Long Days

Today was a long day.

It is the kind of day that lasts two days. Undoubtedly, the stretch of meetings that we've had in the past two days attributed to this feeling of break-less-ness. I even dreamed about work last night. It is an awful thing to think that your peers are in your bedroom. Ever.

Still, long days can be valuable. I enjoy not being plugged in every moment - and while most of us were scrambling during our (few, precious) breaks to check e-mail and get cell phone messages - the deluge of issues and challenges (how did they put it? Fires, I believe) that normally swarm like wasps-on-the-warpath was not so prevalent.

The communication is also valuable. I am not saying that I enjoyed everyone's company, but I did enjoy getting to work with folks out-of-element. It is so easy to gather assumptions about someone when you only ever talk to that person on a phone. You imagine features, demeanor, bad habits, etc. Of course, just as if you are creating an image of a character from a book, the reality is something entirely different (although, I am happy to say, that both my imagination and the reality came closer in one instance than ever before).

What might be most interesting is the perception of achieved outcomes. I am taking the low road by suggesting that if any outcome was achieved, it was that of rebuilding the start of team and setting some boundaries and expectations for the growth and expansion of trust between and among teammates. I would not say that many other outcomes were realized - and, unless this team remains fairly static over the next year - I am not sure goals beyond that of "team" can be realized in this setting. The talk is too general, to guarded, to introductory to cut to the meat and potatoes of the important issues.

I feel like I'm blathering. And it could be because I've had two full days of meeting speak and that can spin anyone into a sort of business-team-leader-committee-group-share-assessment-metric-mantra.