I’ve been pondering reactivating this blog, if only because my current job comes with frequent bouts of dead time. And some interesting things have been happening lately, so it seems like a better use of my time to write about them, rather than just find something else to read online.
First: The job. I am currently a staff writer for a large construction management company. I write and edit their proposals for jobs. It’s not glamorous, but I have found that I am relatively good at it.
In the course of this job, it sometimes falls on those of us in the marketing department to deliver these proposals. Usually that means a drive to some nearby suburb, or the occasional jaunt down to Corvallis, about two hours away. But usually nothing too out-of-the-way. On the more important projects, those more directly involved tend to want to deliver the documents themselves. So when we were asked to put together a proposal for a massive new hospital, one six times larger than any project I’d worked on up to this point, down by San Francisco, I assumed that one of the project team members would take it. I was wrong. They asked me.
Let me just say that it’s not often I find myself carrying documents worth nine figures… So, you know, no pressure.
Now, I had just been to SF a month or two ago, so I knew the area and I was looking forward to having a company car, a (modest) expense account, and some time to kill. Alas, this was not to be. The first sign of trouble was that they had me arriving at 10:30, when the reports were due at 2 at a city 1.5 hours (as the crow flies, and certainly not as I drive) north of SF. Also, I was flying into SFO, meaning traffic. And I get lost easily. Very easily. So I had the flight rescheduled for 6:45, meaning I was up at 4 AM. The day before, I had remarked to my coworker the night before as we were assembling the proposals that, gosh, it would sure suck to oversleep and miss my flight, to which she responded, "Yeah, you'd probably get fired for that." So, again, no pressure.
I set two alarms and had a friend call me to be safe.
Anyway, I get the car, and drive up to the city, but can't find the hospital to save my life. Meanwhile, all I've had to eat all day is a lousy airport muffin. So I'm starving, but I opt to look for the hospital first just to be safe. The phone rings, and it's my coworker. She says things are screwed up, and we left out an important paragraph in the numbers section (well, actually I didn't, but I'm not pointing fingers). She would fax the one with the corrected section in it and that would be that. All right. I proceed to look for the hospital some more and the phone rings. Whoops. We have two screwed up pages now, this one, admittedly, is more my fault. It's the cover letter, which I wrote, and the inside address is wrong. I have to find a Kinkos. All right, but I have to eat first. My coworker is obviously not pleased with my need for food, but I insist. Still, that means no 5 star eatery, I have to chomp down a lousy sub made by a 16-year-old minimum wager with a 'tude.
So I find the Kinkos without incident (thank God), but the (admittedly very kind) lady there has a serious problem conceptualizing time. She insists we can rebind the report as is, by cutting off the inside margin and putting a new binding on it. Trouble is, this requires reprinting about 1/3 of the pages. I can’t stop eyeing the clock while she tells me this will be no problem. See, I have two hours before these things HAVE to be in, or, you know, no more job. She and I investigate the options here for far too long. Finally, I float the suggestion, um, can't we just glue new prints on top of the old ones? After all, if they reject the proposal because they aren't purty enough, we probably weren't getting the job anyway. We go ahead with this, and, fortunately, the directions to the hospital are pretty clear, so I make it, with 10 minutes to spare. The punchline? The people who take the proposals are disturbingly nonchalant about the whole handoff.
Afterward, I realize that I have no choice but to head right back down to the airport so as to catch my return flight. It's a gorgeous day, and at least I have a nice car with a sunroof, but I'm understandably disappointed that I won't get any quality time in San Fran. At least I got the report in on time, and I still have a job.
I wound up getting on standby for another flight to Portland that had been delayed, meaning I'd get in 45 minutes early. Not a big shift, but at this point I was willing to take it. The plane was full, mainly with a bunch of female high school athletes from New Zealand who had been on planes since yesterday (or tomorrow, whatever). I wound up sitting next to a woman who was supposed to be performing (she never said in what capacity) at a Christmas function at 7:30. We were landing at 6:45, and she was deluded enough to think that she would make it by taking the train.
Yeah, if it didn't stop for other passengers, maybe.
I drove her to the church, and she was only 10 minutes late, so I considered that my good deed for the day. And then I immediately went to a low-key party at a friend's apartment and stayed until midnight, which surprised even me. When I started yawning (I’d been up for 20 hours straight at that point), I decided it was time to head home. I think I slept for something like 12 hours.
