Tuesday, April 03, 2012

2012 has been a steamroller so far

It's been a very busy three months.  On the work front, we had a major project that needed to be complete before the start of peak season in April.  Despite the typical setbacks and delays you get with any major project, we were able to push it to production in early March.   And in any other year, this timing would have been just fine, but this year it seemed like the entire US had an early spring. Business had already spiked up by then and it feels like it's been a madhouse at work for the entire year.  First there was the push to get the project done, then the push to handle all the extra, unexpected business.  For the last month I've been spending over half my work hours helping out in Customer Service taking calls while trying to still get my regular work done.  It's a good problem to have in this economy, but it does leave me pretty damn tired at the end of the day.

Other things are afoot in my personal life that have brought some major changes in my routine, all of them good, but even good change adds a bit of additional stress.   Over the next few months I hope to find the time to get get my RV ready to sell and if things work out, I might be moving back into a house in June.  If the deal on the house falls through, then maybe a duplex.  I'd even go for an apartment if I could find one with a small yard (a few of those do exist in this town.)  Affordable will be tough to find in this rental market where even a small duplex or two bedroom apartment can run over $1000/month.   I've asked for a pretty substantial raise at work that would let me qualify for such a rental amount, but given that raises have been on hold since November plus the fact that my "regular" job might be changing to something else... that means a raise is not something I can count on.

Overall, there's much that's uncertain in my life right now, both at work and at home, and given the track record of the last couple of years, I think this is the new normal.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can make life seem just a bit more challenging at times.  Ah well, at least I'm not bored.

PS - those of you that are long overdue for an email from me, my apologies.