Of never ending work and unreasonable clients...

Disclaimer: Crib post ahead. You have been warned.

Ok, so we'll keep this one short and sweet...or maybe not (the sweet bit, that is)...after all, it IS a crib post. So, to get to the point...am sure all of us have gone through times when there is frenetic activity at work and life just seems like a blur, where days merge into each other...well, I am going through such a phase now. Not for the first time, obviously, but what makes it especially disconcerting is the fact that I am travelling so much after a prolonged gap. 

Now I am a girl who likes her seven hours of beauty sleep. So you can imagine how distressing the past fortnight has been for me, when I tell you that every alternate day in the past fortnight (and I kid you not on this one) has been marked by early morning flights, along with its attendant evils, namely waking up at unearthly hours and the brain downing shutters in the early parts of the evening because of lack of said quota of beauty sleep.

That the client in the matter (legalspeak for assignment) for which I have been travelling so extensively is Cruella De Ville personified does not help matters for my poor addled brains either. For it really is not a pleasant situation when one manages to drag self to office on a Monday morning, bravely defying Monday morning blues, only to be ambushed by a call from said client, precisely fifteen minutes after switching on the system, which client thereafter systematically proceeds to numb my eardrums by way of a ten minute soliloquy in a voice that resembles the sound of a chainsaw more than a human being at the pitch that would put a drill sergeant to shame.

Several weak attempts at reason later, I finally manage to get in a word sideways when said lady pauses for breath and hurriedly apologise for not meeting her expectations (given how she has been going on and on about the Firm not meeting her expectations etc.)...never mind that our team was totally not at fault on this one and the reason for said ten minute soliloquy was a missed sentence in a 200 page document, which statement was, in my humble opinion, not a big deal really....ah well...

So anyhoo, after having pacified said lady and sweettalked her into talking in a voice that at least began to faintly resemble that of a homo sapien, I was only beginning to thank the God Almighty for such small mercies when she erupted again...this time very graciously (and entirely without being asked to, please note) to tell me how I should arrange my day to ensure that her work got done and how I should forget about my obligations to all my other clients just so I could focus on her work. Once I had managed to recover from the shock at the nerve of the lady, I quickly put the phone down at the first opportunity in order to avoid a tongue lashing, which in my opinion, was certainly in order for said lady. 

Ironically, I happened to glance at that precise moment at a pamphlet that the company in question uses, and which had been lying around on my desk, which says in bold letters, "CUSTOMER IS KING". It was at this moment that I took this to be a signal from the good Lord and chose to swallow all the righteous indignation I had been bursting with precisely three seconds ago...for as far as said lady was concerned, she certainly practiced what her company preached and in her mind there was obviously no doubt that the customer, which in this case was her, was certainly king (or is it queen?)

And that is how, gentle reader, it came to pass, that I am now working to meet the lady's whims and hoping we can meet her expectations this time around (pun totally intended)...it's time to sign off now, and sign in for a call with Cruella for a status update. Ah...life!

On the positive side, maybe this experience will teach me to appreaciate the semblance of music in the sound of a running chainsaw... :)

Toodles!