Work Hours and the Quest for an Even Keel

So, for the last couple of months I've been working an enormous amount of overtime -- and for a while I was commuting to Lansing along with my 12-16 hour days. I haven't added it all up, but I'm pretty sure there were some 80 to 90 hour weeks in there. If I were able to take the overtime as straight comp time, I'd have a couple of weeks off. That won't happen, but I may be able to get a couple of days.

Thankfully, we have mostly shipped our product -- at least the test builds and the prototype hardware. We are getting away from our frantic scramble -- worried that the fate of the entire project might hinge on some intractable hardware or software bug -- and back to a more normal pace of development, which will mostly involve bug fixes and clarifications to the specs.

Yesterday I worked only eight hours. It was a remarkable feeling, driving home while it was still light out. I took baby Sam for a walk, and realized I'd almost forgotten how to interact with my children. The evening seemed really long, and that was only partly because it's almost midsummer. I'd gotten used to work being such a preponderance of my waking hours that I wasn't used to having any to use for much of anything else.

I'm not going to spend all that new-found time blogging, but I'll try to catch up a little.

Here's to the adjustment back to having a life!