Whoops

You ever just totally misread an email? It doesn't happen to me often, but in this case it went like this.

From: Client
To: Alaska

Hey, you know that thing you were going to do for us by next Friday? Can you add a few more pages to that? We'll give you till the following Monday if you need it.

love, Client.

I think, "Oh, that was due Friday? I thought it was due Monday. Well, sure, I can do a few more pages. I can do their stuff over the weekend and have the whole week to focus on MainClient."

So I tell them that and they say, "Great! Here's a list of the additional pages, love ya, bye." And I glance at this and make a mental note to print out that list before I get started so I know what I'm supposed to do.

So here we are sliding into Friday evening and I've already put in 52 hours this week on the computer for Main Client. I'm feeling a little burnt out, and wondering if I can steal any time from tomorrow to finish up this last bit so I can knit and stare vapidly into space tonight and maybe go to bed early (not that it'll do any good because I still have raging insomnia). So I go print out that list.

And choke.

What the ORIGINAL email really said was:

From: Client
To: Alaska

Hey, you know that thing you were going to do for us by next Friday? Can you add the (specific kind of page) and (specific kind of page) to that? We'll give you till the following Monday if you need it.

love, Client.

And if I'd taken a moment to pull out the chart and COUNT those pages I would have realized that they were saying, "Hey, would you mind if we doubled that?"

So, on the upside, this weekend is now worth a LOT of money to me and mine. On the downside, I sincerely don't know if I can do it. Max has the championship swim meet in the morning. I can't bring the computer with me because I only get a half-hour of battery life anymore. Besides. Computer + swim meet? I dunno . . . . that's a lot of water to be around. And anyway, I'm in charge of filling out little stickers to go on the backs of ribbons during the second half. I'm better off bringing my knitting and trying to suck up all the anti-burn-out I can.

So I have from about maybe noon (none of us really know when the meet will be over but it's only the ten and unders and the first race is at 9am) to about 6pm. Then I have to take Max back to the end-of-season picnic for an hour. That's okay. I have to eat, too. Then work again until midnight. Then get up early on Sunday . . .

:::chews finger nails:::