoped that the comedic images will generate talk and traffic for their site, which will automatically produce the same for mine. My comics will be ever-present on their home page, which will mean free and constant advertising for LittleLDS products. Because they want a new comic once per month, I’ll have little pressure to produce them quickly…that’s good. It really is a win/win idea. At the end of one year, they’re proposing to produce and sell a 2008 calendar using the comics that will be titled, “The Latter-Day Side.” The title was my idea. I’m very excited about the project and have already started working on the first image.
I’ve also been working a lot on my LittleLDS Product Party idea. No, I haven’t forgotten about it. Not by a long shot. It’s actually coming along nicely. I’ve finished most of the written concept, and am now starting to revise, refine and tweak the overall model. There are still a few gaps to fill in there and there yet. When it’s available, the Party Kit will include an introduction to the product and party model, hosting instructions, activity ideas, dessert recipe suggestions, party invitation templates, and other useful party tips. I’ve already got a few volunteer hostesses lined up to launch the first parties when I’m ready.
LittleLDS CD#4 is relatively slow-going, though certainly not standing still. I’m moving at a crawl, but each new day brings progress. “Be the torus, not the hare”, I keep reminding myself. My programmer is nearing this semester’s end, and is looking forward to working with me at an accelerated rate to get it done. We’ve also planned to begin production of a new program that will enable me to generate my own LittleLDS titles independently of any programming individual. This will not only allow me to move at a quicker pace, but it will also provide me with some autonomy as a designer, as well as an ability to expand my scope to a more generalized children’s’ market. LittleLDS is a great launching pad for this new digital coloring book medium, but I’m finding that it’s a bit too limited as an overall market. Although I will continue to develop it, LittleLDS will eventually be a smaller parallel vector in the same direction as my next big project. After I have this new program fully functional, I’ll be able to begin working on my “Never-ending Coloring Books” brand. The same illustration style and great teaching focus, but no more exclusively LDS-specific titles. Never-ending Coloring Books (whose name is still subject to change) will be generalized for all kids. A much broader market will hopefully translate into a much faster-growing company and product.
I've learned:
That we almost always get out what we put in
I'm glad:
That I usually feel empowered by my challenges
I wish:
I my programmer was finished with school already
I will:
Never feel comfortable sitting around while there are things to be done…I am my father’s son.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Expensive Real Estate
I recently renewed my membership with a great online community of LDS business owners which, hopefully, will help me with the promotion of LittleLDS. I’m excited about it. The site is www.BuildingTheKingdom.com and they have generated quite a bit of traffic this year. They’ve revamped their site, and have expanded their staffing, marketing and focus. I’ve actually been a member for a while, but only recently started using this virtual venue as a place to advertise. That’s actually what I’m targeting with this blog today; the price of banner advertising.
The web is literally made up of many millions of sites all interconnected and making money on each other through “per-click” technology. This means that they link to each other with banners and profit not only through the business they are advertising on the websites themselves, but also (and at times, more importantly) just by the traffic that runs to and through their websites. It’s a fascinating world, the internet.
It works because the nerds who used to get made fun of in school have now taken over the world by turning us all into computer-dependent cyber junkies. It’s pay-back time. Just look at us “bloggers.” We’re a whole sub-culture of ordinary people who act like we’re all columnists for some New York newspaper. Some of us just write for fun, or to stay connected to friends and family, while others have made an actual career of it…either way we all do it to get readers. Then there are the “pic” sharers. The internet is bursting at the seams with photos and other images. Some of us don’t stop with online photo albums, but advance to online scrapbooking, and full-scale website portfolios. Regardless, we’re making the world smaller with the ubiquitous internet (hasn’t its clout earned it the respect of being capitalized by now?).
