Of Work and Polar Opposites

I'm having one of the busiest weeks yet, lots to clear up before I go on leave. So it was with great fascination that I heard my boss telling a client how I'll be meeting with him next week Tuesday to discuss a transaction. His audacity is impressive, matched only by my tenacity - the meeting was eventually rescheduled. I mean, I'm supposed to be waking up to Coast's warm humidity at that point in time and as much as the opportunity cost is vastly appealing (another reason for the need for sarcasm font), I had to engineer a way of aborting it.

I have two clients who are polar opposites of each other - on a scale of 1 to 10, one rates 9 while the other, minus (-9) (please consider the triple negatives as compounding each other). Allow me to compare and contrast:

1. When one calls, I jump at the opportunity to help them out. When the other calls, I get the same feeling a rash in the privates would give any normal person.

2. Whenever I'm going for a meeting with the first, I'll probably get a call in the morning asking what sandwich they should have ready for me. When going to the other's office, I recall what I ate last and wonder if it might come up during the meeting and if it has enough nutritional value to keep me from passing out.

3. When I'm doing work for the first, I carefully think about how to cater for their interest. For the second, I wonder whats the minimum I can do without my conscience getting worked up.

4. When I bill the first, its paperwork, actually someone just changes the dates and I sign. If I dare bill the other, its sort of similar to stepping on a cat's tail, I don't bother wasting paper nowadays, I just send pdf copies for the sake of our environment.

5. When the first pays, I barely know about it, the accountant just does his thing. IF the other pays, we are paralysed with shock (and exhaustion from all the follow up it took) and have to spend quite a bit of time in prayerful thanksgiving.

6. When I get an email from the first (which it frequently comes with a smiley, once an embarrassing "mwah"), I click reply then read to see what to say . When I get an email from the other, I hit delete then think about the kind of trouble I'd get into before confirming the deletion (come to think of it, I should relocate their email folder to "trash").

7. When I get a call from the first on my mobile phone.... wait, its never happened, if they can't reach me on the land line, they assume there's a reason why. When I get a call from the other..... wait, I don't any more, they're on my block list.

8. When I think about returning a call to the first, I wonder what the heck I was doing to have missed it, it might have been an emergency, and I'd have wanted to hear if they're in trouble so I can help. When I think about returning a call to the other, I wonder what the heck I was doing to have missed it, calling back is an additional expense for no good reason, and it might have been an emergency and I'd have been happy to hear that they're in trouble.

9. The first never misses on my daily "to do" list. The other has made me think of starting a "not to do" list.

Someone said that if you enjoy it, then it wouldn't be called work.

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