Could be Worse. But Not Much.

This week has been about the worst on record.

It started with the contraction of the awful disease the rest of the family carried around and I thought I had missed. But it came back with a vengeance for the second time to Claudia, and I couldn't duck it this time.

So just as I was getting sick I had to get on a plane to Toronto. Ever been sick on a long plane trip? I would not recommend it.

Getting in well after midnight Tuesday morning, I got a couple hours sleep in between the misery and got up like a trooper to go into the client office.

My directions were wrong. By the time I realized I was going the wrong way, the scheduled start time was already a dead issue. First meeting with client, you get lost and are late. While sick. Keep up with me here.

But I call and explain my dilemma, fight my way through horrible Toronto traffic, and eventually reach my destination.

My primary contact for the event is the most unpleasant woman I think I have ever met. Ordinarily she would seem to be an attractive female; blond, trim, well-dressed. But her face is permanently screwed into a terrible sour snarl. Sort of like someone who was peeling an onion and sucking on a lemon at the same time.

I felt like the guy who just ran over her cat and now had to work for her for a week as penance. She was angry, bitter, acerbic, haughty, distrusting, and downright mean. She made it clear from the very moment of our first meeting that she absolutely despised the software system I was there to help her understand. And so, by association, she apparently hated me as well.

Ok, Mr. Dan, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help a woman understand the software her company has been running for 8 years. But the woman hates that software, hates you, and thinks the software she used back at her old company sliced bread, put the children to bed and cleaned the floors. This tape will self-destruct in ...

So for three days I go in to work with the dragon lady in perhaps the most openly hostile situation I have ever experienced in my 25 years doing this. I go back to the hotel, which takes an hour at night through rush-hour traffic, because she specified a hotel that's cheap and 30 minutes away in good traffic.

At the hotel, I do some of the incessant work that never stops that I have to do every night, sick or not. Then I collapse in bed and try to sleep. But whenever I start to drift off, a choking coughing fit wakes me up. Only about 4 or 5 AM does it seem to settle down enough that I actually am able to sleep a bit. But I have to be up by 6:30.

Then the trip home consists of flight delays, so again it's around midnight when I pull into the garage. I still can't sleep, so I try the reclining sofa. Doesn't help, I still only get about 2 or 3 hours. I drag myself into the office, still lots of work to do and a big pile of messages to return.

So of course, here I am at 7PM on Friday, having quit for the day even though I'm far from finished. In fact, I didn't even get to start on what I had planned for today, because another client popped up with a fire they wanted me to put out for them. So that backs up today's work to Monday, but Monday was already promised for two other things, and something's going to back up to Tuesday, and the client with the fire sounds like they'll be back as well. It means I get no weekend to recover from my illness, let alone relax or do something fun. Wednesday I go to Phoenix and will get back Sunday night, just in time to do late-night laundry, re-pack, and drive off to Chicago early Monday morning. Makes me imagine being even more tired than I am now.

Is there anything good about this week? One thing I can think of. I'll get paid. Not nearly enough for what I went through, but there's that.