The past two weeks have been … odd. Last Monday started with word of Jack Layton’s death and the week was passed in sombre reflection as a nation (plus a whole lot of political machinations). This Monday began with news that one of my colleagues had died over the weekend and we all went into a collective shock — she had been at work on Friday. The effect this had on me at work was to focus me on the task at hand — if I was working I wasn’t thinking about being mortal. It helps that I have a deadline for a project that launches a week tomorrow and that was in danger of being further delayed by some misunderstandings between the many team members. It wasn’t just me who focused; we managed to come to an agreement on how to move forward on the project after which I just put my head down and worked.
Today was not much different though I had to start by catching one of my co-workers before she logged in and saw the news via email. I have to say that delivering bad news really, really sucks, but I know she appreciated hearing it from a person. More work followed and I am happy to say the project should be under control by late tomorrow or Thursday, despite some considerable tech hurdles.
Outside work, I have been working on… well, other work. Last week saw the official re-launch and re-branding of Those DeWolfes Creative and today Mike ordered business cards and SWAG (t-shirts and pens, woo-hoo!). I’ve been gathering subject matter and drafting structure for the classes I’m going to offer (looks like fall, rather than summer) and drafting other things, too, including articles, blog post ideas, and a shiny distraction of a book that I plan to crowd-source among my friends.
Some of this drafting has been done via WriteRoom for the Mac, which I won from the ProductiVardy podcast (well, actually from the Facebook page for the podcast) by answering a trivia question.* I’m finding it works well for drafts but my brain really likes to see some formatting along the way so the plain text, while efficient, doesn’t keep me content for long. It may be just a matter of getting into the habit… but for now, I keep switching to other programs after the idea is blurted out.
Aside from writing, I actually worked up the nerve to call a “lead” this evening (sales is not my strong suit) and coming full circle back to the University, I also interviewed for a different job. I won’t know the committee’s decision for another couple of weeks, but… fingers are crossed.
It’s definitely not all work though. After playing late into last night, I managed to get to three stars on every level in stage one of Angry Birds on Google+ :
… And on a more social note, we did go out Saturday night and enjoy some food, friends and drink… which is where that shiny distraction of a book idea originated. More to come… eventually.
*I actually wasn’t first to answer the question and the rule was “first person to answer…” but the person who did answer first was willing to skip the prize, so yay, me!