…Alienate Your Friends, Loved Ones, and Even Your Pet…In 4 Easy Steps:
1. Have your place of employment schedule an accrediation site for the first part of November without consulting you to see if it might interfere with your reading challenges and the start of your birthday month.
2. Two weeks prior to said site visit, discover that the work that your former boss did the previous two site visits has somehow disappeared from the face of the earth.
3. Panic.
4. Set to work determined to get up to speed and be ready for the surveyors prior to their arrival. This step involves:
a. Working LONG hours.
b. Taking work home.
c. Staying away from things that you’d rather do, like be online.
d. Spend most of last Monday through Friday in office, including staying one night until 2 a.m. the following morning, going home for 3 hours sleep, and then heading back to work.
If you do these simple things, the results are quite interesting:
1. Your mom asks if the internet is down because she hasn’t seen any posts from you.
2. People who you didn’t realize paid attention to your blog ask similar questions.
3. Your wife and daughter have to reintroduce themselves to you because they no longer recall just for sure who you are.
4. Your dog, who is used to 2-3 good walks a day from you pees on you when you walk in the door…the same behavior he sometimes does with strangers…and while in his kennel he eats his leather collar. Yes, eats!
(What was left)
5. People online who never see you wonder if you actually have died.
6. Your inbox has 507 emails in it when you finally get around to opening it up after two weeks.
Suffice it to say that I feel like I’ve been successful at alienating everyone these past two weeks. In addition I feel like a part of my favorite time of year has been stolen from me. That being said, I did end up getting everything done with the help of my co-workers and I believe we did our very best for the survey. Those of you who work in the mental health, health care, or other accredited fields can certainly sympathize with the joy of the accrediation process. I was absolutely and totally beat last week and this weekend. It feels good to actually be semi-awake!
I missed you all terribly and I missed having a normal life! I look forward to FINALLY wrapping up the R.I.P. II Challenge and getting to the stack of November posts I have piling up!
Allow me to say a belated Happy Birthday to Neil Gaiman. His birthday was Saturday and in honor of it I listed to some of M is for Magic on audio. There is nothing like Neil reading his own stories.
The coming week promises to see my return to Poppet Planet. My return here to my own site. My return to visiting your sites. And more!
Hello everyone! Nice to meet you….again! 😉
welcome back, Carl! I missed you 🙂
I can totally understand the not having time thing. That was me in October, my birthday month. It really got away from me!
let’s just say I was at the point of being afraid to hear what kept you away!
So glad it was work and not “personal”!!!
Welcome home!
Nice to meet you, Carl 😛
Seriously now, welcome back. It’s good to hear from you again – I was wondering what had happened to you.
Life has a way of getting in the way of reading and challenges and things. I hope you make it back to blogland soon!
Hope you were able to get caught up!
Who are you?
I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see a post from you 🙂
Life happens, eh? Glad to hear things have settled down for you! What a bummer that you had deal with all of that! Though it must be a really good feeling to have it all done.
Hopefully the dog has now stopped peeing on your leg. Buddy used to do the most bizarre things when he was mad at us.
Nice to see you back! I wondered what happened to you.
Good to see you back!! Your presence has definitely
been missed!! I can sympathize with you about work.
I do understand!!
LOL, welcome back. I’m glad you made it through the hellish bit and can get back to normal.
We missed ya!
Welcome back, you were definitely missed!
HELLO SON!! GLAD YOU ARE BACK ! IT WAS NICE TO SEE YOU THIS WEEKEND-YOUR LOOKIN GOOD WITH YOUR WEIGHT LOSE-KEEP IT GOING! LOVE YOU!!
Once you come back you’re forgiven 🙂
The picture of the collar remnants is truly comical!
I’m glad you survived. Hopefully next time it will be easier.
Yes welcome back Carl, I feel the EXACT same way, I have all these silly work functions to set-up and attend all through out the month of November and December. I am completely wiped from working more than 12 hours of overtime the last 2 weeks and am now batteling a cold. We all missed you here in the cyber world, and welcome you back with open arms!
