Out Of Control

I'm at an odd point in my life.  I don't think I've ever felt so out of control of things before.  I remember when I first started working at IBM as a co-op I had a hard time because I had things that were being added to my list of things to do.   I got to the point where I couldn't do them all with the hours I was working.   My manager met with me and told me something that was so foreign to me at that I never forgot it. 

He said that my workload may change over time and I'll find that I'm not able to do everything.  At that point I would evaluate everything and decide what thing or things I would decide to not do so that I could focus my time on the other things.   

Not do something you were told you had to do?  That made no sense.  That wasn't how things worked.  You were told to do something and you had to do it.  Things weren't optional.  But his advice made sense when I thought about it later.  There were "busywork" sorts of things I'd been given to do until I was up to speed with the project and could do more meaningful work.   At that point, there was no benefit to doing the other work, which benefitted only me from an educational standpoint.  

I find myself in that position a lot these days.   The frustrating thing is I'm already eliminating all the things I feel I can plus I'm not able to get to a lot of things I really want to do that will build my knowledge which will payoff in the long-run. For now, I keep thinking some day I'll get caught up.   I'm starting to wonder if that's going to happen when I'm a grandmother. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son could have gone to the beach for an overnight trip with his friend from school.  He didn't want to because he would be away from screens.  He didn't say this, but we suspect it.  He said he'd been away the entire last week and he just wanted to be home. 

The Tiny Girl Terror:  My daughter is reckless and cautious at the same time.  She had Kix on her shoulder and was running down the front, wooden stairs today.  It scares me to no end when this kind of thing happens because it could be the death of one of our guinea pigs.  Tonight she handed one off to me and we did a clumsy transfer.  Cheerio fell four inches and landed on his side on the metal grid wall, fell forward and  hit the hard desk and then bounced on the carpet.   She and I screamed and I got him and he made a strangled sound.   My daughter was terrified for a few minutes. I had to calm her down and let her hold Cheerio to be okay about his fall.   I told her that was minor and we'd been very lucky, because running down the stairs and one falling to the hard floor from a shoulder could be very bad indeed.   I think I got the message across.