The Work Madness

While David is busy studying, I’ve been MORE than busy working.  I now know what it feels like to have 14-hour workdays!  The last half of June I have worked till midnight most days.  Worked all day and then worked all night after a quick dinner.  I don’t wish this upon anyone.

Why the craziness?  Our company bought or acquired another company that had around 100 employees.  We kept most all of the employees except for a few.  But it had to be a hush hush process so even if we knew about it we couldn’t do anything about it.  Then after all the top guys finalized it, we had to wait for the financing to close and we were just waiting to know the date it would happen (and it just kept changing).  Acquiring 80ish employees may not sound so big but there are a TON of moving parts – changing their benefits, adding them to payroll in time of the next payroll run, new processes, new people, getting them moved into our building, holding a orientation meeting, etc.  And when I say “benefits” that gets so complex like 401k, medical, dental, etc etc… each one needs to be addressed.  And there are really only 3 of us HR people who can take this on.  And we had about 3-4 days to get most everything set up.  And then the day before the meeting where 50 eyes would be looking back at me for 4 hours, I put the PPT for the orientation together – talk about last minute!  But I couldn’t get it done any faster.  And as I did that training, it was pretty hard actually because there you have all these employees who are happy at their current job, where they work, who their boss is, their benefits – but here I was telling them all the changes to expect.  PTO would be less, they get to be at a bigger company with more rules, move to an old building… and wow, I just didn’t know that would happen.  And don’t really want to do that again.  I like being in charge and sharing my knowledge with others, but when it’s not happy news, I guess I should have thought about that one.  And of course the “HR meetings” get the bad reputation as everyone said “oh the rules, snoozer, boring stuff, ahhh..” etc.

So after the first few days of craziness, I thought I’d eventually see the end, but I didn’t.  And still haven’t.  Because while working on the integration stuff, my regular work just slipped and now I’m trying to catch up that as well as continue the acquisition stuff.  AH.  And I’m just getting more and more tired.  And so are my other HR counterparts – we just can’t survive this much longer.  At least the July 4^th week turned out to be more relaxing and definitely needed, except that I just didn’t want to be at work at all those days.

I’d say I now see the end in sight, but I’m not sure that will be possible.  Here are some funny or not so funny moments as of recent in the HR world:

• An employee emailed me today and said he couldn’t register in our 401k plan still.  So after a few back and forth emails we thought maybe the 401k company had his personal info wrong so I sent him his DOB and SSN to have him verify.  The next email came, very short and sweet:  Sorry, I just noticed I’ve been typing my birth date wrong.  I was able to log in.  haahah, really!?
• These aren’t funny but with all of the payroll and deduction changes I’ve had a lot of employees asking me if their paycheck is the same, or if they aren’t getting enough $$ etc.  And so I have to calculate everything out for them and do “math” so they can kind of get it but sometimes it takes me like 30 min to explain gross, taxes, net, deductions and they still don't get it.  Ah!
• It was a co-worker’s birthday this week, Dale, and so we are celebrating later but I went out and got us some cookies to celebrate with the HR team.  We stopped at his desk, gave him the card and cookies and then he said thanks and put them in his bag to take home!?  Maybe it would be normal but most every birthday if we do get cake or anything we all share it, and darn cuz none of us got any cookies!  I even said, if you want to put them over on the HR area we can all celebrate, but he said, no I’ll take them home to surprise my wife.  Wow.  Just an odd duck sometimes, well, like most times.
• And honestly there are so many stories just with all different types of personalities, I could never get through them all but they are good.  Some people are so strange, or just rude - lots are, and then there are still a few nice ones that even say thanks for when I help them.  Nice.

I can't think of more right now but there always is.  I guess it's good that my memory is very short so that I can block out a lot of the not so happy experiences.... ha.

(Me after a day out at the pool - finally a break! And a sunburn...)

My work life balance has NOT been good this past month.  And I'm finally starting to say "No More Please".  It's hard to do because a lot of what we do is so time sensative, but really, work is NOT my life and I can't let it take over my home life and other wishes.  I know I learn this lesson at least once a year, but maybe I'll get a balance someday that doesn't need to be fixed when the busy days come.  But knowing I'm a dependable person and want perfection, it makes me always try my best and probably work too hard for too long each week.  So at least as of today I'm going to get my life back into balance.  Especially as I don't get overtime, I should stop extending myself too much.  Hopefully my next work update won't be "I'm working too hard again..."  Hold me to it, okay?  Thanks!