rush, rush...

This week has been critical at work... final testing and integration before we ship to the Arctic, and a dry-run. We passed it successfully. And buying tools and supplies to be shipped up there next Tuesday along with the drill and electronics and an ATV.

Meanwhile... I have a group visiting today from JPL about the lunar mobility studies. And someone has tried to remove our automation software from the Mars Scout proposal, not getting that getting the drill stuck, ends the mission. Sigh. So I've been in several telecons over the past two days, trying to argue why we have to have something monitoring and controlling a drill, why it can't be done from Earth.

Meanwhile... given my sister-in-law's condition, I dropped off Pat Wednesday and she's in Atlanta until Sunday afternoon. So I'm also trying to be a single parent, leaving work to rush the kids to appointments and then rush back again.

Meanwhile... school ended Wednesday, so all 3 kids are home.

I'm just a bit stressed and frazzled and have only gotten to the gym once this week. Last night the kids and I were supposed to join tenacious_snail for a poolside BBQ at her complex... we didn't arrive until 8pm (worked late, and getting the kids ready), dinner wound up by candlelight at 9:30pm and I didn't get in the pool until a brief soak at 10:30pm.

Today... I'm waiting for someone to call me back... just rushed through a lunch at Fresh Choice with cyan_blue and the kids, she's taking them to see "Cars" this afternoon.

mediocre reviews...

My boss stopped by my office a few minutes ago... we have a two-step review process this year. There's an initial evaluation, then the paperwork goes up the chain of command where a rating is assigned, then it is sent back down to the employee to sign. Today was the latter. I had expected an overall "Meets or Exceeds" rating, not the upper-10% "Distinguished" rating, but I'd expected that a couple of the individual subelements would get the higher mark, in places where I'd been innovative or gone far beyond expectations. Nope. Straight M/E mediocrity, all the way across everything.

Apparently I was dinged for minor paperwork delays in things like reading and signing monthly safety statistical summaries... which offset my technical and project victories. I was told that I have to be "absolutely flawless in a given area, without susceptibility to even trivial criticisms" to be considered for the highest rating.

It had already been a stressful week, this is just the bitter-flavored icing...