big fish, little pond.

there haven't been many times in my life where I've felt overwhelmed by a situation. this is by design. I go out of my way to avoid failure. I set the bar REALLY low and generally do just enough to get by. I often fall short of other people's expectations based on "potential" but it rarely bothers me.

I've worked at my current job, off and on, since 1996. I've worked my way up from warehouse monkey to purchasing to my current position, "quotations department lead". the title is more impressive than it should be. I'm in charge of three people. one is a former manager, semi-retired, with about 30 years experience in the industry. he's great, and I never boss him around. another is a woman who has been doing the same job, badly, for 35 years. she's a dinosaur and an utter bitch. I just try to avoid her. the third is the former receptionist, not good for much. she has a bad attitude and has been talking about getting a job at REI since the day she was hired.

my job is to coordinate commercial projects. usually, someone else quotes the job, and when we win it, I take over. I bring the required material in and release it as necessary to the jobsite. for the most part, it's really easy. I typically juggle around twenty jobs at a time.

I've got one right now that's kicking my ass. it's a two million dollar condo structure in bellevue. I was provided a spreadsheet breaking down each unit's requirements and due dates. there are over five hundred individual units to coordinate. each has slightly different material. and due to the customer request, I have to release three separate orders for each unit. I'm having to keep track of around 1800 separate orders, making sure the material is here on time and the orders are printed for delivery per the schedule.

I'm not that good. at least not without, you know, WORKING on it.

I fucked up. I procrastinated and let the job slide a bit too long. I ordered some fancy faucets from germany six weeks before I needed them. it's now been twelve and some still haven't arrived. the customer is pissed. I'm catching hell from every angle for dropping the ball like this.

every job has problems. we usually end up expediting material in to cover for them. stuff gets broken, or the customer changes their mind, of the factory sends the wrong item... there's always someone to blame.

this time, it's me. I should have ordered the shit long ago.

I don't like this feeling of mortality. I like feeling invincible. like I said, my job is easy. I get paid pretty well considering what I have to put into it. but I really don't like getting yelled at. I don't like failing.

the last time I found myself in this situation was college. I had coasted all through school, and the first few years of college, on nothing but native intelligence, manipulating the system, and bullshit. when I got to advanced classes I realised I had no idea how to actually study. I'd never highlighted a book. I usually only skimmed them. I was terrible at taking notes in lectures. I'd never needed to do any of this before. I got to my fourth year of uni, and I quit. I was completely lost and figured it was too late to learn. it's not like I WANTED to be there anyway. so I left school 30 credits shy of a bachelors degree and $40k in debt.

I'm to the same point at work. I'd never had to do much before now. I was always able to find quick and easy ways to cheat, ways of doing things more efficiently and yet taking as long as everyone else, and enjoying the surplus free time. as long as I was doing just a teensy bit more than those around me, that was good enough. who cares that I could do it with 20% of the effort they needed? if I really WANTED to, I could do just about anything in this company. I've been offered management positions and turned them down. too much work. too much risk of failure.

and it's not like this problem I have now will be difficult to dig myself out of. for the most part, each floor follows the same basic plans. room 613 is pretty much the same as room 713, I just have to make sure I catch any modifications. otherwise, I can just copy the order (most people would re-enter it by hand) and have it ready. I just can't procrastinate. I have to keep at this, not slack off, and make sure I stay six weeks ahead of things, at least. I can't pull shit out of my ass at the last minute anymore.

that's difficult during the day. there are too many distractions. too many phone calls, too many fires to put out. so I have to come in on weekends, when there are no distractions, to get everything set up. I'll basically have to work two saturdays a month for the next year or so to keep up on this. my incentive is not getting yelled at. well, and overtime. the extra money is nice too..

I need to work my way back to that little pond... life needs to come with cheat modes. you know how much easier things would be if there was an invincibility code?