I’ve had a lot of meetings this week.

And just between you, me and the internet, I am really bad at the whole meeting thing.  I subscribe to the, “well done is better than well said” vocational mantra, and am of the opinion that talking about work is not the same as actually working.

I’ll stop there.

There have been a sequence of meetings this week that requested my presence, but were scheduled well outside of my normal business hours.  (Read as: 2 hours before I’m supposed to even be in the office.)

So I’ve had to get up and shower, prep my laptop for said meetings, then dial into a conference call on my cell phone and mute myself while I get Daphne out of her crib, change her diaper, and tote her downstairs to bed with me so she can watch Little Baby Bum while I listen to how someone’s software will improve our organization’s operational efficiency while optimizing revenue in a synergistic and hierarchically stratified methodology.  (I just retched a little after typing that.)

I’m honestly not sure which presentation required more thought…

What’s more, yesterday was Daphne’s typical scrambled egg day.  So I carried the phone and laptop into the kitchen and watched WebEx presentations on the merits of a particular brand of hospital billing software while I cooked breakfast for my daughter.  (Obviously I do not have pictures of that particular maneuver.)

Now I absolutely could have asked for help with watching Daphne.  I could have handed her off, let someone else make her breakfast, and taken these meetings by myself and without disruption.  But I didn’t.

Because, goddammit, this is MY time.

I already don’t get home until well after 7pm every night, and asking me to give up the few minutes of the day where it’s just my daughter and me is not going to happen.  At least not without a fight.

So, knowing all that, that picture up there suddenly becomes a bit more sad.  It becomes less of an amusing depiction of a guy and a little girl plugged into their respective digital screens, and more an image of a dad struggling to preserve what little time he gets with his family against the mounting pressures of a corporate work environment.

Hmm.

j.s.