At the heart of this mass-transit medium, there is another thing that I find fascinating. Advertising. In order to catch the eye of the cash-wielding consumer, nerds have employed artists to create “banners”. Aptly named, these are virtual billboards that wave at us (sometime literally…i.e., animated “GIF” banners) from the corners and margins of the sites that we visit. Ironically, many of the banners that have been specifically designed to attract our attention have caused us to conversely “evolve” into ad-ignoring internet browsers. This evolution has, of course, spawned the annoying, breed of advertising known as “pop-ups”. To by-pass our keenly developed tendency to ignore the lure of the sales pitch, “pop-ups” were invented to interrupt us in the middle of whatever we’re doing, with total disregard, just incase we intended to NOT click on that “suggestive” banner on the website. Exit, the polite style of advertising… Enter, the “in-your-face,” “See-it-whether-you-want-to-or-not” style of advertising. And with that, out came the inevitable weapons of mass obstruction. Software specially designed to impede the intrusion of “pop-ups.” Suddenly we’ve all become total experts at AVOIDING the very stuff that we, as business owners, are working so hard to put in front of each other. Is this getting complicated, or what? What a paradox.
Well, not to be left out, I’m putting in my two cents. I want a piece of to chaos. While learning about the dos and donts of web-based advertising, I’ve noticed something about this virtual world that seems down-right counter intuitive to me. Stay with me, this is going to get a little technical…
In the real and tangible world, we’ll say, Las Vegas (a relatively hot topic-of-a-town), physical real estate is pretty expensive. Of course, it varies from day to day, and even throughout different locations in the city, but generally speaking, it’s still costly. As I write this, the average cost for a piece of residential real estate, will run you about $372,046. Let’s just assume for simplicity sake that this amount will afford you an average sized 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2,000 sq. ft. house. If you do the math (I’ll do it for you), that equates to about $186 per square foot of physical real estate. Now keep in mind that this number is for a tangible thing….an intrinsically-valued commodity.
Okay, now wrap your brain around this….
The space that I’ll be populating with my homemade LittleLDS banner on the Building the Kingdom website is only 150 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. For those of you who are NOT nerds or artists, like me, I’ll put it into lay man’s terms. 150x100 pixels, at 300 dpi (Dots Per Inch), is only 1.625 inches by 1.0625 inches. That’s right…this virtual real estate that I’m RENTING (nope, can’t even BUY it) is barely larger than a POSTAGE STAMP! And we complain about those at only $0.39 (so far)! Now, for me, a renewing member of the community, the banner came free with my membership renewal. However, let’s just play devils advocate here. What if they hadn’t given it to me as a special promotion? Wanna take a guess at how much this tiny piece of virtual real estate costs? Go ahead…guess. $25? No. Not even close. $50? Nope, try again. $100? Keep going … It costs $130 to NOT OWN this intangible space in a virtual world. Even crazier than that, is the fact that my banner will be among many others of the same size which will take turns in a per-click rotation. That means that about every 5th person who logs on to their website will actually see my banner. Nuts, isn’t it? In the real world, that would be like buying a house, but having it disappear after you drive away from it….only to discover that it only reappears every 5th time that you look for it. Wait, it gets better. Let me put it into even greater perspective. Let’s compare apples to apples.
If I take that same 1.625” x 1.0625” of virtual space and convert it to area (length x width), I would get about 1.73 square inches. In order to compare apples to apples, I need to convert that number to square FEET. So, 1.73” divided by 12” (the number of inches in one foot) equals about 0.144 square feet. Still with me? That means that the cost of this piece of virtual real estate, costs $130 for less that 15% of one square foot! That’s roughly $903 per square foot!!! If I built the same 2,000 sq. ft., 3-bed, 2-bath house on land in the virtual real estate world of the internet, it would cost me over $1.8 million dollars!!!! And the rule of “location, location, location” still applies. Depending on the website and its traffic flow, $130 for a banner can actually a good deal where web advertising is concerned! Dang! Isn’t business GREAT??
So, get a good look at it folks… the infamous LittleLDS banner!
The web is literally made up of many millions of sites all interconnected and making money on each other through “per-click” technology. This means that they link to each other with banners and profit not only through the business they are advertising on the websites themselves, but also (and at times, more importantly) just by the traffic that runs to and through their websites. It’s a fascinating world, the internet.
It works because the nerds who used to get made fun of in school have now taken over the world by turning us all into computer-dependent cyber junkies. It’s pay-back time. Just look at us “bloggers.” We’re a whole sub-culture of ordinary people who act like we’re all columnists for some New York newspaper. Some of us just write for fun, or to stay connected to friends and family, while others have made an actual career of it…either way we all do it to get readers. Then there are the “pic” sharers. The internet is bursting at the seams with photos and other images. Some of us don’t stop with online photo albums, but advance to online scrapbooking, and full-scale website portfolios. Regardless, we’re making the world smaller with the ubiquitous internet (hasn’t its clout earned it the respect of being capitalized by now?).
