two timin' & double dealin'

so today i have a two-part-post (how appropriate)

I have been working with all these new partners at work (external to my company) and having the same conversation over and over and over, trying like hell to remember what I told these guys versus what I said on my last call. I keep finding myself in back-to-back meetings but trying to earnestly let the partner feel like they are the most important. Last night, for example, I ended up with two happy hours back-to-back at two separate locations.

It is SO HARD not to slip and to keep my stories straight! I totally feel like I'm two-timing them. or what ever you call it when you're in high school and dating a senior on the baseball team and junior on the football team and hoping they don't figure it out... Sure, in this case it really is for the benefit of the relationship that they think they are the most important. While they are *aware* I have other accounts and 'relationships' with other companies, for a multitude of reasons, their knowledge of that should be kept to a minimum.

This effort gets further complicated somewhere between Happy Hour #1 and Happy Hour #2. So there I was at HH#2, with only a tiny tostada in my tummy from HH#1, and was certainly feelin' it. Yet, there was no real explanation (other than claiming to be a lightweight... which I am not sure was really going to work after our "favorite drink" conversation) for my first drink at HH#2 (in their mind, the first -and only- happy hour of the day) to hit me so hard. Really wishin' I had gone for the wine and not the martini...

After leaving, I consoled myself by admiring Sydney Bristow and her phenomenal capability to compartmentalize. Apparently, I could NEVER be Sydney.



On to part 2: and speaking of compartmentalizing...

So we have been keeping a little secret around the Price House which means we tiptoe around dodge questions all to ensure that this little plan doesn't backfire (at least for the short term). What's this little secret, you ask? Mr. Price is heading back to school this fall to get his MBA because apparently the last three years of grad school wasn't enough ;)

Truth is, this is a great thing we are both really excited about and something we have been planning and discussing for almost a year now. The trick was that we didn't want it to negatively impact his current work environment-- especially had we decided not to pull the trigger on this. He has already been doing 20+ hours of school work ("pre-matriculation" they call it) the past few weeks which has proven extremely difficult given that he is working 80+ hour weeks.

We knew there would be a breaking point and that breaking point happened last night when he was asked to take over on the large case he's been working on for ~2 years. And BAM~ and just like that, it was time to tell. Maybe a few weeks earlier than what might have been ideal, but just goes to show you can't control everything =)

But he's definitely going to Acton and work now knows about it so the cat is out of the bag. The two-timin' and leading the double secret life is over.

Which is great news because it was completely exhausting and wore me out. ...Kind of like the hangover from that d*mn martini...