As many know, I had been on my sabbatical from Intel for the past 9 weeks. It was a wonderful time. I completed many of the TO DO’s that I set out for myself. All good stuff. What I want to write about is that first 24 hours of getting back in the groove.
Last night, I was busy preparing for the next day drive to the office… Had to set the alarm clock – now that one hurt a bit. Not that I slept in late and did nothing the whole time.. But, I did not have to hear that annoying sound of an alarm. My internal clock told me when to get up. I had to gather up all of my work belongings. You know put the laptop back in the bag, insure that the AC adaptor was in the bag and all of the other office items I brought home (over the 3 other sabbaticals – I have had a few items come up missing from the old desk). Since I had not seen my badge in 9 weeks – it was a bit hard to remember where I last put it (found it in the glove box of the car).
I woke up bright and early – too early! I must have been excited to get back at it. 9 weeks is a long time. I was really looking forward to the drive in, getting to see my cubicle farm mates and get started earning my paycheck. I am so glad that I wrote down my laptop password, because if I had to remember it – I know I would be calling into the help desk for a password reset. Once logged in, I got my usual IT updates from all of the time I was off. After 30 minutes or so and a reboot. I was off to opening up email. I wondered how many I would have. I guess about 5 thousand! Well, I was off by 100%. 10K emails were in the inbox. Spent most of the morning deleting!
From time to time, I had folks stop by and get caught up on the doings of my sabbatical. I got caught up on what I missed while I was out. Office environments are way cool sometimes. For those folks that were not physically in the office – I got some instant messages (just happened to see you logged in – you back? – of course, why else would I be logged in).Got some more emails – just like the IM’s.
What all did I actually get done. Well, the inbox is under 125 unopened. Deleted a bunch, answered some and filed the rest. Should be all back to speed in a couple of days. Had some great discussions with folks. Touched base with many others. Some even told me they read my personal blog to stay up on my happenings. Read plenty of material on the internal professional networking (blogs, forums, wiki) tool to get up to speed on other items that are important to me.
Definitely a long and tiring (but exciting) day!
Be First to Comment