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Remember that big job you left on your desk to finish after the weekend. Well it’s after the weekend. And now that big job has spawned a lot of little jobs to compound your misery. Individually the small jobs are fairly easily dealt with, but collectively they present a much bigger problem. Kinda of like when your check doesn’t clear and it was the one you wrote to the credit card company to pay the minimum payment on your credit card, and suddenly there’s the OD charge at the bank to deal with plus a huge fee on your credit card statement, and the hours spent and all the other crap it takes to clear that up with the credit card people, and what was just a simple little problem now involves the Consumer Credit Protection Act with the word plaintiff before your name. Not that that has ever, ever happened to me but I’ve heard of it.

You must deal with the small stuff before you can get back to the big picture, which is exactly as you left it Friday, except now you’re down a half a day or better, you’ve only handled one or two of the smaller things and you still have the rest of the flock to deal with and they’re beginning to sense your weakness.

My strategy in a situation like this is to run into the flock, scatter them, then drag the big problem over to someone else’s desk when they off screwing around at the water cooler, and take a break. When you get  back amidst all the chaos, sit down calmly as if everything is under control and read the Entertainment news on CNN to see who just split up. Everyone else will be trying to figure out how you manage to keep it together and you can leave for an early lunch. Just make sure there is enough stuff piled on your desk so that no one can stuff a big problem on It while you’re gone. OK then, problem solved, see you tomorrow.