I forgot about a major part of Project Management- never, ever leave. Do not call in sick, do not take a day off, do not have a family function, and for heaven's sake, do not take a vacation.

Why? Because bad things always happen.

Trust me on this.

It's because as a Project Manager you have your style and your system and your way of doing things and then when you go away, somebody covers for you and they have to figure out your style and your system and your way of doing things. This is why bad things happen. Because the person covering you is always stressed out in covering you, can't figure anything out, and freaks out when something happens. It's especially worse when that person is also your boss and that person, and while you have all the respect in the world for them, they're a bit wound up lately and a bit of a perfectionist. Not to mention in possession of major control issues.

The result? One day I'm "doing a great job," the next day I'm "doing everything wrong." From everything coming up roses to everything coming up shit sandwhich. And all of this happened because I went away for one- one day.

A long, long time ago, the first time I had the kind of job I have now, I had an impossible magazine to manage, an impossible sales staff to deal with, and impossible learning curve. Things were not going well, but it was more just bad luck than anything else. Then my Grandmother dies. I go out to Jersey, sit shiva for a week, come back to my job and found out that due to the Sales Person's aside that she liked the person who covered me much more than she liked me, I found myself inches away from getting fired. I was saved by some other sales people who vouched for me, but I wound up getting moved off one magazine and onto another. Yes, it all worked out for the best, but when something goes wrong with your job due to you taking a week of to sit shiva for your Grandmother, one tends to get a bit paranoid whenever they take off. After all, one shouldn't be almost fired when one comes back from mourning their fucking Grandmother.

That's why I knew it would happen. It kept me up all night, thinking about it, wrestling with the dread. It's happened before. It always happens. And it did.

And all this while I'm so fucking tired and so fucking frazzled and my back is killing me and I've been working like 10 hour days for the past week and I'm burnt out and I've been so stressed and working so long that I haven't had anything remotely like a social life for the past couple of weeks and my stud relief pitcher is about to be traded to the Yankees and all I want to do is drink a shit-load of wine and pass out until the week is over and all this craziness will be gone.

Ugh.