A lot can happen in a year. I say that knowing it’s completely cliché, but it also seems eerily timely at this moment. It was about a year ago that I sat working at my consulting job and the meeting reminder for a monthly Senior Consultant meeting popped up on my computer. It was a Friday just like today. Unlike today, I was sitting at my desk already frustrated with what the meeting topic would be over.
You see, after one very long project and many man hours worked, people were starting to feel the burnout. We had thought for years that after Go Live we would see the reward of our labor and finally get some much needed rest. Unfortunately the long hours didn’t stop, rewards were fewer and harder to come by, and ultimately we were all feeling let down and led astray by our management. In January of 2010 we began to see turnover. It started with a handful here and there, but it became a trend. After several months more than 50 people had left from our project alone. Even our offshore team experienced a high turnover.
On this particular Friday, the Atlanta VP had called a meeting to speak with all of the Atlanta Senior Consultants. It was an open forum for us to ask him questions and to give him our honest feedback. Or so we were told. As I got up from my chair to go to the session I was frustrated and anxious for the dog and pony show to be over.
♪Today I don’t feel like doing anything
I just wanna lay in my bed
Don’t feel like picking up my phone
So leave a message at the tone
‘Cause today I swear I’m not doing anything♪
The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars has become my new favorite song. I find myself humming it throughout the day and whistling along to the unheard rhythm while I work in my little home office. I think it is the contrast of the song’s vision with my own chaotic days approaching our first residency that has caused me to gravitate towards it.
It’s 30 days before I leave for China, our pre-reading has not yet arrived, but there is plenty to fill my day. When my alarm clock sounds in the morning, I squint my eyes at the time, thinking to myself, “Surely this cannot be correct. I only closed my eyes moments ago, and yet this dratted thing is blaring at me to open them.” Knowing that every moment I hit the snooze button is another item on my To Do list left undone, I angrily slap the alarm clock and pull my sluggish body out of bed to start my day. “Today I don’t feel like doing anything” I hum as I go downstairs for my coffee.
I’m not sure if we should be proud or ashamed of it. Whatever your personal reaction, Duke University ran an experiment yesterday that brought down a part of the internet. We didn’t do it alone of course, we had the RIPE NCC (Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre) to help us along in our gaffe. Here is the link to the story.
It’s nice to have time to read articles by choice again, my energy level was really flagging this last semester. Ramadan may have something to do with it but we were all suffering from some kind of burnout this semester. I think I only attended a couple of Centra classes live, it obviously didn’t help that I couldn’t keep track of the schedule and everything became jumbled up with Saturday and Sunday classes. Something tells me next semester will be just as tough as this one was. I hope all my fellow, foreign, students can make it to this final residency, getting a U.S visa is probably just as hard as getting one for North Korea in some parts of the world.
Category: 
Recent Comments