I see you had your very own Real-life Imbibing Peril experience; may it not reoccur soon. The picture of your dog’s leash is priceless, and, I suspect, an accurate picture of the stress you were suffering. Hopefully, November will be better starting today!
oh no!!! that sounds terrible!
oh dear.
well, i’m glad it was work and not something to do with you or your family, ’cause i was really worried (so its good news in a way).
and don’t worry, you haven’t alienated us at all!!! you’ve just run the most amazing challenge (again!)!!!
You most definitely have been missed!!! So glad you’re back…for our sakes, because you’re so fun to have around, but even more for your sake, because it means you finally have your life back! Sounds like a miserable time, but I’m glad you survived and got it all done. And before you start worrying about us out here, take some time to just relax and regain your sanity!
I hate it when work intrudes on all the things that really matter ( Family, Friends, Blogging, movies, books, comics, mowing, home projects, fantasy footabll, etc. ). I could go on. 🙂 Needless to say I’m glad your back as well my friend.
I hear your battle cry! I am in the consulting engineering industry, people are just plan insane with their deadlines, insane! I just started telling clients “nope, not going to happen” when really I would like to say “deadlines are for bitches!”
Good luck Carl!
You forgot to tell everyone how pretty you looked in your new suit for the site visit!
You forgot to tell everyone how pretty you looked in your new suit for the site visit!
Oh yeah! I meant to take a picture so you could post it!
Don’t let him fool you folks, he’s been out boozing the whole time.
glad to have you back. hope you weren’t going into internet withdrawals too badly!
Ok, so now I see how it is…you’ve really been boozing it up, crash dieting and buying new suits this whole time!
LOL at Cameron, your Mom, and many others and wondering how you’re holding up? And feeling bad about the poor dog eating the collar. But the photo is pretty comical!
whine, whine, whine, whine, whine
welcome back!
Sympathy! That’s all.
I do feel bad for you but only to a certain point. At least you’re not 36 weeks pregnant, trying to get a million last minutes things done at work, and then (on top of it all) slipping & falling in your work kitchen, breaking all the coffee cups (thankfully empty) you’re holding, and slicing up your fingers. I was feeling bad for you until this happened. Now I want some damn sympathy too!
Just kidding (kind of)!! Just think, from now on you will know where all the information is for this accrediation and it won’t be so bad next time! Glad that is over for you and now you can focus on the upcoming holidays!
Ah, yes. I work in health care. i know of which you speak, i know it well. Welcome back to the world! We missed you!
Phew! Glad all is ok, more or less. 🙂
Good to hear you’ll be back soon! I’m also glad to see that all of the metal parts of the leash appear to be accounted for…
Marina
Glad to hear you’re edging back to normal – i have missed your posts 🙂
Oh, thank goodness! I was getting worried about you!
Thank you for the update and let us know when you can let your hair down and party with us!
You are looking great, honey!
We’re all glad you’re not dead. I hope you find more time to yourself soon.
OK, I needed to skip ahead because Baja once ate Jager’s collar (granted, a nylon web one, but still). We spent the weekend going through his poop to make sure we got it all…
Sorry to hear things have been so hectic!! I figured real life must be interrupting your regularly scheduled blogging. I hope things get back to normal soon. And I really hope your dog doesn’t wee on you again. Somebody’s awfully miffed, eh!!
Welcome back. Hope you had a chance to really catch up with your rest.
And why would the dog eat the collar?
Hey! I was just wondering if you are going to do the Advent Calendar again this year? I know life has been busy (same here), but I just thought I would send out an invite. 🙂
Welcome back, Carl! Sounds like very stressful times, so I’m glad you are emerging from under it all! We missed you!
I hear you, Carl! Me too! It’s group project time and everything’s MADNESS.
Anyway. Just expressing solidarity. I’d buy you a pint or something if I could, when it’s all over. 🙂
Wow. I’m sorry to hear work got so bad. 🙁 My husband has had times like that in the past, and it’s so incredibly miserable all around. I hope things get better now!
I feel alienated with no new blog thoughts from you. It’s been almost 2 weeks. I need you, buddy.