Bonus! and a 6 day work week

I got my quarterly bonus today which was nice and well timed. I can recover car repair and house repair costs incurred recently and add some more to savings! I always look forward to these bonuses as big steps ahead. I am always careful not to spend them on stupid things.

That said I do have to work the majority of Saturday for our quarterly meeting. Not really difficult work just a necessary time consuming meeting. I am also not a fan of a 1-day weekend after time on the road but I will live.

Now it is time to figure out exactly how I will divide up the bonus dollars amongst my goals.

Bad Luck came early

I arrived to work this morning to a dead server. Hard drive died and we were down. This was what I walked through the door to see.

It was a bit stressful at first as the backups weren't working. We finally get the backup to work and the server back online about 1.5 hours later. That sure beats 24+ hours of rebuilding it from zero. I created the disaster recovery plan and it worked. It was a pain to create but much needed today.

Part 2 of the bad luck is that my car needs a CV axel. It is a $60 part which is less than I expected. The killer may be the labor. I have to find someone to replace it as it is out of my scope of car repair knowledge. I am hoping for $100 in labor as my dad (a mechanic) says it should take 30 minutes. We shall see.

So it seems Friday the 13th came early for me. Maybe because of the leap year?

Work is exploding!

I am beyond slammed at work. This is a good thing since it means I have a lot of travel coming up. I am already working strategies and promotions to maximize the points from each trip! With yet even more travel coming my way I am getting ready for the onslaught of flying, airport lounges, and hotels more often than my own bed. Points are the motivation to keep me moving!

I just found out that I will most likely be spending 2x 5-day weeks in Detroit (quite possibly my least favorite place on earth) for work. While I have a lot of bad things to say about Detroit I do tend to have my most frugal trips there. Since I don't like it I tend to stay at the hotel most of the time working on other things. This is when I book my trips and find great deals to take advantage of. Spare time!

This now means, if all my travel dates become confirmed, that I will be traveling every week for work except for one until I go to Easter Island on March 31st. That is one long streak! This certainly helps put a dent in my 50,000 mile travel goal for the year to reach Gold status with Delta. I am already clocking in some overtime as a result. Things are busy and busy (hopefully) means more raises!

Shortened Weekend!

I have to work all day tomorrow since we are having a quarterly meeting at work. That means I get a 1 day weekend. Granted I was given a swap day that I used for New Orleans on Monday that doesn't give me enough time to rest as I would like before the next work week.

I will be spending my Sunday getting caught up on various errands and things I need to do around the house. I will be getting a bonus so I have a little planning to do once I get it. That will be the one highlight of my working Saturday. Other than that I have boring meetings and planning sessions to do.

Fortunately this is only 4 times per year.

A long week!

My first week back at work was a long one. As I suspected a lot of stuff piled up while I was away. It could have certainly been worse.

I had to install 12 new locations for a new client local to the Atlanta area. Between the jet lag and my sore legs (which I suspect is from all the flying) it was a struggle. I drove over 500 miles this week for work. In the end I got it all done. It is finally over!

I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing this weekend. I am beyond tired.

Stressful work week complete!

I can now say that all is well with this mess of a project at work. I got everything fixed today and the client here is happy. It took a lot of long work days, no days off, and some careful planning to make it all happen at the last minute. I have had a long talk with my boss to ensure this does not happen again.

I am attending their grand opening tomorrow and I can do this without worry. This was my last big hurdle before vacation and now it is mostly over with. It will be great to truly be able to relax once I get to Thailand and take my mind of work. I am looking forward to the beach, a cold beer, and my book that I am saving for the trip. I am ready for the Land of Smiles!

They are forecasting over 12 inches of snow here in Hartford so I hope my flight gets out tomorrow. It will get nasty out there but I have to go with the flow. Getting upset over weather doesn't get anyone anywhere. It would be nice to get some time at home though!

The days are moving slower!

This is the beginning of week 2 off the road. I must admit that when I am traveling the weeks seem to go by faster. I miss that and the welcome change of pace versus being in the office all week. That said it is good that I am here as I have a lot of prep work for upcoming larger projects that I need to tend too.

This past weekend was entirely too short--a sign of my burnout catching up to me. I feel tired a lot more often as of late and this reminds of around this time last year before my trip to Cambodia. I have found that a year, at least in my line of work, is too long to have essentially zero time off aside from the odd holiday.  Next year I will do a week in April and then hopefully 3 weeks in November again.

Mondays are always the most hectic. For whatever reason things seem to come to head every Monday. Slows down some mid week and picks up again on Friday. My weeks seem pretty even split between slammed days and slow days. Such is life when you rely on a lot of other people to get things done.

Work is catching up to me...

Today I am really starting to feel the sting of fatigue from quite a long stint of work with no vacation to speak of. Sure I have been on a weekend cruise to the Bahamas and a long weekend in Myrtle Beach. I consider those more of a long weekend fun trip. Vacation is when your mind is 100% off work. That has not happened since Cambodia in November 2010.

