June is only four days away and it is already fully booked. I cannot believe the professional and personal commitments that are already on my calendar for the month. Has this happened to you? I am trying to figure out if there will be any “down” time for me.
This is Memorial Day weekend – the unofficial beginning of summer. The weekend is a true reflection of what this summer will be like – it has been hot, humid, soupy with the sun and clouds playing peek-a-boo. The roads are crowded, as are the supermarkets and bakery. As most Americans, today I will be grilling steaks and potatoes; with that we will have a corn, pea and green bean salad, coleslaw and sautéed mushrooms and onions. We have two desserts with the requisite beer, wine and sangria. Let summer begin.
But, as I put together today’s festivities my mind is going over all that is beginning in the next few days and will continue right up to the 4th of July. I have three weeks in a row in which I will travel – in some instances I will really only have a day and a half at home before I am out the door again. I have no one but myself to blame.
This week I fly to Minneapolis on Thursday to attend the in-person Visual Communication Industry Group Board Meeting. I will conduct my standing Project Management meeting on Thursday then head over to my cousin’s so he can drive me to the airport which is only 20 minutes from his home. I will get into Minneapolis at 10PM and we begin our meetings on Friday at 8:30AM – same for Saturday and then I have a 6AM flight out of Minneapolis on Sunday – since I am flying back to my local airport there will be a connection and I will not get in until 11:30AM.
Next I will fly out to Monterey, CA to review the hotel which is the venue for our conference in October; but, that will not happen until I support our Annual Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, June 7th. There will be anywhere between 800 to 1000 people at this meeting and we will also be awarding exemplary personnel from each of the 15 hospitals. This meeting is scheduled to begin at 4PM and end at 6PM; however, I am guaranteed that I will not be able to leave the venue until 7PM. There is no flight that evening – so I will be driving to Newark, staying overnight and leaving my car there as my flight leaves Newark at 5:30AM. Isn’t it a good thing that I can generally fall asleep on an airplane before it even takes off. My return flight is the red-eye on Saturday night.
I then leave the following Tuesday for Las Vegas to support the VCI-Group exhibit booth at InfoComm with my friend and fellow Board Member, Catherine. As soon as we arrive we will need to head to the exhibit center to set up our booth – we begin our manning duties on Wednesday at 9AM. We do have one great thing planned – it will be Catherine’s birthday while we are out there and to celebrate it I am taking her to see the Jersey Boys show. We will be taking the red-eye home on Friday night and then that Saturday evening I head off to my cousin's to celebrate my niece’s 29th birthday.
That is all just personal and VCI-Group work. On my real job at North Shore I am busily reading two RFP responses for managed services – although tomorrow is a holiday and technically we are off from work I will be doing a synopsis of both responses and making my recommendation for which company will be awarded the contract.
We finally have signed our Verizon web ex/instant messaging contract and during the month of June we will be transitioning our 50 pilot Users to our production site with Verizon, giving this service to an additional 400 people and having them trained on the product.
I also have two job postings and am conducting interviews for those roles – I want to fill them as quickly as possible.
And lastly, is the annual budget process – we are beginning to put together our budget for 2013. Last week we had one of our first meetings to discuss the operating budget – it all seemed simple enough; but, once the spreadsheet has been completed we will need to do our power point presentation for it. Next will be the capitol budget – this one is always much more difficult as we are trying to determine what equipment needs to be purchased, what it will cost, etc. It also requires a justification unlike the operating budget which is generally a carryover from the previous year.
I am almost looking forward to July 1st – I have a wedding to attend for a work colleague and my thoughts are that generally things get a little slower at the Health System in July and August. So for now I have my running shoes on, I am making sure that I take my vitamins and I am watching what I eat so that I might survive June.
Let’s not forget what the real meaning of this long weekend; it is NOT that it is the unofficial beginning of summer – it is a time to give thanks to all of our service men and women who have given their lives for us and continue to do so.
Let’s Give Thanks to our Service People.
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