Cruise Director Julie?

I'm a planner. An anticipator. A logistical freak. A Type A cliche.

Those are all very handy things to be on the job. I'm a professional secretary, so those traits are my bread and butter. Are you attending a conference in Vancouver on 10 days notice, with no hotel, no rental car, a flight reimbursement cap of $750, and a meeting back in DC the following morning? I'm your girl. I can throw the whole thing togther for you in 30 minutes.

If your office is a mess, I'll fix it. I'll inflict my organizational systems on you, along with a heavy dose of Secretarial Zen philosophy. You'll love every minute of it. I truly enjoy scheduling, organizing, and coordinating.

I've noticed, however, that these traits are far less appealing in my personal life. Friends hesitate to invite me over, in case I secretly optimize their closet space while they're off answering the phone. (Of course, some friends invite me over in the secret hope that I'll reorganize their closets for them.)

I spend a lot of my free time cruise directing happy hours, home-cooked dinners, and museum outings. My calendar is booked well in advance. Not RSVPing, no-showing, and last-minute flakeouts can give me an insurmountable case of the crankies.

So I'm always left with the same dilemma. I gotta be me, but how do I avoid freaking people out? Do I have to tamp down the control freak aspects of my personality, or should I just continue my hyperscheduling and allow people to fall in line if they want to? Who knows?