It was a long Friday.
First: The job. I am currently a staff writer for a large construction management company. I write and edit their proposals for jobs. It’s not glamorous, but I have found that I am relatively good at it.
In the course of this job, it sometimes falls on those of us in the marketing department to deliver these proposals. Usually that means a drive to some nearby suburb, or the occasional jaunt down to Corvallis, about two hours away. But usually nothing too out-of-the-way. On the more important projects, those more directly involved tend to want to deliver the documents themselves. So when we were asked to put together a proposal for a massive new hospital, one six times larger than any project I’d worked on up to this point, down by San Francisco, I assumed that one of the project team members would take it. I was wrong. They asked me.
Let me just say that it’s not often I find myself carrying documents worth nine figures… So, you know, no pressure.
Now, I had just been to SF a month or two ago, so I knew the area and I was looking forward to having a company car, a (modest) expense account, and some time to kill. Alas, this was not to be. The first sign of trouble was that they had me arriving at 10:30, when the reports were due at 2 at a city 1.5 hours (as the crow flies, and certainly not as I drive) north of SF. Also, I was flying into SFO, meaning traffic. And I get lost easily. Very easily. So I had the flight rescheduled for 6:45, meaning I was up at 4 AM. The day before, I had remarked to my coworker the night before as we were assembling the proposals that, gosh, it would sure suck to oversleep and miss my flight, to which she responded, "Yeah, you'd probably get fired for that." So, again, no pressure.
I set two alarms and had a friend call me to be safe.
Anyway, I get the car, and drive up to the city, but can't find the hospital to save my life. Meanwhile, all I've had to eat all day is a lousy airport muffin. So I'm starving, but I opt to look for the hospital first just to be safe. The phone rings, and it's my coworker. She says things are screwed up, and we left out an important paragraph in the numbers section (well, actually I didn't, but I'm not pointing fingers). She would fax the one with the corrected section in it and that would be that. All right. I proceed to look for the hospital some more and the phone rings. Whoops. We have two screwed up pages now, this one, admittedly, is more my fault. It's the cover letter, which I wrote, and the inside address is wrong. I have to find a Kinkos. All right, but I have to eat first. My coworker is obviously not pleased with my need for food, but I insist. Still, that means no 5 star eatery, I have to chomp down a lousy sub made by a 16-year-old minimum wager with a 'tude.
So I find the Kinkos without incident (thank God), but the (admittedly very kind) lady there has a serious problem conceptualizing time. She insists we can rebind the report as is, by cutting off the inside margin and putting a new binding on it. Trouble is, this requires reprinting about 1/3 of the pages. I can’t stop eyeing the clock while she tells me this will be no problem. See, I have two hours before these things HAVE to be in, or, you know, no more job. She and I investigate the options here for far too long. Finally, I float the suggestion, um, can't we just glue new prints on top of the old ones? After all, if they reject the proposal because they aren't purty enough, we probably weren't getting the job anyway. We go ahead with this, and, fortunately, the directions to the hospital are pretty clear, so I make it, with 10 minutes to spare. The punchline? The people who take the proposals are disturbingly nonchalant about the whole handoff.
Afterward, I realize that I have no choice but to head right back down to the airport so as to catch my return flight. It's a gorgeous day, and at least I have a nice car with a sunroof, but I'm understandably disappointed that I won't get any quality time in San Fran. At least I got the report in on time, and I still have a job.
I wound up getting on standby for another flight to Portland that had been delayed, meaning I'd get in 45 minutes early. Not a big shift, but at this point I was willing to take it. The plane was full, mainly with a bunch of female high school athletes from New Zealand who had been on planes since yesterday (or tomorrow, whatever). I wound up sitting next to a woman who was supposed to be performing (she never said in what capacity) at a Christmas function at 7:30. We were landing at 6:45, and she was deluded enough to think that she would make it by taking the train.
Yeah, if it didn't stop for other passengers, maybe.
I drove her to the church, and she was only 10 minutes late, so I considered that my good deed for the day. And then I immediately went to a low-key party at a friend's apartment and stayed until midnight, which surprised even me. When I started yawning (I’d been up for 20 hours straight at that point), I decided it was time to head home. I think I slept for something like 12 hours.
It was a long Friday.
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