At the heart of this mass-transit medium, there is another thing that I find fascinating. Advertising. In order to catch the eye of the cash-wielding consumer, nerds have employed artists to create “banners”. Aptly named, these are virtual billboards that wave at us (sometime literally…i.e., animated “GIF” banners) from the corners and margins of the sites that we visit. Ironically, many of the banners that have been specifically designed to attract our attention have caused us to conversely “evolve” into ad-ignoring internet browsers. This evolution has, of course, spawned the annoying, breed of advertising known as “pop-ups”. To by-pass our keenly developed tendency to ignore the lure of the sales pitch, “pop-ups” were invented to interrupt us in the middle of whatever we’re doing, with total disregard, just incase we intended to NOT click on that “suggestive” banner on the website. Exit, the polite style of advertising… Enter, the “in-your-face,” “See-it-whether-you-want-to-or-not” style of advertising. And with that, out came the inevitable weapons of mass obstruction. Software specially designed to impede the intrusion of “pop-ups.” Suddenly we’ve all become total experts at AVOIDING the very stuff that we, as business owners, are working so hard to put in front of each other. Is this getting complicated, or what? What a paradox.
Well, not to be left out, I’m putting in my two cents. I want a piece of to chaos. While learning about the dos and donts of web-based advertising, I’ve noticed something about this virtual world that seems down-right counter intuitive to me. Stay with me, this is going to get a little technical…
In the real and tangible world, we’ll say, Las Vegas (a relatively hot topic-of-a-town), physical real estate is pretty expensive. Of course, it varies from day to day, and even throughout different locations in the city, but generally speaking, it’s still costly. As I write this, the average cost for a piece of residential real estate, will run you about $372,046. Let’s just assume for simplicity sake that this amount will afford you an average sized 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2,000 sq. ft. house. If you do the math (I’ll do it for you), that equates to about $186 per square foot of physical real estate. Now keep in mind that this number is for a tangible thing….an intrinsically-valued commodity.
Okay, now wrap your brain around this….
The space that I’ll be populating with my homemade LittleLDS banner on the Building the Kingdom website is only 150 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. For those of you who are NOT nerds or artists, like me, I’ll put it into lay man’s terms. 150x100 pixels, at 300 dpi (Dots Per Inch), is only 1.625 inches by 1.0625 inches. That’s right…this virtual real estate that I’m RENTING (nope, can’t even BUY it) is barely larger than a POSTAGE STAMP! And we complain about those at only $0.39 (so far)! Now, for me, a renewing member of the community, the banner came free with my membership renewal. However, let’s just play devils advocate here. What if they hadn’t given it to me as a special promotion? Wanna take a guess at how much this tiny piece of virtual real estate costs? Go ahead…guess. $25? No. Not even close. $50? Nope, try again. $100? Keep going … It costs $130 to NOT OWN this intangible space in a virtual world. Even crazier than that, is the fact that my banner will be among many others of the same size which will take turns in a per-click rotation. That means that about every 5th person who logs on to their website will actually see my banner. Nuts, isn’t it? In the real world, that would be like buying a house, but having it disappear after you drive away from it….only to discover that it only reappears every 5th time that you look for it. Wait, it gets better. Let me put it into even greater perspective. Let’s compare apples to apples.
If I take that same 1.625” x 1.0625” of virtual space and convert it to area (length x width), I would get about 1.73 square inches. In order to compare apples to apples, I need to convert that number to square FEET. So, 1.73” divided by 12” (the number of inches in one foot) equals about 0.144 square feet. Still with me? That means that the cost of this piece of virtual real estate, costs $130 for less that 15% of one square foot! That’s roughly $903 per square foot!!! If I built the same 2,000 sq. ft., 3-bed, 2-bath house on land in the virtual real estate world of the internet, it would cost me over $1.8 million dollars!!!! And the rule of “location, location, location” still applies. Depending on the website and its traffic flow, $130 for a banner can actually a good deal where web advertising is concerned! Dang! Isn’t business GREAT??
So, get a good look at it folks… the infamous LittleLDS banner!
