Tired @ Work: Wake Me Up When It's Over

I used to think the only thing scarier than falling asleep while you were driving was waking up while you were driving.   I now believe that the only thing scarier than falling asleep in a meeting is waking up in a meeting.  We are a tired society.  It’s well established that with all the things we have on the go, that the first and most usual thing we let go is sleep.  I am the long-reigning king of showing up at work with little or no sleep.  I’m not proud of it, it’s just the way it has always been for me.

Back in my university days, I could go for three or four days with no sleep…I’d go to school, then go to work, then go home and write a last-minute essay overnight, then go back to school, and repeat for another couple of days.  That alone may speak to my less than stellar results.  When I was younger, I was a bit like the Energizer Bunny…I could just keep going, and as long as there was something to do, I could go.  The crash came when there was nothing to do, like while spending time at home during reading week. 

Unfortunately, I carried some of these excellent sleep habits with me to the world of work.  Part of it is that I have a procrastinator’s soul.  Why do it now when there are three more weeks before I need to have it done?  I don’t get serious about things until the due date is nearly upon me, and when I’m not serious, I can’t effectively marshal the required attention…I’m mainly talking about presentations and reports etc.  If I learn about it today, and it’s due tomorrow, let’s go. When I learn about it today and it’s due in a month…check back with me in about three and a half weeks.  Then, I pull an all-nighter or two, and get it done.  If I need to be creative, I’m usually at my peak at about 2:30am.  If I need to be productive, I’ve got the focus of a hawk at about 4:30 am.  If I need to pound through monotonous paperwork, catch me at about eleven o’clock, once the kids have gone to bed and the house has settled.  I usually write this blog at about two in the morning.

I've never tried Red Bull.  I'm almost afraid to see what it would do to me.

It’s occurred to me recently that I’m getting too old to keep up that kind of schedule.  I crossed that magical chronological milestone on the calendar (40), and it all went to hell…I just can’t pull multiple all-nighters in a row and expect to be able to function anymore.  I’ve become a napper.  I’ve been known to blow a complete Saturday afternoon or evening in slumber-ville.  If you ask Laura, I’ve always been one to fall asleep on the couch or in a chair watching TV, but it almost feels chronic now.  I sit down, watch TV, and wake up at 3:37 am, with an infomercial for the Slap Chop or AshleyMadison.com (that’s an interesting one to wake up to…check them out on the Google) blaring forth from the TV, my glasses askew, sometimes with a drink in my hand, or my laptop on my chest, and I drag myself off to bed.

This is not an endorsement, but I do remember waking up once with an Ashley Madison infomercial playing and I thought it was Saturday Night Live.  

But it also has an impact at work.  I remember once waking up in a meeting.  My boss was staring directly at me in disgust.  I think my only saving grace was that the meeting was a conference call, and the people on the other end who were running the meeting had no idea I was asleep.  I got a bit of a stern talking to over that one.

If the Vice President can sleep in a meeting with his boss, why can't I?

I once worked the night shift at a hotel, and it was so quiet at night that I learned to sleep standing up, like a horse.  They wouldn’t let you sit down, and you needed to be at the desk, so somehow, I learned to lean appropriately and close my eyes for a few minutes.  Only once did I wake up as I was falling forward toward the desk, nearly cracking my skull open on the edge of the counter.

I usually don’t sleep very well the first night I’m in a hotel, so when I travel for business, which is a lot, I can usually count on a sleepless night, and a really tired next day.  In about 2002, I was regularly traveling to Winnipeg, every second week, for about a year.  Like clockwork, I would arrive at the hotel and not be able to sleep, and then show up tired at the office.  I’ve met a lot of people who share this ‘first night phenomenon’.  I now travel almost every week, so I have at least one of those sleepless nights per week.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in three different hotels in one week, and had three of those sleepless nights.  I was a disaster.

During one of those trips to Winnipeg, I arrived at work, and called my three managers into a meeting.  I remember sitting across my desk from Margaret, Kathy, and Stacey.  We were having our typical meeting and at some point, I put my head back.  My office was so small that there was enough room for my desk and chair, and a couple of guest chairs, but when I sat at the desk, the back of my chair was up against the wall, so when I put my head back, it leaned against the wall, which made for a pretty comfortable sleeping position. 

And sleep I did.  I’m not sure how long they let me sleep, but it scared the shit out of me when Margaret (a petite little thing) decided to get up on my desk on her hands and knees and get as close to my face as she could before she clapped her hands as loudly as possible.  It’s a bloody good thing I was wedged in between the desk and the wall, or I’m sure I would have jumped up, likely flipping the desk or the chair, and quite possibly injuring Margaret.   It turns out that I have a strong heart for a chubby dude, and it’s a good thing, or it could all have ended right then and there.

Margaret is no Kathy Griffin, and I am no Piers Morgan, but to date, she's the only woman to have ever crawled across my desk.

I am not the only person to sleep at work.  I remember once going to a sales presentation in another city with two of my colleagues and the local sales guy who had an existing relationship with the prospect.  We arrived in the room and it was like a sauna…the ceiling was very low, the customer had about 20 of their people in the room, and we were 4, all in a room designed for about 12.  We packed in, and it was HOT.  I stood up to talk, and because the ceiling was so low, I almost put my head right into a pot light.  Standing there, with my head in the light, I felt like a burger under a heat lamp just waiting to get sold.

As I started to talk, the sweat started to pour down my face.  I could feel it first beading up on my brow, then I could actually see it running down my nose.  I was standing beside one of my colleagues and I could see my drop of sweat splat onto her copy of the presentation…to say I was embarrassed was a gross understatement.  To her credit, she didn’t react.  (At least until after the meeting).

Yep.  Watching your own sweat drop onto someone else's paper is pretty gross.

While all of this was happening, the local sales guy decided it was time for a nap.  I looked over at him and he was sound asleep.  Not snoring, just sleeping, like a baby.  I’m pretty sure that because of how he was sitting, the customers couldn’t see that he was asleep.  That is until he woke up with such a start that 20 heads immediately snapped to the right to see what the kerfuffle was all about.  Between the sweaty presentation and the sleepy sales rep, we didn’t win the business.  I wonder why.

So the next time we're in a meeting together, and I'm taking a nap, don't take it personally, but in the immortal words of the great 80's band, Wham, please "Wake me up before you go go..."  I hate waking up in a meeting room all alone.

If you want to hear the classic Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, click here!