"Do I look like a fucking people-person?!"

I just got back from vacation, and I already feel that I need to do something else than work. ANYTHING. I just checked my draft timesheet. Normally every two-week period has about 80+ hours in it. Right now it looks like mine has 117 hours. And that's the minimium number, it might go up by few hours.

So I have been working long days, and long weeks. But 117 hours is still doable. It's the type of work that is starting to show it's toll. Take today for example. This day has been constant work and running around. People call me every five minutes. If I go see someone who is having some problems, I'm stopped by about three additional people with more problems problems. When I'm finished with those, Even more people come talk to me about their problem. When I get back to my desk, my phone is ringing with even more people having problems. And in the middle of this, I need to re-image a laptop for one user, and train a new employee to our system. All while more and more people come talk about their problems.

Well, I have the weekend to look forward to? Well, not quite. Next weekend is our IT-conference in Copenhagen. All though the weekend. There's some work, but mostly it's "fun". So it's not that bad right? Well, in a way it is. I value my free time. I really do. If I have to go to Copenhagen for entire weekend for work-related "fun", then that's not really my free time, now is it? It's someone's idea of "fun", and it might even be fun, but it's NOT free time. And it also means that I need to sit in a plane for hours. And we all know how much fun flying is, right?

So it might be that my real "free time" will be almost two weeks away. Between this point in time, and my free time in the future, is work, work and more work. I could take the work, if I had free time coming up. But I don't. All I have in front of me is work. I could work long days if I knew that I had free time just around the corner. But when all you see in front of you is an ocean of work...

I do know that there are lots of people in the office who really appreciate what I'm doing for them, so it's not as bad as it could be. I could be working my ass off, and not receive any recognition for my work. Luckily that is not the case. But there comes the time when too much is simply too much.

Am I a bad employee for feeling like this? My boss does even more work right now, and while he does complain, he does do it. But he's doing a kind of work that he feels passionately about. I don't have that passion about my work. I love IT, but there are many kinds of IT. I'm good at what I do. But I wish I could do something else.