No, not at all. Despite the fact my last post was on March 29.
I just haven't had the mental wherewithal to do any creative endeavors in the past couple of months. April became a time of things personal and mental (meaning things I had to concentrate on of a more emotional nature) that became the cumulation of a larger aspect of some of the things I've touched on in a couple of my blogs. It would take volumes of space for me to explain; some of you reading this know it all in greater detail (and volumes of space filled by instant messages and emails), and for all your ear-bending and help through it all, I thank you.
For a health update, I'm doing fine. My doctor took me off of coffee, wheat products and dairy as they can exacerbate gallbladder issues. It was really, really tough going off the coffee, even though I only drink a cup or two a day, but the dairy and wheat was easy (though I've had some bread and cheese in the last couple of weeks!), and it seems to be working. I feel a lot better, and the last bit of weight that was clinging to me is finally falling away.
Midway through April, my company finally was able to unleash the new Oracle database. I don't know if it was poor planning (well, overly-optimistic planning that went awry as it always does) or timing gnomes playing a joke on us (or both), but it landed smack in the middle of the best and most successful sale we've ever had. In a perfect world, this would be a good thing, and we were hopeful about it, despite our reservations of rolling out the red carpet before we were even certain there was a floor underneath.
A timesaver of a database, we kept telling ourselves. A big, robust database able to take in all the orders that would save us time.
Excuse me while I go sit in my closet and laugh myself into a coma.
It ground us to a screeching halt. While we were physically in the building during normal operating hours, we had to stop taking calls -- the main crux of the support staff of which I'm a part (though I mostly do the email aspect of it). Our answering service had to take hundreds and hundreds of messages and orders for us, then pass them along to us. We had piles the size of phone books (literally, not an exaggerated metaphor in this case) of the printed messages.
We'd spent a couple of weeks being trained on Oracle, but it was so different from the database we'd previously used, it was like trying to become fluent in Japanese in two weeks, when all we knew was Pigeon English. Then came the floodgate of going "live". By the end of April we were desperately behind on our work; the only thing we managed to stay on top of was email -- and that's only because I forwent learning how to use the database and became basically the sole email person so that the rest of the support team could learn the database, focus on call backs and get the orders placed.
Granted, I realize it sounds like it was just a learning curve.
But here's the thing.
You know at the supermarket when you take, say, a soda bottle from the display and another one slides into place?
That's what the programming knots and snafus were like. Not only was the interface convoluted for us, every time we tried to do something, it wouldn't work. Even things as simple as address changes. Did they work in all the testing phases and in the training database that was a veritable duplicate of the "real" one? Of course! But when we went "live", everything seemed to unravel. We'd get one problem fixed, and another would pop up in its place.
Now, please understand that Jon, the head of our IT department, and the Oracle developers did do their best under the circumstances. I know that, and I laud and salute Jon for not crumbling under the responsibility of it all. If you ever read this, Jon, I'm utterly amazed that we didn't find you curled up in a drawer someplace in the office, hiding from it all.
After struggling for almost three weeks, our solution was to finally hire three full-time temps to help with orders so that we could get back to our "normal" style of business. It hasn't happened quite yet, but we're getting there. The programming and error knots are unraveling, and the speed of the special is winding down.
In and around all that, I didn't have the mental capability to write anything beyond answers to support mail. One week in mid-May I did 500 emails; my normal number, even in busy times, was an average of quite a bit less than that. Where my normal day was maybe 30-50 emails (on a busy day!) it's now 60-80. I used to go home with an empty inbox, personally and for clients writing into our main address, nearly every night. Now I'm lucky to go home with less than 50, 40 on a good day for the main box; my personal email usually has about 5-10 waiting for an answer.
It sometimes gets to the point where I close my eyes and all I see is the screen of my email program at work. A few weeks ago I had a dream that I was on a date with a really good-looking guy. We were standing in line for a movie, and he kept asking me normal first-date questions. But all I could do was answer him in a format that was purely a recitation of articles we draw on to answer emails. So he'd ask me something like, "How long have you lived in Portland?" "What kind of food do you like to eat?" And I'd reply, "In order to meditate, it is not necessarily true that your mind must be perfectly still," or, "It does seem, based on your comments, that you're going through some upheaval and overwhelm."
(I suppose if I kept that kind of answer up, he eventually would be!)
He was patient and even amused, if not a bit irritated that he couldn't get a straight answer out of me.
Then, last night, I had a repeat of the dream. Except this time we were at a nice, outdoor bistro. He was sitting comfortably in a chair, affable and relaxed. I, on the other hand, had my work computer set up on the little wire table; every time he'd say something to me, I'd compose my reply to him in an email and send it to him. Somehow he "got" the answer, and while still quite patient and somewhat amused, it was clearly the strangest date he'd ever been on.
So not only have we been in one of the busiest times the company has ever seen, we've been in the midst of some pretty heavy growing pains.
Please know I'm not complaining. While I'm dead-dog tired each night, I come home knowing I've done my best. I just jam away to favorite music as I plough through the emails. It's actually kind of nice. I've been getting to listen to some things I haven't listened to in a long time.
It's been pretty stressful at work, but we're a bunch of fantastic, resilient, creative, supportive people. People pitched in helping with things that were far out of their job classifications, and to tell you the truth -- it feels like a much more tightly-knit family now. There's 22 of us (I'm including you, Susan!) (25 if you count the absolutely fantastic temps we hired, fondly known as "The Peeps") in the office, so even though it's been around for about 15 years there's still somewhat of a "startup company" feel to it. It's been a marvelous learning experience for time-management, stress, and laughter. Even when you don't feel like laughing.
So I've been lost in the muck and mire of all of that; it's clearing, and lately my thoughts began returning to my blog. And now I’m back, and you'll be hearing from me more often. I do enjoy writing these posts, as it's a nice change from emails at work -- which, while they do take a lot of finesse, timing and creativity, aren't the same as putting down my own thoughts.
I've posted below this entry something that came to me today as I drove to work. It was originally going to be a blog, but it fell out in the form of the poem. I began toying with the idea last month or so of putting poems in my blog -- ones I've written, and ones that I write in the future -- and it seems that's how tonight's post turned out. I like that.
More to come.
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