I made a mistake in my dates and so I have a few chapters to edit and upload and I have work tomorrow morning. Gonna be rough.
So, to make myself feel better, what are you time crunching this week?
Nothing at all. I’m on vacation 🏖️
That’s awesome! I can’t wait to be on vacation. I have one booked, I just have to let them know when we have time to go. We’re hoping for March or something idk lol
At work we have a contractual design deliverable that was due yesterday, I still can’t get anybody to tell me what I’m supposed to be designing/building. I’ve got the contract, but its so vague that it’s more unhelpful than it is helpful and there’s apparently been 9 months of conversations with the customer, none of which have included engineering, nor has anything from them been written down. So we’re designing something just based on rumors.
So we’re in crunch mode, but also we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish… 😩
That sounds terrible! This sounds like a really common situation I hear in certain industries - vague idea guys postulating stuff they know nothing about and expect some sort of return from their " genius " space intended.
Even worse when the culture of asking questions is frowned upon, “you didn’t get what I was saying?” is such a horrible tactic. I’ve had to deal with this type before, but thankfully I worked in the arts and so that’s a little more expected, and abstract. Or the other way around I guess, lol. One that particularly stands out was a lead dancer that “had a vision” for his stage lighting and it was one of the longest, most drawn out, egregiously tedious experiences of my life. Wanting things that he knew we couldn’t do (we showcase our space every time and clearly detail our ((few)) limitations), wanting things that I’m pretty sure don’t even exist, needed to change things multiple sets back after we’ve moved on from them.
The sort of thing that look like there’s no planning at all. The fucked up part is that it was almost the opposite, he has 2 full notebooks for this 3 hour performance which is just like kind of unheard of for staging.
I will say though, I made it work and it was a great visually stunning show, with things that I haven’t really seen before. So I can’t really fault him in particular, because he also actually really did put in the work. It was just absolutely terrible to create. I don’t mind getting lights to flash with the beat, but getting cues for individual drums in quarter and 16th notes is… Draining. And there was so much more manual work than there should have been, there’s a normal amount of cueing and changes for a team to do and then there’s the team working through every single song with no breaks. Like we were those overhype DJ’s with a prerecorded set.
My master thesis, due on monday, and I’m having major concentration problems 😫
It’s been a few hours, I hope it hasn’t persisted! When I’m having those issues I like to make a list of all of the other things rambling around in my head. Set a 3-5 minute timer and scribble those thoughts down! Then take a short walk around, like 3-5 minutes, come back to your list and write anything else down.
Then go back to your project!
I like to do this any time I start feeling restless or distracted, because that way I get my thoughts out, “make progress” on something else, and then further extrapolate on those thoughts and get some blood flowing. Makes it easier to come back with a clear conscious!
Nothing.
I participated in a game jam, which ended wednesday. We submitted tuesday evening, in a satisfying state. It’s a prototype, it doesn’t have to be perfect, or complete, or thorough.
We die invest time, but I don’t consider it crunch.
Work has some high priorities but nothing immediate pressuring.
And private, no commitments or short term must either.
That’s great! I’m finally at this point after a stressful few days, I was up til 2:45am (pretty normal for me) getting the final upload sent off and had to get up for work for my first day of on the floor training at my new job… Well, I guess that last part was obvious.
Point is, I’m exhausted! Haha! But work today was actually easy enough, I’m officially someone who can serve food (but that’s not my job). My last 96 hours have honestly been almost entirely compromised of work and I’m very glad to have this 3 day weekend
Just existing as a first time parent. I have a huge amount of respect for anyone that has two or more children, because one is already stretching me to my limits. To get anything accomplished requires stealing time from something else. So over time, everything is in a state of being half-assed, overdue, or forgotten.
