Wake up call

This past week at work, I did end up working a 60 hour week and I probably should have worked a bit more than that in order to get things accomplished.  Throughout the week, I found out that my name came up as someone to send to a national conference this upcoming week.  It took a couple of days to iron out all of the travel arrangements and get the conference fees paid but it all came together and I leave VERY early tomorrow morning.  Because I am going to be gone, I had to do my best to get ahead with things going on at work.  I got almost all of my "to-do" list done but I wasn't able to get it all accomplished.  Oh, well...  The work will still be there, waiting for me, when I get back in a week.

After my conference details had been confirmed, I had a couple of people at work ask me if I was going to change my "look" in order to attend.  I was pretty proud that I said no.  My suitcase is packed and found within are my "fun/funky" clothes and accessories.  I decided that my boss and the boss of my boss know who I am, what I choose to wear and how I choose to accessorize.  Why should I change that just because I'm going to a conference?  What's in my suitcase are things that I would wear to work this upcoming week so why shouldn't I have these same clothes/accessories in my suitcase?

Something else that was a big wake up call has been the amount of hours I have put in so far this year.  Being salary, I get paid for an 8-hour day regardless of how many more hours I put in than that.  I have been tracking my hours since January and this past week one of my coworkers created an Excel spreadsheet for me as a way to track my hours individually.  When the numbers since January until now were keyed in, the total of hours beyond an 8-hour day were.... how else to say it.....  just plain depressing.  There is no other way to say it - the total number of hours is depressing.  I won't list the exact number on here but I will say that if I could actually take the time off of work to equate to the extra hours, I wouldn't have to go to work for a few months.  Yes, I could actually take months off of work due to the extra time I have put in and I find that sad...

It is definitely nice to know that before too much longer I have a couple of week vacation away from everything and I will be able to spend time with my family.  I trust the people who take over for me in my absence but I worry about the "cat's away, the mice will play" mentality that often occurs in a workplace setting when the boss is gone (the boss being me).  At some point I know that I just have to look at it as whatever that's going to happen is going to happen when I'm gone and everyone (myself included) will have to deal with whatever consequences when I get back.  Yes, I'm a perfectionist but this perfectionist needs to learn when and how to let go...

Well, my dear readers, I know this is a pretty short post tonight however I have a plane to catch very early in the morning so I should probably attempt to get to bed at a decent time this evening.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some sleep since it's going to be a long travel day tomorrow and then a long conference week.  Hopefully while I'm there, I will learn a lot as well as openly embrace the opportunities to let my muchness shine!  I hope you take/embrace the opportunities to do the same!  =)