Work again...

It's been one of those days.

We're in the middle of a major project at work that I'm heavily involved in. I wanted to take tomorrow - Holy Thursday - off, so I would have an extra day to drive to NJ and spend with the parents. I didn't want to mess up the project, though, so I asked my boss to verify that we wouldn't be doing anything on Thursday before taking the day off and telling the parents that I had.

So today I get an email that we are, in fact, migrating a few people, one of them being a very high up person in our department. So I email the parents that I won't be coming home until Friday, email my boss' boss and say I will be coming in and make sure it gets done.

So then said person and the higher-up come to my office, say they are moving it up so I can take Thursday off. So the good news is I get to take tomorrow off. The bad news is I look like a complete lazy-ass to some very important people in the organization.

The thing is that I'm not sure how I better could have handled this. I could have done as much as possible in advance, taken off, and hoped for the best, but I wanted to be around if something went wrong - both to fix it and to learn from it, as we are still ironing out some details. I could have not mentioned to the boss' boss that I was planning on being out, and just came in. That would have made me look good - but not let me take tomorrow off.

I guess I need to pick between family and work, and I'm not really sure what to pick. I don't see the 'rents much, they are getting up in years, and I want to spend time with them while they are still alive. At the same time, I want to move up at work, and being the kind of loyal person who is always available and never lets life interfere with work is pretty much the only thing I have going for me, and now I don't even have that. I'm not the smartest person at work, or the best at dealing with customers, or the hardest working, and I do want to move up eventually- but I've probably destroyed any chance of that ever happening.