(actual size)
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
ZZZZZZzzzzz.....huh? HUH?? AHHHH!!!
Reason #1,979 to not work for someone else;
The “Late Headless Chicken” Mode
I don’t care how “responsible” you are, everyone has one of these mornings at some point. It starts out unlike most, and usually spirals uncontrollably into a “bad day”. When it happens, nothing short of a miracle will get the day back on track. This was my morning….
“OH CRAP!!”
From a deep sleep, and with a sudden jolt of realization, I sprang out of bed, probably looking like a jack-in-the-box popping out of its cube. I bolted over to my cell phone on the dresser hoping to dispel my dreaded suspicion. Having been let down many times by plug-in alarm clocks which had been silently rendered useless in the middle of the night by power outages, I came to the realization long ago that I can only depend on battery powered electronics to wake me... even then, it’s a challenge.
Because I’m already not a morning person (a handicap that I’m certain is delaying my entrepreneurial success a few productive early hours at a time) just reading the time on the cell phone’s tiny back-lit screen was hard enough, let alone trying to process the meaning of the numbers. I’ve done this enough times, however, to know that if it doesn’t say 6:00 am, something’s definitely wrong. Sure enough, it said 6:28am!
“DANG IT!!”
“Okay…I’ve got exactly 2 minutes to get out of the house before I’m late! GO!” Yeah right. As I bolted into the bathroom, a torrent of thoughts flooded my mind… “Why didn’t my alarm go off? Maybe it did… Did I snooze it? Wouldn’t be the first time… What should I wear that’ll look good? No time… What’s clean? Who cares… Shirt. Pants. Wait…..if you can’t shower today (…ugh…) you’ve GOT to, at least, for the love of all that’s sanitary, change your underwear! Okay, socks… Shoes. Belt. What am I going to do with my hair? Dang it…it’s too long! I need a hair cut! If it were shorter I could do it seconds… This is going to take no less than 5 minutes! Precious minutes… No time to stylize… Must settle….Just get rid of the bed-head…” I stuck my head in the sink, soaked, and then dried it. I moosed up the fro and then tried to tame the mop to look, well…at least like I didn’t forget it. Ugh….
Just then I heard a sound I had hoped to avoid on this, of all mornings… My 2-year old was awake and knocking on the bedroom door…crying.
“AAAHH, GREAT!!”
On any other day, while still on schedule, this would only be moderately annoying. Second only to being on time for work, my number one goal every morning is to get up, ready and out of the house before the girls wake up. When they’re up, they always slow me WAY down because they’re so loud and needy first thing in the morning. They always either need to be changed, fed, hugged or entertained somehow. If you don’t do this, things get ugly real fast. Normally, I try very hard to address their immediate needs in order to give Kim an extra few minutes of much needed pregnant-mother sleep. Unfortunately for all of us, today I was in “late headless chicken” mode. I quietly trotted over to the door and poked my head out and attempted to “reason” with her. Nothin’ doin’. Not sure what I expected there. After a few minutes the seconds on my watch started to speed up and synchronize with my adrenaline-filled pulse! "There’s no time for this!" I shooshed her, closed the door, and bolted back to the bathroom. By the time I’d finished the pointless job of de-bed-heading my hair, Kim had already gotten up, changed the diaper, and diffused the ticking time bomb that was my daughter by inviting her into our warm comfy bed for a snuggle. All of this while still mostly asleep. Amazing. Another quick glance down at my watch…
“OH SNAP!!”
"It’s 6:53 am! Aaahhh!!! I’ve got to be AT work in 7 minutes!!" I got nearly to the bottom of the stairs when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I bounced off an invisible rubber wall and raced back up the stairs. "Got it! Must…get out!" Suddenly I felt like I was in an episode of 24 trying get out of a house which had been compromised by a timed explosive that could go off at any second. Not a second to spare, I flew down the hallway to my office and grabbed my work bag, threw on my jacket and tore back down the hall towards the kitchen. “Shoot, my work ID badge!” Back to the office, and back to the kitchen to rummage through leftovers in the fridge for lunch! 6:55 am…tick tock, tick tock…. “Where are my keys?? In the office? No. Upstairs? Oh, please, for the love of Pete, not upstairs again!” Hoping, I swung around the kitchen and spotted them on the counter. “Whew! No time for relief…”
“GO! GO! GO!”
