Whenever a show finishes, I sometimes feel a bit lost - as if I should be doing something, but I'm not. I feel like I should be getting ready to do something tonight, but all I have is a small church rehearsal.
It's not just creatively, either. Although I work full-time, I find I'm unable to devote my entire attention to my job (obviously that's never the case, since I'm typing this here at my desk). But it's moreso during a show. Now that the play is over, I'm trying to jump headlong back into my real job and I notice things I either neglected, set aside till later or just missed or let slide while I was "gone". One of them jumped up at me yesterday afternoon, when I learned that while waiting on a set of web updates to come from a particular department, said department decided to contract out to a 3rd party vendor for their services. Which completely circumvents the entire purpose of my being here - I'm charged with handling all web design for the whole company, and for someone to go behind my back and spend extra money for someone else's design is a huge slap in the face, an unprofessional action that involved deception and irresponsibility. Tomorrow I'll see the person responsible for it, and I will need to contain my own emotions and maintain professionalism when all I want to do is chew them a new one.
It's so wonderful to be appreciated for the things you do.
Meanwhile I received today a wonderful note from one of the members of my King and I band thanking me for the opportunity to play and complimenting me for how I handle that large part of a show. It was very kind and considerate of him to do so - he in fact had nice things to say about everyone involved - and in that case I felt quite appreciated, as if the things I do and work hard for actually meant something to someone.
We put up Christmas lights last night and the night before - I'll try and get some pictures if I can snap that 2-1/2 minute window between when I get home and when it gets too dark (see what I mean about hating Standard Time?). At least I get to spend a little time with my family now before everyone goes to bed...
We're gearing up for the first performance of "The Atomic Horns" just after the new year. It's a wedding, then we play a huge gig at a fundraising gala for the Oak Ridge Playhouse. I'm enjoying and looking forward to concentrating on the band for awhile and laying off the theatre. In fact, unless something irresistible comes up like a directing job (ha! talk about unappreciated...) I'm going to do nothing performance-wise but the band for the first half of 2007.
So at times I drift, sometimes I'm stable. Not sure which happens more right now I'm looking for a rope...
My comment relates to your being upset, in your second paragraph, with your cohort's enlisting another web designer's services while you were "gone" (not physically, but perhaps intellectually or emotionally) from work with your creative side activities. It strikes me that a more productive emotional response to that situation would be to ask yourself how you might avoid being "absent" from work when your co-workers need your service.
ReplyDeleteJust from what I read in your post, your co-worker's action seems more like a "slap in the face" to wake you up saying, "Hey, I need your help. Where are you?" than it does as a manifestation of unprofessional, deceptive irresponsibility. My recommendation would be that you look first at how you might do the job you are being paid to do before you decide to "straighten out" your co-worker for going behind your back to get the work done that he or she needed done.