my job’s gotten pretty interesting.  i’m liking it more and more, even though i’m also often completely stressed out by it.  my responsibilities have grown so much that i’ve got way too much to do and too little time, but luckily my boss wants to solve that problem by having me do more of the interesting fun stuff and less of the administrative and financial stuff – yay!  but the catch: i have to find someone who can juggle 8 million things at the same time, has some initiative, wants to work full time and doesn’t need a lot of money to replace me in those roles.  every time we think we’ve got that, the person decides that in fact they DON’T want to work full time.  they want to work 2 days a week, or 1.  and i end up having to start the hiring process (and worse: the training process) all over again.  it’s the problem with the pay we offer, which isn’t high.  we get people who don’t really need to work because their spouses make enough for both of them.

anyway, i’m back at it again.  today:  met with boss for 2 hour strategy argument (me:  need 5 days/week; her: well, maybe only 4?… etc.), now emailing and calling old applicants who dropped out because wanted more days/week than we last time round were hiring for.  ugh.  i’ve been here 3 years now, and have now had 3 temp assistants (hired as temp assistants) and 2 perm assistants who decided they wanted fewer days/week than the 3-4 they were hired at.  temp assistants don’t work because the time training them is wasted, and both of the perm assistants were fantastic and really disappointing when they changed their minds.  one is leaving the continent (although decision to leave us came with birth of 2nd daughter), and the other will be staying on with us in a different role, project-only.

it’s hard working here, i’ll admit:  gets pretty hectic and crazy, and our boss is really a micro-manager.  but it’s also really friendly, a tiny company, very like a little family, and it’s always easy to arrange time flexibly when necessary.  i hope i’m luckier this time round.  at least i’m now DAMN sure what the skill-set is now!

yep, more and more over the past year, this describes me.  my sense of humor has gone that way, too.  i tell  self-aggrandizing stories that involve how well i told someone off.  not good.

it doesn’t help that i’m too busy to think straight half the time.  i’m going to work on this.  matt and i have just found ourselves a free 2-3 days when we were planning on going to london.  i was really looking forward to the break – hang with friends, shop, just wander around… no real commitments.  but ok.  so we work on the roof terrace, perhaps, and just take it easy here.  i have to decide if i’m going to keep the days off as planned.  i guess we’ll discuss it this evening.  i’m super busy at work, but that isn’t likely to change, so since i planned this little break, maybe i should use it.  i put a bottle of rose in the fridge.  🙂

i also went for a thai yoga massage yesterday.  90 mins.  i had one once before, and loved it.  it wasn’t expensive. maybe combining that with the chinese massages i was trying to schedule every couple of weeks, and i could pull off routinely one massage a month?  it seriously helps.  all that tension in my neck, ahhhh…

today i finally had time to go back to the gym – first time in about a month.  i have been so busy that even my evenings are cram-packed.  no time for even 30 mins at the gym.  it felt good.  and all because our concert tonight was cancelled.  so…  i slept in.  went to the gym.  drank a smoothie.  dropped another batch of clothes off to sell at the consignment store.  bought a pinata.  read up on the situation in iceland.  made coffee.  washed the dishes.

and, good news:  while prepping the clothes for the consignment shop, discovered i can fit into some of my favorite pants again.  yay!  i guess all these juices and smoothies instead of meals 2x/day are doing what they’re supposed to. woo hoo!