arontius | This carnival called work.

I don't know why, but my job constantly amazes me, even after 18 years of service to the Federal Government. Last Friday we received word that a ship in Japan may need some emergent repairs. We didn't have many details, but we promised to monitor the situation. One of my co-workers came in on Saturday and then I came in on Sunday for about four hours. When I left on Sunday at about 2PM things were still waiting for resolution.
Then POOF, Monday morning came. I walked into the office at 5:30AM and immediately the phone calls hit. The ship in trouble wanted a team of people on site, with all the equipment needed to do repairs, and we were informed that we were already late. I immediately started making phone calls, setting up conferences, writing paper and agreements, getting shop people organized to get their tooling and equipment together. By 8AM rolled around we'd already held two planning meetings.
It was non-stop chaos all damned day long. I was constantly on the phone or in the Conference Room. We charted our course of repairs, started getting travel orders together, initiated emergency protocol to get passports prepared. I was focused as hell and felt sorry for anyone that got in my way. I was pretty vicious. One engineer promised me technical paper by noon and when I didn't have it I went up to his desk and demanded it now, now, now. Not my proudest moment.
People in Japan started arriving in their offices for the day at about 2:30PM our time and I was at least gratified by the fact that they were impressed that we were as prepared as we were. I mean I was ready to have people in the air late today!
By the time I left the office at 6PM, we had our entire plan on paper, a team named, travel orders in process, most tooling and equipment packed. I mean, we were ready to go!!!
This morning I showed up in the office at 5:30 again, as usual, and grabbed the overnight turn-over. Sometime after I left, the base in Japan had figured out a solution on their own and sent word that they no longer needed our assistance.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I was ready to hit something at this point. I was so ticked off that I had to go and take a walk around the block to cool down before I started the day. I then spent the rest of the day going to each and every person involved in yesterday's firedrill and thanking them for their help (and apologizing for my attitude where needed). I'm actually glad I did that, it helped put things into perspective and reminded me that I work with other PEOPLE, not just the automatons that the Navy thinks that they have hired.
For me it is very, very important to keep my home life and work life very separate. At work I'm 'Mike Rogers' and at home I'm 'Aaron Rogers'. I have noticed that both Mr. Rogers' have slightly different attitudes in the way they approach things. I'm not entirely sure that my friends would appreciate 'Mike' very much. And I'm not sure that I could as nearly proficient as possible at work if I let the whimsical 'Aaron' off of his leash very often. I try not to think of this as a sign of mental illness on the possibility that it could be. :-)

Aaron / Arontius.