Summer time--Where's the Easy Living?

This week my co-worker is at the beach and so all the work falls to me. Generally the workload is light for two people. We sit here, bored out of our minds, leaping at a scrap of work. Until one of us goes out of town, that is. And then the work starts to seem overwhelming and frustratingly constant. I run around for a few hours every morning hoping to get bak on top. And I also have to deal with all of the clients by myself. Generally we work with the same people who know how much time it takes to turn around their requests and are always very apologetic when they give us a short deadline. They don't ask too many questions and let us do our work, submit a first draft and go from there.

This week we've had two newer clients who don't seem to understand. And are driving me slowly towards sharp words, something I pride myself on not doing with customers. I've had a lot of experience observing some of the best customer service people ever at Tribeca Grill, and I can attest that even when a customer was insessantly obnoxious or rude they held their tongue until they were far, far away.

I'm trying to be a good student and these clients are generally nice women. But they don't understand how much work I've got going on right now or how the process evolves into the final project. I have this one woman who's manager is getting so anxious about this brochure we're creating for her that the woman keeps coming down to conference with me about what needs to be done. Generally they give us an outline and we create something based on that. Then there's another try and maybe even another before we get it right. But she's so disorganized and unclear in what she wants that I fear this will drag on forever. And she'll keep asking me for things that don't make sense. I wish I could explain to you the actual level of frustration I have.

The other woman requested 30 phone cards. And she got them maybe an hour ago and likes them so much she wants 20 more. By the end of the day. I told her I'd have them for her by tomorrow. I could have them done by today but I'm annoyed. They're sitting here, half way done and I'm just not doing them. I don't have time. I need to do other things.

Like quit my job and enjoy tea on the backporch, getting coffee with friends, hanging out at the pool, eating fresh produce at farmer's markets. Reading books. Lying in my bed for hours. Road trip with friends. Hang out in D.C. Things I did last summer and am missing now that I decided having a full time job was something I should attempt. I actually forget it's summer right now. How quickly the memories fade. Soon I'll just be an office drone who can't understand why there's cobwebs in people's trees and what these young hooligans are doing dressed up like fools. I'll start questioning why houses are lit up with lights and what trees are doing on the roofs of cars. And why there's so much traffic in malls.