Thirty-one hours by Wednesday

Including the four hours I worked on Sunday (see last post), I have worked 31.75 hours this week. It's only Wednesday! This is unusual for me. I have always thought that if you cannot get your work done in a normal working day, then you are doing too much and should be delegating stuff.

The problem this week is I am the one to whom the stuff has been delegated. As reported late last week, with the boss away, I am now having to attend his meetings, complete his reports, carry out actions assigned to him, and field the queries that he normally filters out and deals with on a daily basis. On top of all that, I have still not completed all the actions I assigned myself at the last two Condor workshops.

And I'm loving it!

Today, I attended a weekly meeting of all the Programme managers. Fortunately, I have been around long enough now to know all the attendees, so I did not feel uncomfortable. The boss took me along to one of these a couple of weeks ago, so I knew what to expect. That reminds me, I still need to check on the cost estimates for the post-implementation work outstanding....

Following that, I got into a discussion with the woman co-ordinating the Release planning for the rest of the year, about resource requirements. Again not something I'd normally do. I pleaded ignorance to give myself some time to investigate what everyone is doing (I'll cover that at the programme meeting tomorrow), and said I would get back to her before the end of the week.

So far so good.

Following that was another meeting with the Business on the portfolio of work planned for the next year or so, and the high-level status of each. Again a meeting the Boss would normally take care of, but it was interesting to interract with my customers and hear their - sometimes opposing - views on IT.

A conference call on project Condor took us up to almost 6 p.m. and time for me to pack up my brain and leave. Ten-and-a-half hours of meetings and note-taking. I am doing my 'real' work between 7:30 and 9:30 in the mornings. After that the meetings and the phone calls start.

Oh well. Only another three weeks to go.