The day started as a typical one...a love letter to my wife, followed by a blog message. It was getting very hot outside and my mind was already drifting to the tennis courts, part of my mid-week ritual. I was hoping to get all my work done in time to meet my tennis buddies for my evening work-out. There would be some extra assignments to do since our managing partner was on vacation.
Our #2 in command (he was also sick) sent me a text message that would drastically change the plans for the day. The text message stated that our production manager was in the hospital having his appendix removed. One of our employees had been going through cross training on how to put our magazines together to send to the printer, however, the training was untested and incomplete. I was the only other back-up and had only gone through minor simulations, never had to do the real thing, let alone the pressure of being late for our weekly deadline. We were already hours behind due to the emergency in the middle of the night. Since founding our company, this had never happened before. It was a scary moment.
A computer programmer, Shari, who helped us with our software set up a program on our computer to be able to see our monitor from her work site and she walked us through the process in time for me to still play a little tennis. Kudos, to our display artist, Alex, for rising to the occasion and showing us your gifts.
After a night of tennis, I went home exhausted. It was a scorching hot day. As soon as I fell asleep, the electricity went out around 11:00 pm. Unable to sleep, I went outside and laid down on our swing. I rocked the swing to create a small breeze. When I woke up, it was sunrise.
It is always nice to see the sun come up after a long night. My day from Hell was finally over. A new day was already heating up and it was time to go to work. We will have some great stories to share with the "A team" when they get back. I just want to make sure that the "B team" knows how much they are appreciated. You gave everything you had and got the job done, even when all the odds were against us. Thank you!
If you are facing a "Day from Hell", just remember one thing...the sun will come up tomorrow and a new day awaits you.
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