It never fails – after several months of not a whole lot to do (projects delayed before the reach me, or cancelled altogether, or waiting for customer feedback), three project hit at once. Theoretically, I’m supposed to be over in another building three days each week starting next week working on the conductive adhesive. Additionally, I got three process records yesterday that the customer wants yesterday. I can’t even get the raw materials in for that within a week. And today I got word that we need to make three or four batches of a urethane for a customer and my boss promised to have it for them two weeks after we get the raw materials in, which works out to within four weeks. That’d be great except each batch takes about 25 hours, or three days (at 8 hours/day) to make.

Something’s gotta give. I’ll be talking to my boss this afternoon about whether I can get some help for all of these batches I’m supposed to make.

Something else that’s weighing heavily on my mind is the fact that my review, which was originally scheduled for Friday, then moved to this afternoon, got pushed back to tomorrow morning so that his boss would have time to read what my boss wrote about me. I assume this is standard practice (his boss is a micromanager to the nth degree), but it makes me nervous nonetheless. I freely admit I don’t have the greatest work ethic, and I’ve been called on spending too much time on the net before. My boss doesn’t seem to like me that much, and communication is almost always instigated on my part, not on his, though talking to people they’ve supervised in the past this is pretty much exactly the way they’ve always worked. We had a few layoffs here last year, but the word since then is that “the budget is secure” which I read as code words for, “no one’s getting laid off anytime soon.” Still, I’m the second-least senior engineer in the department, and before these three projects hit there really wasn’t much for me to do.

On the bright side, this can’t really affect my promotion or raise: I’m not getting one. No one is. We’ve been under a 12-month hiring/promotion freeze since last May, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was extended for another six months before all is said and done.

Maybe I just worry too much. I guess I’ll know tomorrow morning…

UPDATE at 16:41 on Tuesday: I do worry too much. I got a printed copy of my review in advance of the meeting tomorrow morning. Essentially, it says I’m a competent, if not stellar, employee. This is just fine by me, since it’s been proven time and again here that there is precious little reward for excellence.