Today was NOT a fun day. The plan was to catch up on last minute client SEO work until noon. Then I’d have all afternoon to pack (leisurely) prior to getting into the cab we’d booked for 6 pm.
But, to quote Burns, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley".
The trouble with running your own business is, when you go away, the work stops. So naturally I was trying desperately to do as much work for the clients as I could before leaving to make sure that nobody misses me when I’m away. My logic being, if the clients are getting good results from Google, they won’t even know I’m gone. And if I do get the odd email while I’m overseas, I can reply promptly, and they’d never even know I'd left the country.
Now this would’ve worked out just fine if all I was doing today was the regular client work. But I was also trying to launch a new website we just built for a client. And what with all the back and forth, back and forth with this particular client tweaking this and changing that, I’d underestimated the amount of work I had left.
Consequently it was well after 5 pm before I’d finished all the work I had to do, and even then the website still wasn’t 100% finished (so I had to leave Tony – my Head Tech – to get it over the line and launch the site tomorrow).
I will be the first to say I am not anywhere near as organized as I should be in my day to day life. But when it comes to travelling I am, for reasons that I’ve never quite been able to work out, super organised. This time however...not so much.
When you work for someone else and go on holiday, that’s it. You clock-off at 5.01 pm on Friday and voila, your work is done! After which time there’s nothing to do save organize yourself for the holiday. But when you’re running your own business, and you ARE that business, clocking-off has no meaning. It should, don’t get me wrong, it really should. But in the first few years as an entrepreneur in charge of any new business venture, there is no 5.01 pm, no clocking off, no ‘beer o’clock’ on Friday afternoons, no weekends, no public holidays, nor time off for good behaviour, no passing go to collect $200. There’s just, ‘What work needs to be done today?’ and ‘What the heck day is it anyway?’.
But, I digress...let's get back to today's fun and games!
So Alex arrives at my place, super organised, about 5.30 pm. And of course I was nowhere near ready. Consequently my packing was a mad, frantic, stressful rush and the cab came and went at 6 pm without us, and I was getting more and more agitated (why can you never find what you’re looking to pack at times like these?!).
By 7 pm – when we eventually got into a cab to take us to the airport – I was over it. Tired, grumpy and generally not a happy camper.
The cab driver said traffic was really bad on the way to Sydney airport due a broken down bus on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but I got him to take the tunnel instead (despite his protestations that we should take the bridge) and the journey was fine.
By the time we got to the airport my normal, Zen like ‘Holiday Mode’ had descended upon me, and all the stress of the day was finally forgiven and forgotten.
Which was probably for the best given that Alex, in her infinite wisdom, made us queue for 30 minutes in a line FOR THE WRONG AIRLINE (Air Asia)! Lucky for us, when we went to the correct Airline (China Air) there wasn’t a single person in the queue.
Now, I’m Catholic, and the quintessential ‘Caucasian’ (Part Celt, part Viking, all white!) and never get pulled aside for a ‘random check’ at airport security. Alex however is Jewish and ALWAYS gets checked. Consequently we have a running gag that this must be because the airports have ‘Jewdar’ to better point out any red sea pedestrians in their midst!
At Sydney airport, once again, I waltz on through with nary a care in the world, while Alex gets her usual ‘random check’ from some airport security type who thought she looked suspicious. But since we last flew internationally, Sydney has installed the full body scanners (that can see through clothes) and I noticed that the ONLY people being taken out of the queue and made to go through these were hot chicks in thin dresses. And I think Alex was secretly a bit miffed that she was deemed worthy of a ‘random check’ but not deemed hot enough to go through the full body scanner!
Naturally Alex denies this... :)
Once inside the airport we grabbed some food and Alex charged her iphone. Because, as it turned out, despite leaving the house and hour late, we still got to board our flight with plenty of time.
Stress? Not in Holiday Mode :)
But, to quote Burns, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley".
The trouble with running your own business is, when you go away, the work stops. So naturally I was trying desperately to do as much work for the clients as I could before leaving to make sure that nobody misses me when I’m away. My logic being, if the clients are getting good results from Google, they won’t even know I’m gone. And if I do get the odd email while I’m overseas, I can reply promptly, and they’d never even know I'd left the country.
Now this would’ve worked out just fine if all I was doing today was the regular client work. But I was also trying to launch a new website we just built for a client. And what with all the back and forth, back and forth with this particular client tweaking this and changing that, I’d underestimated the amount of work I had left.
Consequently it was well after 5 pm before I’d finished all the work I had to do, and even then the website still wasn’t 100% finished (so I had to leave Tony – my Head Tech – to get it over the line and launch the site tomorrow).
I will be the first to say I am not anywhere near as organized as I should be in my day to day life. But when it comes to travelling I am, for reasons that I’ve never quite been able to work out, super organised. This time however...not so much.
When you work for someone else and go on holiday, that’s it. You clock-off at 5.01 pm on Friday and voila, your work is done! After which time there’s nothing to do save organize yourself for the holiday. But when you’re running your own business, and you ARE that business, clocking-off has no meaning. It should, don’t get me wrong, it really should. But in the first few years as an entrepreneur in charge of any new business venture, there is no 5.01 pm, no clocking off, no ‘beer o’clock’ on Friday afternoons, no weekends, no public holidays, nor time off for good behaviour, no passing go to collect $200. There’s just, ‘What work needs to be done today?’ and ‘What the heck day is it anyway?’.
But, I digress...let's get back to today's fun and games!
So Alex arrives at my place, super organised, about 5.30 pm. And of course I was nowhere near ready. Consequently my packing was a mad, frantic, stressful rush and the cab came and went at 6 pm without us, and I was getting more and more agitated (why can you never find what you’re looking to pack at times like these?!).
By 7 pm – when we eventually got into a cab to take us to the airport – I was over it. Tired, grumpy and generally not a happy camper.
The cab driver said traffic was really bad on the way to Sydney airport due a broken down bus on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but I got him to take the tunnel instead (despite his protestations that we should take the bridge) and the journey was fine.
By the time we got to the airport my normal, Zen like ‘Holiday Mode’ had descended upon me, and all the stress of the day was finally forgiven and forgotten.
Which was probably for the best given that Alex, in her infinite wisdom, made us queue for 30 minutes in a line FOR THE WRONG AIRLINE (Air Asia)! Lucky for us, when we went to the correct Airline (China Air) there wasn’t a single person in the queue.
Now, I’m Catholic, and the quintessential ‘Caucasian’ (Part Celt, part Viking, all white!) and never get pulled aside for a ‘random check’ at airport security. Alex however is Jewish and ALWAYS gets checked. Consequently we have a running gag that this must be because the airports have ‘Jewdar’ to better point out any red sea pedestrians in their midst!
At Sydney airport, once again, I waltz on through with nary a care in the world, while Alex gets her usual ‘random check’ from some airport security type who thought she looked suspicious. But since we last flew internationally, Sydney has installed the full body scanners (that can see through clothes) and I noticed that the ONLY people being taken out of the queue and made to go through these were hot chicks in thin dresses. And I think Alex was secretly a bit miffed that she was deemed worthy of a ‘random check’ but not deemed hot enough to go through the full body scanner!
Naturally Alex denies this... :)
Once inside the airport we grabbed some food and Alex charged her iphone. Because, as it turned out, despite leaving the house and hour late, we still got to board our flight with plenty of time.
Stress? Not in Holiday Mode :)
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