Things I did today:

Stuffed 1000 company Christmas cards into envelopes.
Put postage on said envelopes.
Lugged box to front desk.
Ate lunch.

Doesn't sound like much, I know, but it took me something like 6 hours.

I am consistently surprised at the pace of the modern workplace. I come from the newspaper world, I suppose (although that was years ago, but the mindset remains) , where the deadlines are relentless and near constant. People in the general business world, I've found, seem to take things much, much easier. I remember one boss asking me to do a rather simple task that involved looking up some information online. "Okay," I said, "you want this, when? An hour?" "Oh no," he replied. "Next week."

Not that it's always like that. Last week was a perfect example. We had two major proposals going out, and one day I was in the office for some 12 hours. Still, a lot of that was waiting.

I should be careful what I ask for, though. I could easily be a lot busier and wind up miserable. There were times when I was so busy while I was working retail that I wanted to strangle someone. But I can't help but wonder. Is it me? Or is it everyone else?