I went to work at 1 PM yesterday (Sunday) and met with my student consultants until the last of them left around 9 PM, and then I stayed till midnight to finish up preparations for The Big Day. Then I came to work at 7:30 this morning. It’s past 10:30 PM right now and I’m still here. A 15 hour shift! Wahoo!
Ahh, the first day of classes. Printers silently ignored fratically-sent print jobs. Entire operating systems declared their resistance to the human race and willed that no one should log in. Poor freshmen ran through our building in search of classrooms that did not exist. Real Player just would not play the instructor’s streaming media files. Nope. Ahh, there is nothing new under the sun. Not even the wide-eyed new consultants who find themselves asking me about some inexplicable behavior in the cluster every five minutes. Fun! I love a good puzzle. Mentally riffling through every possibility within the confines of a system, hacking together quirky workarounds to keep things moving forward, bending the rules of the game just enough to achieve the client’s goal — making it all seem easy, almost magical. I love it!
I got to see all of the consultants who worked today. Such a rare pleasure. This is the beginning of a great year, even if lots of stuff didn’t work right today. That’s just the way of change and progress, and I’m glad for all the new consultants who got to experience the chaos and the celebrations firsthand. I think I was still feeling asleep about this year as late as last week, but now I feel wide awake with anticipation. And I suppose I do thrive on the sense of the heroic.
Ready for tomorrow? Oh yes! I love Week One! See you at 7:30 AM, James.
Haha…I’m ending my RCC day right now at 2am.
…But then again, the girls whose PCs I fixed got me a Starbucks Brownie-donut. 🙂
Hilarious dude. Thanks for talking about the consultant and consulting manager life…it’s like I get to be there from way out here.
you’re cool. any guy that social dances is cool.. hehe, i dance hip hop at our rec center cause it’s free and fun and a good work out. i’m also learning swing, but i had to pay to be in the club. but it’s fuN… especially when you’re partner has no clue what he’s doing. (should i pull her this way or push her this way? … maybe i’ll just do both). at least that’s what it seems like. lol
You know, even though I hear “everyone needs sleep,” I want to deny it. Know what I mean? 😀
I think I saw you last week! Walking with some people, apparently coming from the Thai place in Jordan Hall (to which I was going). I would have yelled to say hello, but people usually don’t hear me when I yell, so I look like a weirdo yelling something out for no reason. Or like a loser, since the other person appears to be ignoring me.
so, how did week 1 go? and week 2? did you survive it all? speaking of the thai place in jordan hall, i miss it! one of the few places that made stuff that was actually spicy — enough to make you sniffly. what a wonderful feeling. 🙂