My Job Takes an Unpleasant Turn

With Dave being gone all week in Frankfurt, I am alone in Paris for the first time.

Whenever he takes business trips I tell myself that I'm going to take advantage of the free time and go out and have fun. But that never happens. When Dave leave town I lose my appetite (why bother cooking when there's no one to cook for?), I work too much, and the cat and I just sulk around moodily until he comes home.

And this first trip from France has been no exception. But honestly, the timing couldn't be better; I've been having a really hefty week at work.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my boss, a couple of managers, and the project leader of the software. They had all convened to present me with a new responsibility, a high-profile project that will be applied to the whole company across the globe. With absolutely absurd timing, naturally.

I was excited about my new role until the end of the meeting, when I asked about all of the other tasks I have scheduled for the next weeks. Will I be passing them onto someone else? To my surprise, the answer was no. I looked at each of them in turn as they smiled benevolently at me like kindly grandfathers who had just given me a pony.

What?

I spent the rest of the day quietly freaking out. How am I supposed to get all this work done?
At the end of the day I dragged one of our consultants into an empty office and give him an earful. He shook his head, said "you're right" over and over again, and promised to review the team's workload.

In the meantime, I'm relieved that at least Dave isn't home to be mad at me for working so much this week.