Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Stressville: Population 1

Yesterday I found out that my company won a contract for a pretty neat alternative transportation planning project at Arches National Park. When we bid the project, we put me in as Project Manager to managed Berger's part of the project (public involvement, light facilitation, and a greenhouse gas analysis) as well as two subs (subcontractors - specializing in transportation planning and landscape architecture). I am super excited. Most of the projects I was managing ended recently and I have missed it.

The project has a short timeline, though, and will be kicking off the week of August 29th with a four day workshop. I will be leaving for Europe on the 31st. yeeps! I will be in DC the entire week before and had planned on going to Pittsburgh with friends for that weekend. I'm really sad, but I've had to change my flight to come back into town on Friday. Saturday will be spent packing for both the Arches trip and for Europe (thankfully the clothing choices won't overlap!) and then Sunday I'll drive the 6 hours to the park. I'll stay for two days, introduce myself to the planning team, then my boss will take over for the final two days and I'll drive back to Denver. I get to turn around in probably 8 hours and then head to the airport again.

These schedules aren't unfamiliar to me. Back in February I did something quite similar with back to back to back trips from New Orleans to Seattle to Philly. At least this time I won't be changing as many time zones. And essentially the first full day of Europe travel is spent on a plane and I can sleep. I'm glad to know all this with a few weeks notice so now I can start pulling together lists and buying anything I might need in advance. Including my awesome walking shoes that no one seems to like but me :)

I'm a little apprehensive about being away from work for so long. By the time I'm back in the office, I will have been gone for a solid month. The control freak in me is doing my best to set people up with assignment while I'm gone and let my clients know who will be handling any issues with my projects while I am out. I'm also a bit proud that my company thinks I have enough experience to actually propose me as project manager on bigger proposals, but also that they think it is important that the client meet me and will spend the extra money to send both me and my boss to this workshop when they could have just sent her and saved the expense. Also the trip will score me extra hours that week which means I can use less vacation time. Its a win all around!!

I will be required to drive to Arches two more times before February and I'm hoping to get to see a bit more of the park with the remaining trips. Hopefully I can drive down to Canyonlands and get to put another pushpin in my National Park map!

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