Bad time of year

Those of you not in a sales/quarterly based world (hello academia) probably enjoy this time of year. For me, this is horrid. Our fiscal year wraps up at the end of the year, so any money I can earn before Dec 31 goes in to this year and all of the financial implications that has for both the company and for myself. There is a great incentive to close deals before Dec 31. Sleep is unneccesary.

For me to close deals, Airplanes are involved. Airplanes at this time of year are full of the "non professional" traveller. Many of you would call these people "families" or "students". I look at them as road blocks in security lines and people who fill in the middle seats on airplanes. They also get in the way at check in counters.

SO - to sum up this time of year for myself and many in similar positions....

High stress to close deals, which requires travel that is itself made more stressfull by the large number of people who don't travel that much.

... to top it all off, many people start going on vacation so stuff has to be done even more quickly. Those that are still at work are really about 50% gone.

Every year I get crabby about this...