Every other Tuesday morning, I have a meeting at work that I can not miss. The meeting starts at 9 AM, and the most senior managers attend from every business. This includes the CEO, several members of the senior Board, etc., etc. So basically it's a bunch of very important people doing very important things, and my job is to help organize the whole thing, make a record of everything that takes place and prepare one of the senior managers I work with who attends the meeting. Sometimes I have nightmares about missing this meeting. In the dream, I will wake up in a panic, see that it is 10 AM and have 16 missed calls on my work Blackberry. This would basically mean the end of my job, unless I came up with a really good excuse that nobody would believe anyhow.
During Bachelor season, this meeting greatly gets in the way of my Bachelor blogging duties. I mean, if any of these people watched The Bachelor, they would understand why the Tuesdays after Bachelor I might be a little bleary eyed. Show nights often keep me up until 2 or 3 AM drafting a blog, doing a video review or just chatting on the phone with friends at something ridiculous that happened. But since we are in the off season, I don't have this conflict.
This past Monday night, trying to burn off a few 1000 calories consumed during Thanksgiving weekend, I went to the gym after work and ran 3 miles. After the workout and to The Husband's dismay, I made a decision that I was too exhausted to shower. The rest of the night was devoted to cleaning up the apartment and laying out my business suit for Tuesday morning's big meeting. By the time I crawled into bed, I couldn't even remember whether the lights were on or off, whether my phone was charging or if I had said goodnight to The Husband. Sleep found me quickly.
When my eyes popped open the next morning, the first strange thing I noticed was that the sun was up. It's normally pitch black when I get up for work, the alarm normally set for 6:08 AM. Had it gone off? I didn't hear anything. When I finally was able to squint at the clock, I realized it was 7:10 AM. This sent me into an immediate chant of "Oh F__K! Oh Sh__t! Oh F__k!" At 7:10 AM, I am supposed to be at Grand Central sitting on or heading towards my normal 7:24 AM commuter train. This was 14 minutes from now. I ran to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and washed my face. Looking in the mirror, I realized that my hair was no longer wet with sweat from the previous night's run. Instead it was greasy, frizzy and probably smelled bad. There was no way I could go to that meeting without showering. And if I showered, there was no way I would make the train and therefore the meeting. This was a disaster.
I put on my suit, grabbed my gym bag, work bag and purse and ran out the door. At this point it was 7:20 AM. There was no way I could make it to Grand Central in time. I had 14 minutes to get up to Harlem, where the train would make a stop at 7:34. I was luckly able to find a cab and make most of the lights up to 125th Street. About one avenue over from the train station, the traffic was at a standstill. I paid the taxi driver, did a full on sprint to the train platform, seeing the train coming from a distance. Dripping sweat, I arrived at the stairs which led up to the train. I ran up the stairs just as the train was coming to a halt. The doors opened, I ran in with all my bags. Sighhhh.
Fast forward to the arrival at my office at 8:30 AM. I went from the lobby of the office building straight to the gym, where I had been 12 hours earlier. Walking into the locker room, I grabbed a couple of towels on my way, threw all of my stuff into a locker and prepared for the quickest shower of my life. There were several people that gave me strange looks. Probably wondering why someone dressed in a suit comes to the gym and showers before the workout. After the shower, I got dressed and noticed my Blackberry flashing. The email said, "WHERE ARE YOU??!" The senior manager I support wanted to meet before the meeting to go over the agenda. It was now 8:46 AM and I was ready to go. I knew that if I didn't get food in the next 3 minute window, I wouldn't be able to have breakfast since the cafeteria stopped serving after 10:30 AM and the meeting would not be over until then. Running across the building from the gym to the cafeteria, I grabbed a small box of cereal, paid, and then took the stairwell up three flights to my floor, dragging all my bags.
As soon as I walked into my office, the senior manager's secretary said the manager was looking for me and to call him on his cell phone. I called him and it turns out he had been down near the cafeteria looking for me. We agreed to meet in the conference room to go over the meeting materials. Strangely enough, the meeting was the easiest part of my day. Lesson learned: don't forget to set your alarm clock.
As if Tuesday wasn't stressful enough, I think that I came into contact with some bad Thai food on Wednedasy night. And perhaps it's Murphy's law, but I had an 8 AM meeting at work the next day - with the same senior manager. So all of Wednesday night was spent in the bathroom playing Words with Friends and hoping that someone would put me out of my misery. At first it felt like I had been inflated and just wanted someone to stick a pin in me, but then it became a battle between nausea and other unmentionable bodily acts. The good news is that because I didn't sleep, I did not forget to wake up and made the 6:58 AM train to work.
It's time to get the Husband to stop reading the sample version of Steve Jobs' new book off his iPhone. He doesn't know it yet, but I already got him the hard cover version as a gift for the holiday season. He's contemplating downloading it as he thinks it's only appropriate to read Steve's book on the device he created. If he attempts to do this, I will need to arm wrestle the phone away from him.
Enjoy your weekends. I will check back in shortly.
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