May showers?

As a kid we learned the phrase "April showers bring May flowers."  We were taught that because typically April is a wetter month then May for much of the country, the earth is warming, plants are germinating, etc., etc.  Here in Minnesota though, it's not unheard of for us to still have snow on the ground in April, nevertheless, I think the real meaning is more metaphorical.

May is short in my world.  At State (St. Cloud State University), early to mid "May" is the end of the semester.  You might think that the end of the semester wouldn't be that bad for a workstation guy because we've had all semester to work out the kinks on the software load-sets that we run …but because people need to get their work done and machine usage approaches capacity, we have no little to no tolerance for system failures.

When the end of May rolls around we move into deploying new computers and software.  That's really when we hit the fan.  Things move fast for a couple or three weeks.  We tend to prep and place 200-300 new computers (which means we have to prep and move an equal number of old computers) and then we have to deal with the other 800-900 computers our team supports.  …by the end of "May" we're a little out-to-lunch when the end of our work day arrives.  

The real hard part of all of this is the impact that it has on the family.  Our Manager as well as our Director of IT make a big deal (rightly so) about remembering that we aren't just who we are at work and that we need to maintain a balance with work and home.  Even with that in mind, May is still just tough.  For my part, Jen's got plenty enough to deal with as it is without me being out-to-lunch when I get home.  This means that a balance needs to reached.  Fortunately, showers bring flowers and in this case "flowers" means vacation …and if memory serves, because of Memorial Day, I've got a 4 day weekend coming because we're on summer hours now and I don't work on Tuesdays.  ;-)