There's no pleasing me!

I'm back from a well earned holiday this week. You just can't beat a "fly n flop" week of sun, reading and cocktails. No decisions to be tackled except where to eat and which book next, love it.

Travelling back, the thoughts about work creep back. Travel itself distracts for a while with its weirdness and mysteries. For example, why do I need to have my boarding card scanned to buy a pack of polos? How is it I can't take a razor through security but I can buy them the other side? Why every announcement by a cabin crew member total indistinguishable gibberish? Do they send pilots on a "talking posh and calmly" course as part of their training?

On my return though, I have realised that I am just never happy! There is no pleasing me.

So while I was away I went through the inevitable dread about what horrors awaited my return in my inbox(es). I had another VA manage my inbox, which covers my stuff and a couple of clients so in that regard I knew nothing too bad would be lurking (instructions were to forward any issues, everything else either a message to say I'd be in touch). Others just had an OOO. Some where I am just a task monkey rather than a person had nothing. So I psyched myself up to tackle the inboxes pretty much after I had unpacked, collected the dogs and fired up the kettle. Even when I was employed I couldn't bear leaving it until Monday morning. I had to KNOW how bad it was. My imagination about what could be there is almost always worse than the reality. When I was employed, I'd live in fear that a hideous mistake would have come to light while I was off or that the temp would be so amazing they wouldn't want me back!

And it really wasn't bad. Even the client one where I can sometimes get 60 emails a day (all actions!) wasn't awful - only 106! I managed about 2 seconds of jubilation before going into a blind panic:

"If I don't have a backlog of work what am I meant to do with myself this week? I've blocked it to catch up! This must mean that something is wrong, why is no one emailing me? Do my clients all hate me? Maybe they didn't even notice I was gone? Are they all going to fire me? I don't have enough work and I need another client" (I know this to be true at present, that's really no surprise but I've had odds and sods of ad hoc work that mean I haven't felt quiet).

So my first day back in the office was serene and lovely and frankly, a bit too suspiciously easy. But it's fine as my standard level of overwhelm returned yesterday. But I've ordered a new notebook so it will all be fine. More or less anything can be fixed with some new stationery as we all know (a PA VA rule that is probably as much of a mystery to most people as the ways of airports are to me!).

Have a good week folks.

PS I have had lots of lovely people contact me saying that they read the book on their own holidays. Pretty PLEASE write a review on Amazon if this is the case. Thanking you.