I was supposed to be in Brazil this week. It is true... I was supposed to be in Brazil today! In fact, today I was supposed to be in Rio. But instead... alas I'm still in London.
Ok - that sounds way cooler than it really is... I was supposed to be in Brazil for work. I was supposed to leave Monday night London time and arrive in Sao Paolo on Tuesday morning at 6am. The plan was to go check into the hotel and then go straight to the office and work the whole day. On Wednesday we would fly to Rio in the morning in order to meet with an absurdly difficult customer. Then we would fly back to Sao Paolo Wednesday night and then meet with the Brazilian team on all day Thursday and Friday. I would fly out late Friday night and arrive back in London late Saturday night (effectively killing most of my weekend). So as you can see, the trip sounded more glamorous than it ever would have been. Still... I was supposed to be in Rio right now.
But I had to cancel Rio for many reasons... including the fact that I need to be in China next week. And even for the International Woman of Mystery, 3 continents in 3 days is just too much.
So, for all of you who complain that I don't post enough... I will admit... I'm lacking fun things to write about right now as all I'm doing is working. I know I know... we are all very busy and important people. But just in case you don't believe that I am also a busy and important person (and to be honest - and I'm always honest - because I'm lacking any kind of fun dating adventures to share and generally lacking really any kind of creativity at all), and in case you are inclined to feel sorry for whinny people who blog about being too busy to blog, let me tell you about how my day went on Monday:
Monday April April 12th 2010 - A Day in the Life of the International Woman of Mystery...
3 am - I'm still working. I started working at 11 pm on Sunday evening... at 3 am I'm still working. However, I realize that it might be a good idea to go to bed soon as I realize that I must be in the office in 5.5 hours!
6 am - the alarm goes off with a hopeful sound.... I thought I might wake up feeling refreshed and jump out of bed and go for a run in the park before work! Instead, I wake up grumpy and tired and I realize I have only been asleep for 3 hours. I reset the alarm for a more reasonable time like 7:30.
7:30 - The alarm goes off again. I hit snooze for the next 40 minutes... I have to admit I'm a big snooze button addict. It's one of the great things of sleeping alone - you can hit snooze forever without anyone telling you to knock it off!
8:10 - I realize that if I do not get up soon, the house cleaner (who is supposed to come at 9 but is always annoyingly at least 40 minutes early) will be there (again) before I'm out of bed
8:11 - I drag myself out of bed cursing the world and begin to hurry up and get ready for work
8:20 - The house cleaner arrives. I make irritating conversation - irritating in part because she doesn't speak much English but mostly I'm not a morning person and she is always so damn cheerful. But I'm willing to forgive her because she does make my apartment really clean.
8:25 - The house cleaner points out to me that I haven't managed to buy bathroom cleaner even though she had asked me to last week... I realize I have been too busy to go to the grocery store in the past week. The grocery store closes at 21:00. I realize that sadly, I have not left the office before 21:00 in a week.
8:45 - I arrive at work. I say a grumpy hello to my team. Strangely enough work seems too familiar... I feel like I worked the whole weekend. Oh right. I did.
9:00 - Think about coffee but decide I don't have time to walk across the office and get one, and I definitely don't have time for the coffee room chat with colleagues that will surely ensue... Decide to forget about coffee and tackle my emails. One of the many joys of being an International Woman of Mystery is dealing with people in all time zones. In a normal job, you would wrap up emails at 3 am and come to the office and find you have no emails... Not so true when working with China. I amazingly had 26 new emails in my Inbox!
9:05 - Make a list of everything I have to do this week. I have two lists - a work one and a personal one... The funny thing is that the work one always gets crossed off and the personal one never does. Every week things like "find a doctor, talk to someone about my major back pain, track down my bank card to the only account of mine that has money in it, call my grandfather, email my brother" appear on the list but they never get crossed off
9:06 - Decide to go to China next week (as you do when you decide not to be in Brazil this week)
9:07 - Realize that my Chinese visa has expires on Tuesday. DAMN! That means I have to fit in 2 trips (one to drop it off and the other to get it) to the Chinese Embassy! Always a joyful experience. And it means processing a lot of paperwork. I loathe paperwork. I can't stand doing personal admin.
9:30 - Start the first very frustrating meeting of a day where we discuss the fact that a customer is not happy with the work we have done and we have to do it over
10:30 - Realize I double booked myself in meetings... Start meeting with the person I see first... hope to catch up with the next person later - continue frantic meeting cycle until around lunch time
12:00 - Think about lunch - continue with meeting
12:30 - Think about lunch again - continue my attempt to catch up on emails during my brief pause in meetings
13:15 - Colleague reminds me we have a meeting in 15 mins. Realize I must eat lunch of loose the opportunity. Run to the nearest place I can find and order something "quick."
13:25 - Realize that my idea of quick is very different from that of the employee of the cafe who is waiting on me. Make a mental not never to come here again. Ask them again to please hurry up. Frantically send emails from my Blackberry while impatiently tapping my foot
13:30 - Back at the office and happy to see that my colleague is also running late. Shove food into my mouth as quickly as possible while preparing for the meeting.
15:00 - Meeting over and before rushing into the next one manage to squeeze in a quick bathroom break - begin to actually contemplate not drinking any liquids during the day because I really feel that I don't have time to go to the bathroom... Realize this is a crazy thought and start to think that I might be a bit overworked
15:02 - Next round of meetings takes me through the rest of the afternoon
18:00 - Think about the fact that this is the time I "should" leave the office
18:01 - Start checking emails instead
18:30 - In need of something to look forward to (some light at the end of the dark tunnel I'm finding myself in), I start to count the weeks until I go on summer vacation - it's only 9 weeks away. I try to rationalize that this is actually a very short time... but I don't do a good job at convincing myself.
18:45 - Realize that I will feel better if I book my flight home - I do this and feel a moment of happiness knowing that I have actually crossed one thing off my personal "to do" list
18:46 - Think about the fact that my back is killing me (Stress makes it worse); think about the fact that my health is more important than any job and that I should really get someone to help me sort my back out
18:47- Get distracted by another email, forget about back - once again it remains an urgent item on my personal "to do" list
20:30 - Finally leave the office and rush home to change into gym clothes and run to the gym to try to work off some steam
10:15 - Arrive home from the gym
10:16 - Realize that since I haven't been to the supermarket in over a week, the only thing I have to eat are Ramen noodles - which is slightly worse than it sounds. I secretly love Ramen noodles and actually eat them often even when there is other food to eat
10:26 - Relax (finally) with a big bowl of Ramen Noodles while watching an episode of True Blood
10:27 - Think about the blog I should be writing... Feel guilty for sitting down relaxing rather than updating my wonderful readers with my wonderful (ummm.. or whatever it is these day) life
10:28 - Think about the work I should be doing...
10:29 - Think about the Match.com boys who I have been ignoring for the past weeks due to my enourmous workload. Am sure they must be missing me...
10:30- Think more about the work I should be doing...
10:31 - Give up on True Blood and open the computer
10:32 - Immerse myself in work
1:00 - Think that I should really go to bed...
2:00 - Finally turn off the computer, the lights and call it a night - half-heartily set the alarm for 6 am to go for a run (I know that I will skip it).
So that my friends is a day in the life of the International Woman of Mystery. And you thought all I did was drink and meet boys... ;)
It's possible I might have a more entertaining post next time... however I see no end in sight to the massive workload - so just warning you...
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