(Finger-flyin' transcription action... just like what I did all weekend!)
Yes, that has been my life the past few days. We received a large (read: MASSIVE) transcription project at work for an upcoming book. I work at a publishing company, and this is the fourth major transcription I've been involved with. Basically, the authors conduct interviews and send us the audio files. We then transcribe the material, and they use it as source material for writing the manuscript. Since this book is on a crash schedule, the transcription had to get done literally overnight.
On the positive side, being up til 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. the night of and following Daylight Savings Time really eases you into the adjustment. Not that I would recommend this approach....
I haven't totalled up my hours over the weekend yet, but I'm guessing it's somewhere around 20. The craziest part was that we had an emergency on Sunday night, which required that a coworker and I stay up all night to finish the job in time to make our deadline on Monday. Fortunately, I have an understanding and appreciative boss, so I left work early on Monday and came in late today. All told, I think I slept 4 hours Sunday night/Monday morning and 11 hours Monday night/Tuesday morning. (Average: 7.5 hours, so I guess I made up my sleep debt.)
Conclusion: sleep is an amazing medication! I felt awful this morning when I tried (and failed) to get up at 7:00. But after another few hours of peaceful slumber, I felt like a new person. No more headache. No more nausea. No more "kill me now" look in my eyes as they hovered over ugly purple crescents. Yay for sleep!
One final word on the subject of working weekends: I'm really glad they're not a regular occurrence. I have come to realize that I need my social life, my downtime, my vacuuming and cleaning, my crocheting and cooking, my movie nights. Work is a blessing, and a job you enjoy is even better. But I am really, really happy this project is finally done and over with. The excitement of this rush job was fun for a while, but it's good to have things back to normal. Overtime is like California. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
How about you? Any stories of having to work overtime and/or ridiculous hours? Do tell! :)
Last weekend was a blur. I'm so happy that we are able to enjoy relaxed weekends this week.
ReplyDelete