I remember a similar feeling this same time last year. A long slog from one extended vacation to the next. I have roughly 2 months until I depart for Bangkok via Europe. I am very excited and very much looking forward to it! The problem is that I am 2 months away from that day and I am tired.

This feeling is what keeps me working and saving as much as I can to earn enough money to not have to work full time and on someone else's schedule. Going 2 straight years without a raise doesn't help matters much either. I suppose I should be happy to have a job but at the same time things have to improve.

I am pushing through to November 5th for now and am saving/reading/dreaming about leaving. One of the best feelings I can think if is that feeling the day before a long trip to a fun place. It is a drug, a rush, and an emotion that I am addicted too. If I cannot travel and see new things then what is the point?

Lost Work Luggage: My own fault

Today I am dealing with a problem at work. I left the company tool bag (expensive!) in the trunk of my rental car in Boston. I have tried several times to call the Hertz office there and always get voicemail. *Sigh* it is going to be one of those days. Yay.

When I was originally leaving Boston I planned to leave the tool kit at the job site. We scheduled a UPS pickup of it and my other boxes of spare parts. Based on my own (not so great) memory everything was fine. I became worried when my spare parts showed up and the expensive tool bag did not. The multi-hour headache began.

I called my client and they said it was not there. I called back to get another person to be sure. It certainly was not where I thought I left it. More attempts to call Hertz got me more voicemail boxes. I usually sing praises for Hertz as a rental company but this is fading fast.

I finally dig up some 800 numbers for Hertz. Still no luck. I eventually find a number for their business division. With some begging and pleading I get some *real* phone numbers for the Logan Hertz office. After several hours I have a human on the phone! Progress!

I get transferred to someone else's voicemail. Things look very dim again but I leave a voicemail and decide I will call back tomorrow if they don't respond. 20 minutes later my phone rings. It's Hertz! I actually got a human at the office! She says she will have a look and will let me know if they have the tool kit or not.

Another 20 minutes goes by and she calls back as promise. THEY FOUND IT! I breathe a massive sigh of relief and give them the company Fedex Account to ship it back here. I am very lucky as the last time I left something in a car (my personal GPS) it was never to be seen again.

Lesson Learned. I will now do an "idiot check" of all areas of the car before leaving. I blindly assumed I had left the tool bag at my clients office. Even if I miss my flight and have to do a $50 change fee it is worth not having the stress like this again. I will also make a point to ship the bag myself instead of a UPS pickup.

*whew* now it is time for a much needed beer.

Work Travel Frenzy!

Wow! June became a hectic travel month in a hurry! I will be out of town for work for a total of 8 days this month. This includes 3 round trip flights and 2 different cities. My new joke is that I live in the airport and vacation in Atlanta.

I orginally had 2 trips planned for this month but it snowballed into 3 with a project push back from a client. That is fine with me so I can get more miles and AMEX reward certificates from the Sky Club. Now that I am back in the positive I will bank any points that I can get!

I still have other travel booked too for July and am told more in August too. It sounds like more will come up between now and then too to add more miles to my belt. Such is life on the road. It all pays off when I board that first class flight to Asia in November. The light at the end of the tunnel.

Work Office/Job Shift: Getting re-settled

With our recent office move at work I am finally starting to get re-settled again. I am learning the ins and outs of my commute, have my new desk essentially set up and functional, and am getting a firm grasp on my change in responsibilities.

This change is certainly for the positive for me as I moved into project management full time. For me this means much more interesting work, more travel, and a nice addition to the resume. I am finally moving into what I actually wanted to do in the first place when I started here. It's only taken 4 years!

My anniversary with the company is next month. This is good timing with the job shift and I am hoping for at least a small raise since I haven't had one since 2009. My expenses have risen (due to inflation and mostly gas prices) and yet my salary has not. It even went down at one point! I am overdue.

If things fall into place as I hope I should come out financially ahead. The increased travel means more per diem that I can capitalize on and the side bonuses of more miles and other small perks that come with it. I will also get to see more of the country and hopefully go to some more interesting places along the way.

Big Office Move Tomorrow

I made it through one hell of a week. We are officially moving servers and workstations over to our new office in Downtown Atlanta tomorrow morning. Hooray for unpaid overtime!

I will actually come out ahead overall in this move. I will get to start taking the train to work therefore saving gas and more wear and tear on my car. I will also be in a much better neighborhood with lots more to do near work. I can take the train to the airport on travel days if need be also.

My office will be a corner office with windows and in a much quieter and nicer building. I have a lot more food options and and interesting place to walk around when I am ready to pull my hair out after a meeting. It will certainly be a welcome change of pace after 4 years in the dump of a warehouse that we were in.

Now if I could just get a raise!