Slightly Extremely Overwhelmed...

So, have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you couldn't form a coherent thought?

I'm about one step away from that, in fact this blog may be my last thought... for the week.

So my office typically has two assistant directors. I'm the Assistant Director for Staff Development and the other is the Assistant Director for Student Development. Basically that means she/he hires them and I train them. Both positions supervise three full time staff members, who in turn supervise three grads each, who in turn supervise anywhere from 5 - 15 undergraduate students each, who in turn are responsible for anywhere from 30 - 150 college students each. In total, we have approximately 3,000 students who live on campus and between the other Assistant Director and myself we are ultimately responsible to the University Administration for all of them. And my job is to ensure that all of the professional, grad, and student staff are properly trained to deal with any and every issue that may crop up over the course of the year. They typically deal with anything from homesickness, to failing grades, to fires, rape, and unfortunately missing or suicidal students. This is my major responsibility along with supervision (supervision is easy, btw). So, to do this we begin training our professional and grad staff on August 1 and our student staff on the 13th. There are 125 staff members total. This is kind of a big undertaking and something I LOVE doing and have always loved doing it. I love the challenge of developing a program that not only gives the information they need, but provides outlets for them to practice new skills in a safe environment and to actually gain life skills out of the deal. Typically, this is my sole responsibility during this part of the year and it works.

Not this year.

The other assistant director left, so now I'm supervising her staff as well as mine, dealing with all of the day to day stuff that she handled so I could get training together, and basically putting out fires. Now it's all me. I haven't accomplished anything at all this week because every time I try to do something, something else crops up that has to be dealt with right then and there. In the process of this, I have to schedule interviews for that position and lead a search.

I'm so strung out it's not funny. During all of this, we will be opening for the school year and my director will be taking prelims for his PhD the two days prior to opening. There will be about a two week time when i will be completely on my own... I'm not going to lie the stress may bury me...

actually, it won't, I'm fantastic under pressure, but i don't like it... some people say they work better under stress... that's a lie.. no one works better under stress -- they just lack motivation unless the deadline is looming... I hate working under stress, but am very good at it... not my best, but decent. Basically because i know at some point I will come to the realization that there is only so much I can do and the rest will have to wait or fall off... I just haven't yet decided where that boundary lies...

wish me luck.. I enjoy blogging so I'll keep you updated... :)