Clean cup, move down

Sometimes I wish there was another engineer to tag team on my massive project whenever my brain gets full and the timelines start to feel oppressive. But then I realize that there's no way to data dump the mass of information in my head to anyone else, and then pick it up seamlessly later on. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Every once in awhile it makes me angry, though, that I didn't get any say in being assigned to this project, and that no one was really willing to be realistic about the time commitment, workload, and impact it would have on my personal life. The fact that everyone seems so pleasantly surprised at how close we're sticking to the timeline irks me too. If it's a shock that we're on target, maybe the targets were--I'm going out on a limb here--unrealistic to begin with?

Then again, I keep telling myself that all of this has got to be worth it in the long run. Working hard is how you better yourself, capitalize on your opportunities and grow. And, to be honest, it's nice to have a project that genuinely challenges me. It takes a lot to really make me work hard, and even now the hardest parts of the project are management issues. How to manage the stress, long hours, left-brain heavy lifting without getting burnt out or overly cranky. How to manage the glut of information, keep on top of critical updates, communicate efficiently with several teams each with varying levels of technical aptitude and need-to-know-ness.

I don't like working hard on management issues. I prefer working hard at problem solving, or on constructive measures.

I don't like communicating with people below my technical threshhold or re-translating the same message five times for different groups. I feel like so much time and energy is wasted at the end of my work day telling people about what I did at work that day. It's especially irksome when I spend extra time to tell people all about my work day at a fluff and hand-waving level, who can't help me with any of the technical issues I'm tackling during the "real work" segment of my work day. >.O

The caveat there is that many of the re-translation folks are quite highly placed, and if I keep them happy my life goes more smoothly and happily in the long run. And then it's more of a paring down and neatly summarizing brand of re-translation. Which is harder than it sounds.

Right about now (4-something on a Friday afternoon), I want to throw my hands up in the air and shout, flamboyantly, "Clean cup, move down!" but I am neither the Mad Hatter nor at a tea party, so I will have to go back to work instead.