Lugging my work bag and some Tupperware, I made it out to the porch, locked the front door and headed for my car. I looked at my watch again… Okay, even The Flash, himself, couldn’t make it to work on time at this point. Reality started to set in. "Hhhhh….I’m late. Really late." I got in the car, rolled down the driveway and pulled out my cell phone. As I searched through my list of contacts for my boss’s number, I tried to hurry and think up some cleaver excuse as to why I would be so late. How do you tell your boss that you're late because you snoozed through your alarm? It was just seconds before 7:00am. Luckily for my pride, at least, I got my boss’s voice mail instead of him. “Hey, just wanted to let you know that I’m running behind this morning and will be a little late. I’m on my way now and should be there in just a few minutes….” Click. HHhhhh..... The rest of the drive was just damage control. I was already late. From this point on, it would just be a matter of HOW late. “Mitigate the time loss….don’t be stupid, but punch it!” Foolishly, I weaved in and out of lanes, screeched off the line when the lights turned green and sped up at all the yellow lights. I’m sure somewhere, my old Driver’s Ed teacher was in hives.
By the time I finally got to work, I had set a new record for myself. I was at my desk by 7:19am. Nervous, I looked over all the cubicles at my boss’s office door and saw that it was closed. Wait, HE'S not even here yet?? I skipped a shower, ignored my needy daughter, broke just about every traffic law possible and arrived sweaty, panting and ready to humbly apologize only to discover that my BOSS wasn’t even in yet?!?! As I clouded up, a question surfaced in my mind. "If my boss wasn’t here to witness me being late…was I late? I mean, technically, yes, but it’s not like we clock in around here... As far as he’s concerned I arrived before him just like every other day. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a model employee…. As far as he knows…." Then it hit me. Insult suddenly joined the injury… There was a message on his voicemail from me TELLING him that I’m going to be late.
HHHhhhhhhhh……. I’m retarded. And still late.
I've learned:
A boss will always be more concerned about your tardiness than he’ll ever be about his own.
I'm glad:
I've got a boss that's understanding
I wish:
I were more of a morning person
I will:
have to go to bed abnormally early if I'm ever going to become one
The “Late Headless Chicken” Mode
I don’t care how “responsible” you are, everyone has one of these mornings at some point. It starts out unlike most, and usually spirals uncontrollably into a “bad day”. When it happens, nothing short of a miracle will get the day back on track. This was my morning….
“OH CRAP!!”
From a deep sleep, and with a sudden jolt of realization, I sprang out of bed, probably looking like a jack-in-the-box popping out of its cube. I bolted over to my cell phone on the dresser hoping to dispel my dreaded suspicion. Having been let down many times by plug-in alarm clocks which had been silently rendered useless in the middle of the night by power outages, I came to the realization long ago that I can only depend on battery powered electronics to wake me... even then, it’s a challenge.
Because I’m already not a morning person (a handicap that I’m certain is delaying my entrepreneurial success a few productive early hours at a time) just reading the time on the cell phone’s tiny back-lit screen was hard enough, let alone trying to process the meaning of the numbers. I’ve done this enough times, however, to know that if it doesn’t say 6:00 am, something’s definitely wrong. Sure enough, it said 6:28am!
“DANG IT!!”
“Okay…I’ve got exactly 2 minutes to get out of the house before I’m late! GO!” Yeah right. As I bolted into the bathroom, a torrent of thoughts flooded my mind… “Why didn’t my alarm go off? Maybe it did… Did I snooze it? Wouldn’t be the first time… What should I wear that’ll look good? No time… What’s clean? Who cares… Shirt. Pants. Wait…..if you can’t shower today (…ugh…) you’ve GOT to, at least, for the love of all that’s sanitary, change your underwear! Okay, socks… Shoes. Belt. What am I going to do with my hair? Dang it…it’s too long! I need a hair cut! If it were shorter I could do it seconds… This is going to take no less than 5 minutes! Precious minutes… No time to stylize… Must settle….Just get rid of the bed-head…” I stuck my head in the sink, soaked, and then dried it. I moosed up the fro and then tried to tame the mop to look, well…at least like I didn’t forget it. Ugh….
