professional worrywart

January 12th, 2012

Things have been a little nuts around here with Matthew gone and me working tons of hours. He finally got home after spending a week in Detroit on Tuesday but I’ve been working until 9 or 10 every night this week, and I assume it won’t end until I get back from my work trip at the end of the month.

Thankfully after an entire week of jetlag Asher started to sleep through the night, well 11-630 or so but I’ll take it! Last night I could not fall asleep until I got out of bed, turned the light on and wrote out my to do list at about 430am. Work was crazy with a ton of last minute changes coming in at 5pm that I absolutely had to finish before the morning. This is super typical the week or 2 or 3 before the event. Everyone wakes up and starts changing things that were set months before. Luckily Matthew was home (Matthew is almost never home before Asher goes to sleep) so I could work through bath and story time and actually finish by 10:30pm instead of who knows when.

I know people probably think I exaggerate about how stressful my job is but I don’t. My job is most likely more stressful than your job. Actually I am sure my job is more stressful than your job. I have to work on the weekend and answer emails at midnight and take calls during dinner. We can’t say no, ever, so every last minute request has to be fulfilled up until the second I walk out the door to the airport and then for 15ish hour days for a week at the event. Everyone wants us to come up with the ideas because we are the “experts” but they don’t want to use our ideas they want to use theirs so we have to convince them they came up with it so we can get things done or there will be no show. They can think ugly things are nice and super out of date things are hip and modern and sometimes they think a 9 or 11 minute video is ok but it’s really not because people will fall asleep and think we did a bad job so you have to convince them to cut it down but in a way that makes them think its their idea or they will fight with you and not want to work with you. If you know the clients well its easier and fun because they trust you but even if you are working with the same company on the 7th job its new people that have to be trained to do things how we need them to be done but they are the clients so you can’t tell them how to do anything or they will think you are pushy. If you are not pushy they will think you don’t know what you are doing. Its just constant problem solving on your tippy toes 24hrs a day.

Forbes magazine recently printed an article about the most stressful jobs of 2012 and guess what

My job is #6, after a bunch of people who save lives for a living. HAHAHA. The article is really about how few women have these jobs but I’d say 90% of the people I work with are women, sometimes 100%.

My friend Sarah refers to my jobs as “the prom” which always makes me laugh. We hang out with the kids a few times a week when I’m not working but I barely see her or anyone else when I get busy. People tend to understand the mad rush before prom because someone has to blow up the balloons and make sure we have enough streamers. That gal is me.

The hard part of the last few weeks is bearable because once the show is over I am done. I no longer work for a company who would have me back in the office the next day doing post-production on this and pre-pro on 3 other jobs. I am free. This time I have 6 weeks off before my next job and I just hope no one calls me. I can’t wait to take Asher to soccer and have PJ days and chill with the babyfriends. I can’t wait to unpack from our Vancouver trip and put away the channukah wrapping paper and organize all of Asher’s toys and clothes. Catch you on the flip side, blog! I’ll be back before you know it.

Entry Filed under: A bit random