Monster slaying
It's 3 or 4 am. I am not sure it really matters. I wouldn't call it all jet lag; I would just call it pure stress.
I try to focus, relax, read climbing magazines on foreign places like California, but none of it matters. I tell myself that stress is self-induced. It's all a mental game ... like when I was a kid and I thought there was a monster in my closet and my big sister Lisa told me that there really wasn't any monsters, but still I kept looking at the closet for that monster. I was sure I could hear him, smell him, even see him just lurkin
g right behind that closet door. But stress... stress is simply caused by things you can't control.
g right behind that closet door. But stress... stress is simply caused by things you can't control. Simply... I laugh. There's nothing simply about it or it wouldn't be stress. I think about all these things I can't control...
About the 4 vendors that build products or answer the phones on those products.
About the 6 people in Ireland who deal with those 4 vendors to make sure it all just goes peachy.
About 24 countries (including Slovenia and Slovakia ) that each have some contact, a manager just like me who stays up on nights like tonight worrying about customers in their country.
About currencies and languages that complicate things. About countries such as Switzerland where they speak not just one, but three 
languages and sot hey need products in the right languages.
languages and sot hey need products in the right languages.About budgets, massive amounts of money going out that just slides through my fingers in all these currencies.
About revenue, massive amounts of money coming in that I'm suppose to slice and dice, to project, and then use to adjust programs accordingly to promote even more massive amounts of money coming in... to keep those charts going in an acute upward slope.(Charts that show revenue on a sharp increase; costs on a sharp decrease. Charts that god and Bill and on down really want to see.)
About little guys in Eastern Europe that are lucky to get product. About big guys in Germany, France, and the UK with complex markets.
About keeping all these little guys and big guys and medium guys all heading in generally the same direction (like herding cats). And about Redmond, about headquarters with 15,000 employees and a zillion contractors all building more p
roducts, more programs that somehow just gotta come to Europe ... about trying to keep up with Redmond, to stay just one step behind them, to steal the great ideas from North America, ditch the bad ones, and then adjust it all for those 24 countries with all those currencies, and languages, and "cultural differences". ("You know Leenda...it just not work here." )
roducts, more programs that somehow just gotta come to Europe ... about trying to keep up with Redmond, to stay just one step behind them, to steal the great ideas from North America, ditch the bad ones, and then adjust it all for those 24 countries with all those currencies, and languages, and "cultural differences". ("You know Leenda...it just not work here." ) About standing up in front of 60 customers in Denmark and explaining this whole concept, this whole program in 45 minutes or less ... about keeping it all so simple the average JOE or should that be, the average Sven Svenson, can understand the 3 key messages I want him to walk out with. Those 3 actions that he's just gotta take so my charts are looking good.
So this my stress.... I think of the million action items that I should be writing down. That if I start right now, by dawn I just might make it through all these emails. I stop and think about the monsters in the closet. Somehow this beast is still alive after all these years. I still haven't managed to kill him; we still haven't gone head to head. But somehow, this slimy creature has managed to keep me awake tonight. I am sure I can hear him, smell him, even see him just lurking right behind that closet door. He's going to get me. He's going to eat me alive, leave my parts just scattered across the apartment like I was mangled by one of those sick serial killers.
He's going to....
I begin to drift back to the foreign places I read about in my climbing magazine. Joshua Tree, a big climbing area in California, sounds just dreamy. I think of ...
... a hot day, sweating on a radical 5.10a stemming problem... I am almost to to the top, just one more dicey move.
I hear someone say, "Come on, you can do it." My arms shake a little bit, then relax. I pop the move .... ahhh. I stand at the top looking across miles of nothingness. No monsters. No stress.
I have killed the monster.
