FedUp: Just before leaving on our cruise a few weeks ago I bought a t-shirt in the likeness of the FedEx logo that said “FedUp” which I thought was pretty funny and also made the perfect statement about how I am feeling these days about the state of the world and particularly the state of politics in this country right now.

Lately I’ve said often that I feel as though we’re living in an insane asylum. And feeling perfectly helpless in the middle of it all other than writing one more letter and sending one more email to our congress persons and senators plus signing petitions. I’m beginning to think the whole world has gone crazy including myself. Sheesh!

And today in particular it seems everyone has gone off their rockers. And today in particular I’m feeling like I wish I was not in business for myself. Frankly, today, being in business sux… big time.

My clients are making me crazy. While I do not miss the old days of metal type — or cold type and paste-ups for that matter, when making last minutes changes truly was a nightmare — still, today, all the changes to jobs I’m working on for my clients — all jobs with tight deadlines at this point — have reached the point of ridiculousness.

Technology is making me crazy, too. Anymore it seems like I feel more and more that technology is passing me by. There is so much to keep up with and so much new to learn in both the areas of marketing and in the tools we use for modern designing on a computer, and today is one of the days that I just have to throw up my hands and admit that there are some things I just simply do not know how to do.

I don’t mind admitting when I can’t do something. However, my inability of the moment puts me in a bind right now because the people that I normally would call on to help me out with these things are buried in their own deadlines and can’t necessarily stop what they are doing to help me meet MY deadlines.

After being wishy-washy for lo, so many months about the direction I want to take my business — along with always trying to figure out how best to mesh running a business with my traveling RV lifestyle — I’ve finally come to some decisions and have been working on creating an entirely new web presence including the creation of some ebooks and other marketing materials, and it seems like no matter what I do today, everything puts me “behinder” in getting my own stuff done.

In my book, when you’re in business, it is NEVER okay to complain about client work getting in the way of other things that one might want to be doing, but dang it, today these clients are certainly getting in my way.

The coup de grace, however, has to be that good old UPS has mis-delivered a package of said marketing materials and they can’t seem to get it back. Even though UPS delivers a good number of packages here nearly every single day, in this particular instance some lunatic took it upon him or herself to decide that this address is not valid, and rather than try to track down the valid address (even though this address most certainly IS valid) this person decided, quite arbitrarily, to choose another street to which my package would be delivered. And now it is lost.

I cannot even begin to recount the lunacy of the conversations I’ve had with UPS the last few days over this mis-delivered package, several of those conversations having taken place just today, adding to my feelings that the world has lost its collective mind. It is simply inconceivable to me that someone at UPS who is in the business of delivering packages, would make that kind of decision. I simply cannot fathom what they could have possibly been thinking. Trying to fathom that simply gives me a monumental headache.

What does give me great comfort in all this, however, is that UPS has been totally upfront with me about what happened, no matter how stupid and inept it makes them look. Good on them.

Actually the coup de grace might possibly be that also today, early this morning, while doing a search for something else in my vast collection of emails, an email from my friend Linda, who died in November, popped up and seeing that set me off. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the reality that she could still actually be gone forever. Quite simply, I want her back. Alive and laughing and even causing me grief.

Linda and I worked together — and were the closest of friends, she being more like a sister to me — for nearly 25 years and her big joke on me was always that if she had something she knew I wouldn’t want to hear or that she knew would cause me grief for some reason, she’d call me up and say, “have I told you how much I love you lately?” That was my cue that what was about to follow would cause us both some consternation, and today I would love to pick up the phone and hear Linda say those words to me. Sigh.

Then, to add to my feelings of frustration and misery, it is also tax time. My accountant is soon going to say “sorry” if I don’t get all my stuff to her soon, and I wouldn’t blame her. All the financial stuff that comes with being in business is the part I hate the most. So I ignore most of it as much as I can for as long as I can until I HAVE to get things done and then my stress level goes through the roof. It’s all of my own doing of course, I can certainly own that. I could have been working on this stuff long before now. I mean, I’m not an ENFP for nothing for heaven’s sake.

But all the same I’m still not liking being in business for myself today. Again, I don’t mind owning my stuff. I’m quite happy taking responsibility even for the way I’m allowing all of this to make me feel today, but the trouble with owning all your own stuff is you have no one else you can blame!

So you might ask, if you have all this stuff going on, and so much work to get done, why are you sitting here whining about it all in a blog post? The answer to that is simple as well, it’s making me feel a lot better to just kind of blow off steam.

And, I thank you for “listening.”

Now, I think the only thing that will make me feel better and help me to face all the rest of the stuff I have to get done is to indulge in a big ole pile of fried chicken. My comfort food of choice. Followed, perhaps, by large quantities of ice cream. Or cake. I love cake.

Of course, all I really have to do is remind myself that five years from now none of this will matter. Hell, none of it will really matter tomorrow will it?