My mind right now: “Let’s see, what can I do that will help me avoid actually getting any work done? Ah, I know — I’ll post on my site.”

I’ve spent the last…what, three?…three weekends working on an extensively large side project for my previous employer. It’s one of those “Help, it’s an emergency and no one here can do it!” jobs. As almost every side project does, it began small. A way to make a quick buck, I thought, and during the expensive holiday season, no less. I signed right up. Then it got larger. And even larger. Soon I was mentally cataloging pieces of it under different “phases.” Since inception, I’ve clocked 46 hours on it, and it’s still not over…although the end is finally in sight.

After slaving away on this side project all last weekend (which put me in a none-too-pleasant mood come Monday morning when I had to attend the ops meeting at my day job and hear about a whole other universe of work I needed to do), I expected to receive some feedback on it rather shortly. Instead, the entire week went by with nary a peep. I had plenty else to work on, both day job and side job alike, so I paid it no mind. Friday night came and went, and I thought I was actually, finally gonna get a break. Perhaps, I thought, I might actually be able to kick back and relax for a change this weekend; recharge my batteries a bit. I received a sneak preview of my task list for my day job next week, and it’s going to be a butt-busting one. A break, leading up to the likes of that, was just what I needed.

And it’s just what I was getting, until 3:30 this afternoon when I received word back from my previous employer, saying that they liked everything about the just-completed “Phase 2″ of our project — and they were now giving me “Phase 3.” Which took them so long to deliver, I might add, because they discovered it was “much larger than they thought.” Ohhhhh, great.

So, for Phase 3, I’ve got to redesign about 35 pages of two different web applications. That’s probably the biggest phase yet, but fortunately, it involves only re-skinning — no actual logic or flow changes, with a couple of minor exceptions. Still, recreating all those pages from screenshots, wrapping modular CSS around them and all that, is time-consuming. I figure at least another 12 hours, which sucks because I’ve only got half the weekend left now. I’ve divided Phase 3 into two parts, A and B, and am trying to complete the smaller of the two parts tonight. Then, I’ll get up early tomorrow and do as much of the rest as possible. Because whatever I don’t finish this weekend is somehow gonna have to be stuffed into my weekday evenings, since the due date for this stuff is December 21st. (Unless I hear otherwise; it’s possible it could change, since I hear the developers are already far behind and that date is not really feasible for them to meet anymore.)

I’m doubtful that I can finish all of Phase 3 (parts A and B) before the end of the weekend, even staying up ’till 3:00 a.m. on Sunday night like I’ve done for the last two weeks. However, I will try, because that’s far less of a bitch than having to spend my evenings working for Job #2 after I spend eight grueling hours on Job #1. Especially because this week at Job #1 is “meeting” week, where I’ll be getting together on two separate occasions to brainstorm about two separate jobs that need doing. These meetings never fail to be full of nitpicky little requirements and patience-trying minutiae — the last thing I’m gonna need if I’m already dead tired and dealing with two separate sets of “I need it yesterday” requirements.

Knowing full well that I’m gonna hate having to do any extra work during this week, I already warned my previous employer that if it comes to that, they’re going to pay me time and a half — $75 an hour. Might as well sweeten the pot.

Yeah, at this point, I know I’m just ranting. I also know that I brought this upon myself, and that if I developed some kind of formal contract that I forced everyone to sign before I took on their side jobs, I could avoid this kind of scope creep (or at least be more aware of a project’s complete scope before I start on it). Likewise, I know I’ve ranted about this very subject before. Still, I seem to keep falling into this trap. I guess I can chalk this up to nothing but the allure of pure spending money. Like the ’80s kid who always dreamed of winning the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run, where you got two minutes in an empty Toys ‘R’ Us store to grab as much loot as you could. It’s kinda like that, for the adult world.

Anyway, I’m planning to stay up and work tonight, so as to try and make next week less of a hell than it’s already going to be. Sayonara — and have a Merry Christmas, if I don’t get my head above water before then.