Hurry up and wait

The past several weeks at work have been exciting and extremely stressful at the same time. I’m responsible for a trade study that will have a significant impact on our “mainline” vehicle design, and the final presentation is next Thursday.

It’s been really cool to meet some higher-ups on our greater guidance and control team, and I’ve gotten a few nice compliments on my work so far from some coworkers. I like days like today where I get to present the stuff that I’m responsible for and I’m busy enough that by the time I glance at the clock before picking up my lunch, it’s already 3:00. It’s a far cry from a few previous jobs I’ve had where I’m so bored and/or frustrated that I’m ready to leave for lunch by 10:30 in the morning.

The downside, of course, is that I’ve been working long hours and I’ve periodically gotten frustrated with a few people and have done a less-than-stellar job of hiding it. I think Josh has become immune to reacting to my nightly stories of, “Oh! And guess what else happened today?!” This project has been getting in the way of other things, like training for the 10-miler that I’m supposed to be running in April, and it’s been stressing me out in unexpected ways. When I finally sat down to eat my lunch today, for example, my jaw was so sore that it hurt to chew my squishy sandwich. Apparently I’ve reverted to grinding my teeth in my sleep, grad school fashion.

The other downside of being in crunch time for this project is that I have to keep running around and asking people questions, and of course, they have their own stuff that they’re in crunch time for. So I beg people for their time or their expertise, but then I have to wait until they’re free to talk with me, and then once I have the information I need, it’s back to frantic Matlab/Powerpoint cramming. So as you might guess, this past half hour has been the “wait” part of “hurry up and wait.”