"You just saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars," said the wide-eyed executive after Fuckless Amy and I completed our presentation. That part, I knew was going to happen. But I was rather hoping that history would repeat itself, too.
When I started at Microsoft, I was coming off the Fucking Amy debacle, and working hard seemed like an excellent alternative to sitting in a rocking chair and sobbing all day.
It was a ratty outdoor rocking chair I'd plucked from the side of the road, the only chair in my apartment, so making some cash had some appeal, too.
And work I did. I worked monstrously hard. In that time, I:
- Worked 12 weeks in which I averaged 84 hours a week
- Worked six weeks without time off. Not so much as a lunch.
- Worked a 104 hour week (do that math)
- Housebroke young Ed in my office
- Ate most of my meals while standing over the grocery bags my concerned manager left on her guest chair, tearing through them—in her words, "like a pregnant, stoned raccoon."
- Watched with my also-overworked co-workers while paramedics carried out the corpse of one of our colleagues, who had dropped dead at his desk. "Lucky motherfucker," someone said as we went back to work.
- Kicked ass on my project.
- Was thanked by my manager not for producing but "for not dying."
I had pulled off a professional miracle that became legendary, at least in our uninteresting professional circle, so thank you, Fucking Amy, for so thoroughly shattering my life that you made my career. The halo lasted a decade, and I never worked remotely that hard again. Sometimes, I worked precious little. Felony little.
Although I have no desire to work those hours again, I do desire the early miracle that earns a halo. Basically, I want to get to the coasting as quickly as possible. Thus was our miracle solution born, thus was it presented, thus was it eagerly received. While I prepared to put my feet up for the next ten years, the exec took me out to dinner. He kept ordering me drinks. Here, I'll put it in trophy bullets again:
- 2 glasses of red wine
- 3 double bourbons and then, when he saw the fortitude afforded by my Slavicness/fatness,
- 2 quadruple bourbons, for a total of 14 bourbons
- 3 rum and cokes (this is when I was sobering up)
That part, I didn't mind so much. But it turns out he has a miracle-wishlist, each problem gnarlier than the last. I don't have the vaguest idea of how to solve any of the problems on this wishlist. Or as it's come to be known, "John's to-do list."
Crap.