I'm Running a Sh*tshow, Part 1

We're moving!

No, not the Siamese Kitten and I. She and I are staying put in our fourth-story apartment for one more year, waiting to see if the housing market calms its tits enough to allow the possibility of moving on up in 2024.

To be honest, I believe the Siamese Kitten is currently living in her final home. She is in her sunset years, and I think she is feeling the loss of her brother the Chongers almost as much as I am. She remains snuggly and feisty and full of surprises. But...well. 

The concept of the Rainbow Bridge is
kind of schmaltzy, but it's there when you
need it most.

But that is not what this post is about.

My IRL office is moving. Not just moving. Moving into a space twice as large as our current space. That is a gut renovation. And combining two separate companies into one following an acquisition that quite frankly has been a nightmare. That's a whole other post. Possibly a book, or an MBA class case study. Seriously. Whoo boy.

I envy people who are able to believe Office Space
is fiction.

Drunkards, guess who is in charge of this shitshow?

My boss and I, purely by serendipity, are like two very oddly shaped jigsaw puzzle pieces that just fit. He is extremely savvy, a strategic thinker, supremely drama-averse, and a master of giving people enough rope to hang themselves. I, on the other hand, am ingenuous, a tactician of the highest order, fascinated by drama, and I deeply distrust the noose otherwise known as "opportunity."

(This is actually a running joke between us...He'll approach me and say, "I have an opportunity for you," which always means I'm about to have some difficult and/or distasteful task offloaded to me. But we both understand the euphemism and acknowledge that I'm banking points every time I run with it, so it's all good.)

We complement each other, and we work together really well. And for better or for worse, he likes to challenge me. So he's made me the acting CEO of Operation Spend $2,000,000. Yeah. Me. Who never had a thousand bucks in the bank until she was in her 50s and who is quite frankly awful at managing people, places, or things.

But super good at nouns.

To my credit, I understand the stakes here: I cannot fail. It's not that I'm too big to fail, like an American bank or airline. It's literally that I'm too small, scared, and insignificant to fail. If I screw this up, I take the fall. And by "the fall," I mean "the ability to pay my rent and my bills, because I'll be screwed like a turtle on its back with no other turtles to show up and flip it over like you see in those adorable videos."

It's not a pretty thought, is it?

I am rising to the challenge, I think? And in the next few posts, with your kind indulgence, I'll outline some of the humorously terrifying (terrifyingly humorous?) ways I'm handling the day-to-day adventure of managing contractors, vendors, landlords, corporate overlords, grumpy co-workers, and one extremely pissed-off custodian who hates my guts.

If you're so inclined, tune in and take notes. There's definitely a TED Talk in here somewhere.

Next up: Mental labor vs. physical labor, and why I'm not good at either.