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Note: You’re going to see a switch in how I do my blog posts. I’m trying a more personal voice, and writing on broader subjects, ala my past hero Dave Barry. It can’t all be about writing!
I really like organizing things. I get paid for it. I’m honestly pretty good about it, which can be a really bad thing sometimes.
So, ‘tis the season for medical stuff. I’ve got vaccines (at least two). I’ve got the regular tests and checkups a man of fifty five has to ensure my body and I work in tandem. Some of those tests involve fasting and/or various forms of personal violation. Gotta pace that stuff to keep the rate of indignity to a tolerable level.
I also have some in-office things coming up at work. My workplace is pretty remote in the work-at-home not emotional-distance way, but once or twice a year we get together so we can remark how we all look different on Zoom. Gotta work around that too!
So my brilliant idea was to pace myself. A vaccination one week, then one the week after, since the last time I did flu and covid shots together I felt like I’d slammed a bottle of rum but without the convenience of being too blacked out to know how bad I felt. Do my exams after the last exam because hey a little fasting won’t hurt after that. Then right into the all-hands! Nice and convenient and nothing piles up!
Know what, my highly organized plan had one flaw – it meant four weeks where life was intermittently punctuated with low-grade misery.
Sure, the effects of one vaccine wore off in two days, just in time for me to get going to have another vaccination. Then fasting, which is somehow less fun after two weeks of dealing with vaccine side effects! Then regular exams that I scheduled in What-Was-I-Thinking-O’Clock in the morning. Then getting up at the same time days later to drive through Bay Area traffic for days.
I achieved that experience many a Project Manager knows all too well, succeeding in a way that also makes you entirely unhappy.
Well, at least it’s almost over. So now time to gear up for the last stage of waking up early and whatever. But next time, maybe I’ll take my discomfort and misery in a more condensed form.
Steven Savage