Just then I heard a sound I had hoped to avoid on this, of all mornings… My 2-year old was awake and knocking on the bedroom door…crying.
“AAAHH, GREAT!!”
On any other day, while still on schedule, this would only be moderately annoying. Second only to being on time for work, my number one goal every morning is to get up, ready and out of the house before the girls wake up. When they’re up, they always slow me WAY down because they’re so loud and needy first thing in the morning. They always either need to be changed, fed, hugged or entertained somehow. If you don’t do this, things get ugly real fast. Normally, I try very hard to address their immediate needs in order to give Kim an extra few minutes of much needed pregnant-mother sleep. Unfortunately for all of us, today I was in “late headless chicken” mode. I quietly trotted over to the door and poked my head out and attempted to “reason” with her. Nothin’ doin’. Not sure what I expected there. After a few minutes the seconds on my watch started to speed up and synchronize with my adrenaline-filled pulse! "There’s no time for this!" I shooshed her, closed the door, and bolted back to the bathroom. By the time I’d finished the pointless job of de-bed-heading my hair, Kim had already gotten up, changed the diaper, and diffused the ticking time bomb that was my daughter by inviting her into our warm comfy bed for a snuggle. All of this while still mostly asleep. Amazing. Another quick glance down at my watch…
“OH SNAP!!”
"It’s 6:53 am! Aaahhh!!! I’ve got to be AT work in 7 minutes!!" I got nearly to the bottom of the stairs when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I bounced off an invisible rubber wall and raced back up the stairs. "Got it! Must…get out!" Suddenly I felt like I was in an episode of 24 trying get out of a house which had been compromised by a timed explosive that could go off at any second. Not a second to spare, I flew down the hallway to my office and grabbed my work bag, threw on my jacket and tore back down the hall towards the kitchen. “Shoot, my work ID badge!” Back to the office, and back to the kitchen to rummage through leftovers in the fridge for lunch! 6:55 am…tick tock, tick tock…. “Where are my keys?? In the office? No. Upstairs? Oh, please, for the love of Pete, not upstairs again!” Hoping, I swung around the kitchen and spotted them on the counter. “Whew! No time for relief…”
“GO! GO! GO!”
Lugging my work bag and some Tupperware, I made it out to the porch, locked the front door and headed for my car. I looked at my watch again… Okay, even The Flash, himself, couldn’t make it to work on time at this point. Reality started to set in. "Hhhhh….I’m late. Really late." I got in the car, rolled down the driveway and pulled out my cell phone. As I searched through my list of contacts for my boss’s number, I tried to hurry and think up some cleaver excuse as to why I would be so late. How do you tell your boss that you're late because you snoozed through your alarm? It was just seconds before 7:00am. Luckily for my pride, at least, I got my boss’s voice mail instead of him. “Hey, just wanted to let you know that I’m running behind this morning and will be a little late. I’m on my way now and should be there in just a few minutes….” Click. HHhhhh..... The rest of the drive was just damage control. I was already late. From this point on, it would just be a matter of HOW late. “Mitigate the time loss….don’t be stupid, but punch it!” Foolishly, I weaved in and out of lanes, screeched off the line when the lights turned green and sped up at all the yellow lights. I’m sure somewhere, my old Driver’s Ed teacher was in hives.
By the time I finally got to work, I had set a new record for myself. I was at my desk by 7:19am. Nervous, I looked over all the cubicles at my boss’s office door and saw that it was closed. Wait, HE'S not even here yet?? I skipped a shower, ignored my needy daughter, broke just about every traffic law possible and arrived sweaty, panting and ready to humbly apologize only to discover that my BOSS wasn’t even in yet?!?! As I clouded up, a question surfaced in my mind. "If my boss wasn’t here to witness me being late…was I late? I mean, technically, yes, but it’s not like we clock in around here... As far as he’s concerned I arrived before him just like every other day. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a model employee…. As far as he knows…." Then it hit me. Insult suddenly joined the injury… There was a message on his voicemail from me TELLING him that I’m going to be late.
HHHhhhhhhhh……. I’m retarded. And still late.
I've learned:
A boss will always be more concerned about your tardiness than he’ll ever be about his own.
I'm glad:
I've got a boss that's understanding
I wish:
I were more of a morning person
I will:
have to go to bed abnormally early if I'm ever going to become one
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