Work, home, time change

For the past several days several departments in our company have managed with only a skeleton crew. My old department, Customer Relations, was the hardest hit. There was only one person within that department that was able to come to work. In order to get the calls answered and get the email responses out, every other department (with their limited staff) has picked up the phones and sent email responses – except the Education Department, which is where I work. Hopefully that need will abate today as at least one more Customer Relation’s employee is expected to make it back to work. Tomorrow, one employee that has been on assignment in West Virginia will be back. From one to possibly three – an enormous scale up. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. I expect there will be some sort of appreciation recognition given to Client Relations because of the renewed understanding of how indispensable they are; and the fact that no one else wants to be tied to the phones for the entire day. Such recognition would not only be appreciated, it is a bit overdue.

I was swamped in my own way. This afternoon, ready or not, I will have to surrender what I have of the presentation I am creating. I will be close. Near the 85% completion requested. I have only one section to create and proof to have the presentation ready for submission. There is a rather lengthy section that was given to me with the presentation and if I have time I will edit that also, but in large part, it will be done – for now. I am told the trip to Chile is not altogether out of the question, but it is by no means confirmed. There are other commitments being worked on here in the US and in Mexico, but those have not been scheduled yet. It is getting busy for me; which is not a bad thing. For my department, the workload is spooling up as well and we will be hiring two writers to help get through it. That too, is not a bad thing. It is actually a very good thing. I am told that the two new writers will have a three-year work load planned out. That is impressive and a little staggering to think we are that much in need.

The increased demand at work is starting to affect the setbacks on the work demands at home. I expect that having the longer evenings to work at home and on the farm will help a lot. I will get to find out next week. In church last night while we were giving prayer requests someone reminded the pastor and the congregation that time change is this weekend. Pastor was completely unaware so it is a good thing it was said. At least the Wednesday night crowd will be fully informed. Mama and I have been looking forward to it. The evenings will get longer without the time change, but this gives us a head start. I do not remember looking forward to switching the clocks in the past but right now I need the extended evening daylight. I will forgo my complaining about it for this year.

Next week is Spring Break for Mama. She is looking forward to that. Her list is growing if the things she wasn’t s to get done during her week off. I do not know if she is up to the task she has outlined for herself but there does seem to be a mixing of inside and outside work to balance her time and energy. I do not worry about her stamina. I worry about her back and knees lasting through the challenge. The fact that it happens in the time change week is both an added blessing and an added concern of Mama overdoing it. We will deal with that as the need arises.

Maybe she will understand why I have always told people that I had to go back to work to rest up.