Living day by day

Here's my typical schedule...

Alarm goes off at 6:45 am .. struggle out of bed by 6:55 am. Wake up sleepy kids, rush them to get ready and down for breakfast by 7:25 am. Phew. 7:30 am kids are off to school (every alternate week I get the pleasure to drop them off as well). Reach work by 9 am (if I am lazy, by 9:30 am) after battling rush hour traffic for 45-50 mins.

Work: Everyone is already there (including boss, VP, peers...) and 100+ emails are waiting for me to read. These emails are the ones that other people have been reading since 6 am in the morning and replying to (to show how proactive they are...). Grr. No time for emails. first meeting is at 10 am or 11:00 am. Usually there is a deliverable from my side. Go in to the meeting, mumble something about "I am working on it and it will be done [today, tomorrow, this week ...]" depending on the criticality of the issue. Come out of the meeting and starving, head out for lunch. Come back from lunch and stare at the mountain of work waiting for me. Take a deep breath and the easy way out... i.e. start checking the emails and respond to a couple. Typically another meeting in the afternoon. Try to get some work done in between meetings.

Check school related emails and respond during the day (more later on this). Leave for home around 5:30-6:00 pm. Go home and sit down to help son with his homework. Then dinner... its 8:30-9:00 pm already. push them to change clothes and go to sleep.

10 pm. Log on to webex/skype for a meeting with school team mates. Bunch of action items handed out to everyone with a deadline usually 24 hours away. 11:30 pm - exhausted: try to do some school work. Lucky if I don't fall asleep holding the computer. Make little progress. 1:30- 2:00 am: realize productivity is low and that I need to wake up in another 4 1/2 hours. Quickly brush teeth and go to sleep.


Saturday: Wake up even earlier - 5:30 am, get ready and leave by 6 am. catch the 7:00 or 7:15 am flight to LA, rent a car, go to school, all day in classes, drive back to airport in the evening, catch the last flight back to home, reach home anywhere from 8:30 pm to 11:30 pm (depending on class timings).

Sunday: wake up at 9:00 am or so with a terrible headache and a whole pile of work.

Repeat the above loop for ever.

All right ... enough cribbing. next meeting reminder just popped up. Got to go in 15 mins. Next 24 hours a biz plan (school) due and a PRD (from scratch) needs to go out for review. Need to develop CC slides from scratch and send them out for review by Monday (Thursday-Friday being off this week).

crash.... core dump. &(()&_(&&*(67

Update on life!!

It's been a while since I last posted (I sound like a broken record now with this line). I will keep this post short but so much has happened. Here's a brief recap.

China: traveled to Beijing, Shanghai and Ningbo for about 10 days for school project in mid-September. Food and language was a challenge but over the trip was very satisfying. Had a lot of fun and some hard work during primary research. Got rid of quite a few preconceived notions about China.

Vegas: Made a short 2 day trip to vegas in October - again for school project. Attened a conference there. Stayed at the famed Bellagio but didn't see the fountains this time (chiraag tale andhera). :) Won a brand new IPAD2 in a raffle at the conference. Talk about luck. :)

Work: Super hectic. did 2 BCs, 2 CCs and 1 EC in a single week. The PM role has been quite challenging as well as fun so far. I have learned and accomplished more in 6 months than I did in 2 years in my previous role. I mean a tonne of stuff other than the BC/CC/EC I just mentioned. Its been one helluva roller coaster ride.

School: The project has been going great. Just submitted a 95% complete business plan this past weekend. Work will continue on the plan but this was a major milestone. Now preparation for final presentations (and dry runs before that). My team chose me for the final presentation - yikes. Coursework also going along with the project. taking a very interesting psychology-business combo course.

Long-lost childhood friend: Went on a customer roadshow to Philly and finally (after the work was done), drove over to one of my best childhood friend's house. I met him after 25+ years. wow. amazing evening spent with him and his family.

In-laws: got their GC and ready to go back home. Will be interesting how we cope up with all the additional workload once they are gone. They were pretty much handling all the housework allowing me and missus to focus on keeping our heads above water at work/school.

Diwali party: Had a great diwali party again this year in our neighborhood. Loots of good food and fun.

Add a big dose of workplace politics to the above mix. Can't say life has been boring in the last 3 months. :)