Vacation is over and reality is setting in

Wednesday was my last day of vacation. I have enjoyed being away from the craziness known as work for nearly two weeks.

It has been wonderful sleeping in practically every day. It was nice to lose track of the days for a while.

I dislike checking my work e-mails. I have had to a few times over my vacation. I get a ton of them, but I sift through them to see if any are truly pressing. I had to address one, which involved ordering various access for a new co-op student.

I am supposed to start training a couple of co-op students. Last semester, the company froze hiring any co-ops. It was a bummer, which was why we ended up with contractors instead.

There is a huge difference between contractors and co-op students. The latter try their very best to succeed. The former seem to be more concerned with leaving work because they only get paid for the hours that they are at work. Students don't seem to have that mentality.

One student starts next Monday. The other one is late with her paperwork. So, the thought of training both of them simultaneously is a lost cause for the time being.

My manager has made the decision to get me off doing actual grunt work. It sounds good, but I need proof. For what seems to be years, I have been doing way more than my fair share of writing while trying to train folks and handle more team issues. It's not the best situation. I tend to feel stressed -- that I am not doing the best job that I can on all fronts. Instead, I can only do my best under the circumstances, which is pretty good when I look back at everything.

Tomorrow, I am back to answering e-mails with some folks who do not have a clue what is going on. At least my workweek this week is two days, so it's pretty good.

My guy thought that I was back at work on Tuesday. I explained the whole drama about my not being able to take a couple of days before Christmas. I was forced to come in to be a part of the Christmas entertainment party. Instead, one of the development managers had scheduled a software release. I had to work on it with the contractor who had made a number of mistakes. These mistakes led to both of us missing the Christmas party and staying at work till 18:30.

The good news about this month is that my guy has classes to teach at the office for a couple of weeks. It means that we get to have lunch together and I can continue to tease him about driving his new car.