Working Smarter, Not Harder

I certainly need some lessons on this motto. It's been five years since my escape from the cubical farm corporate gig that made me crazy. Spinning my wheels on endless projects that meant nothing to me, excessive meetings about nothing, late nights and fluorescent lighting that drained your energy were what led me to a six month sabbatical.

Once in Europe I was poor, but living a much more relaxed life style. Until I joined the ranks of the tourism industry during the summer months. Then I remembered why I had been on sabbatical! For those who have ever experienced the tourism industry, you know what I'm saying. It is not for the faint of heart.

Well, neither is my current position. It seems to be a bit of a cross between the corporate madness of looming deadlines, sitting in front of a computer screen all day and frantic phone callings trying to pitch an idea to someone who would really rather not be listening and the complicated logistical planning and glorified babysitting job of tourism.

The job sounded pretty interesting when I interviewed. And basically it is interesting. We develop and administer educational training program worldwide. Sounds like it'd have all the components of my 'perfect job': education (I love to teach), writing, travel, public speaking, and hosting. True, the job does possess most of these components in some way. However, I've seen no travel opportunities come my way, the writing is of the technical nature, not the creative kind (typical in the workplace, of course) and I don't get to DO the teaching, I just plan the programs for others to do the teaching and training. I'm as high in the company as I can go. There is the president and me. We do have an intern who works two days a week and just recently I talked him into hiring a bookkeeper (another one of my many duties, and not my forte).

So, I'm working like a dog, still babysitting dogs because my 9-5 gig doesn't pay very well, I'm working late on a Friday night and I'm reminded of the phrase "work smarter, not harder." I'm going to need to dwell on that over the weekend and come up with some solutions! I am going to the NAFSA : Association of International Educators annual conference at the end of the month and will be doing some heavy networking.