Well thank God that's over...

I've gotta say, this week totally sucked.  We have recently embarked upon the implementation of a new ERP system where I work.  I am part of the four person implementation team.   We were told to expect to spend 50% of our time on this project for the next 6 months as we work on a go-live date of Jan 1, 2009.

This week, the four of us were in training from about half of Monday and from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with an hour and a half for lunch.  This means trying to get my usual 50 or so hours of work done in the remaining time.  My entire team is working OT on a regular basis as it is.  I have nothing left to delegate.  This is really not going so well.  I'm working 12 hour days and falling farther behind.

In addition, our sales department is doing their annual regional sales meetings.  Usually they pack up and go to the individual regions.  They figured since we had this brand new location this year that they'd bring all the salesmen (RMs) to us to check it out and at the same time promote teamwork and morale and all that other stuff our company promotes in our products.  They asked each department to do a 15 minute presentation to sub-groups of 3 or 4 RMs at a time.  This means 5 times each on 3 seperate days.  The first five presentations were yesterday.  Yup, in addition to all this other crap, my department wasted 2 1/2 hours dealing with this... AND we get to do it twice more next week.

On the bright side, the RMs had to vote on best presentation.  IT won.  We got a $50 gift certificate to take the department out to lunch.  I'm told that they will vote on this at the next two sessions as well.  At least if I have to do this, I can reward my team for it.  I'm hoping to take all three awards so I can take them out for a nice dinner instead.  We'll see.  I'm ramping up the presentation a bit in such a way that will keep it on track, not add any time to it (since I can't), and will add a tiny bit more flair to it, while at the same time getting a bit more participation from the people on my team that didn't participate.  It's not like I'm super competitive or anything.  ;-)

Now on to a nice relaxing weekend of database design for United Health Care.  Monique is off at work all day, so hopefully I'll get a solid day of programming done  (once I'm done goofing off updating my LJ that is).  :-)

The Little Mermaid

Last weekend for our 26th anniversary, Monique and I both took off Thursday and Friday and went into NY for 3 days and caught two Broadway shows, The Little Mermaid and Spamalot.  We had a ticket / hotel package that included The Little Mermaid, so I'll review that one here.

( Critique behind cut )

Oh, fun little side note.  I have never in my life seen so many young girls in one place all dressed up in little princess costumes.  Too cute.

Spamalot

When we went into NY City last weekend, we decided to stay over an additional night and catch a second show.  We decided not to be picky and see whatever we could get for discounted tickets.  If you are on a budget, aren't picky and don't mind waiting in line, this is the way to go: http://www.tdf.org/TDF_ServicePage.aspx?id=56 .  This place has tickets mostly at 50% off and no handling fee.  Of course, they also only take cash or traveler's check.  You have to get there early.  I was in line about 12:30 and got my tickets at 3:00 for an 8:00 show.  They don't have tickets for the shows that are still selling out regularly and you can only get the tickets for the very next show time, no advance tickets.

So for instance, I couldn't get tickets to Wicked or The Little Mermaid, but tickets were available for Avenue Q (a must see BTW), Mary Poppins, Phantom, Hairspray, Spamalot, Mamma Mia! and Rent (just to name a few).  We decided to go see Spamalot in spite of my reservations about whether Monique would like it.  She hates Monty Python, not at all into that weird British humor.  She has not been able to force herself to sit through The Holy Grail or Life of Brian.

( Critique behind cut )

This show absolutely made the trip completely worthwhile.  I can't recommend it enough (after Wicked).  :-)