User talk:TheEileen/Dec 2009
December 2009
30 Dec 2009
Updated the wiki and found that what I swore I fixed last week was not done this week. Odd. I think I may have moved items to new rounds but forgot to update the main section of active projects.
I'll chat more tomorrow maybe. Long night and no time to update here as I must go to bed and sleep.
29 Dec 2009
Updated the list.
24 Dec 2009
Updated the list yesterday and the wiki today. We had four projects move between states and four projects get posted. Great!
I managed to get all the way through yesterday and today without complaining about anyone ... that I know (I'm sorry the people who are bad or dangerous drivers on the road still merited my calling them naughty names and throwing doubt on the "chastity" of their mother). I even stopped myself from starting to do it just to myself in my head - and that is probably my biggest effort. I am complaining too much about people at work to other people. There is a difference between "here is info you need to get the job done" and "this person bugs me and here is why - which is actually presented more as: this person is horrible and here's why". I don't want to be that person always saying negative things about other people. There is also a difference between venting and complaining. I can vent to my friends, I can vent here, I can vent to my therapist. If after I go over it 3-4 times and I'm still obsessing ... that's my problem not their problem.
I cannot change other people, I can only change my response to them.
Did I talk about how I read this interesting study that people you feel ambivalent about (you think you should like them but you do not or you think you shouldn't like them but you do) make your blood pressure and stress go up more than people you feel consistent about? This is my problem with the one person. I have told myself that I do not like the other one, the first one. We can have a professional, cordial relationship, but I do not like him, he isn't likeable to me, and when I said that out loud, I really did lose most of my ... emotional stress over him. Meaning, HE doesn't bother me, just his actions.
It is still the person of the other one. I can't seem to stop freaking out about how badly she manages everything (I would say a nice modifying statement like "in my eyes" or "in my opinion" but when 9 different people (no exaggeration!) at work all say the same thing as we try to figure out how to "help" her get straightened out ... then I know it is just that she badly manages things and this in turn means that her work is badly managed). Which puts the burden back on me. To call back to the above, the "problem" is that she started out more as my friend than anything. The more I work with her, the less I like her and the less I want to be around her at all. So, I'm conflicted because the "but she's your friend you don't dump friends just because they go through a bad patch" is twanging away big time contrasted with the work related "she is making my life a hell" and the personal "but when someone expects you do do most of the work in a relationship, then it isn't good and if they won't change, you may have to". So more stress. (this is venting, not complaining, honest!)(grin)
I have a whole thing I want to remember to talk about my therapist getting into about how to deal with people at work that strikes me as simply untenable, but I'm too tired now. I will also chat more later about the main thing keeping me away from DP right now is the increase in Research work is tapping into all the same skills both document and people related that DP does so by the time I get home, I'm just so over it all. Even the forums which trigger my need to respond are like all the things I have to respond to at work. Sigh. I want DP to be fun again for me.
15 Dec 2009
Just didn't manage to do either list or wiki. Thought I might be able to do it the 16th but ended up going to dinner with friends instead. Sorry!
08 Dec 2009
Updated list and wiki - some movement and one posted. Yay. Not a lot done on DP this weekend although I did have some time to read forums and write here and there. Some interesting stuff on the board side that I'm still pondering. I plan to type at work (did so Monday and today) and both days it was "suddenly" time to go home and no time to break a little and think about DP.
Turns out my stomach flu last week was wholly about perimenopause. Why does no one mention the "you'll have your period every two week, and you'll also get dry heaving to go with that and here's your runs too!" Oh joy. Geez - what is up with this body? And my face had broken out like a little plague zone - even suddenly things on my chest and I've not had issues on my chest or back for over 5 years that I recall. Hormones - can't live with them and can't live without 'em - silly things. Work still crazy but some possible exit strategies are presenting themselves which is scary because as I finally told my boss - I'm actually contemplating leaving because I cannot spend 70% of my time getting the other team members to do 20% of the work and everyone still thinks I'll get the other 80% of the work done. We are paid the same, and they don't do nearly the work I do at the level and it isn't *just* that I'm an over achiever or anything. By the definitions of our job descriptions, at this level they should be able to do independent work and create their own work out of what presents itself. Instead, I have to hand out stepbystep instructions for nearly everything (while also being told "stop telling me what to do" so I stop and then I get "but what am I supposed to do now") and the stuff I leave utterly to them, I am finding isn't being done properly if AT ALL. Yes, one job that the guy said he was doing for the last six months, turns out he found it too hard to do the cut and paste it was too complicated to merge three spreadsheets into one so he stopped. Just stopped but continued to tell me and our boss that he was working on it. Boss knows this but the current situation (mainly the fact that the boss lives in another state) makes everything terribly complicated. Anyway, I said, it's unfair that we get paid the same but they don't do the work and I know you probably can't do a thing about that, but I gotta let you know, it is really getting to me. So, that's even more stress, to be where I realize that I may not continue in this job which means having to find another one and go through allll that. If there is even another one to be found. Sigh. I can tough this out but my little camel's back is getting awfully overloaded.
01 Dec 2009
Updated list and wiki - no other movement. Have found the items I want to make of the instructions. One small step closer. I was very touched with all the kind DP BD wishes. I know I haven't been around as much and I feel like I fell of the forums a lot, but it was so sweet of everyone.
I have been sick this week - just a touch of stomach flu I think. Fingers crossed I am better now. Weather really cold and boy did I wish I had my hat today. The work thing... wow, I just have so much stress from these people I'm working with - I want to let go of it but I can't seem to manage. I went for a long walk today just to decompress. I sent an email to my boss explaining that I spent 6 of my 8 hours on Friday listening to and basically helping one co-worker do his job and I spent three hours doing the same today of the other co-worker. This is an exaggeration but it really feels like they cannot do any project of any kind that is beyond "stuff this envelope" without being hand-held the entire time. At least at the beginning, so to speak. I walked one of them through something for the fourth time - and still not getting it. When you are told that someone can't do the job because they can't find the file and you ask "what folder did you look in" and the response is "oh, I didn't look in the other folders since I didn't find it in the one I thought - oh, I see. I could go look in the other folders. Oh, look there it is." And this person is supposed to be my peer and at the same level of responsibility and pay as I am. So is the other one who pulls this: "well, I couldn't really figure it out so I just stopped working on it. I haven't done anything." Me: "Why not?" Other: "I just didn't I guess. Too hard. It was too hard."
I need to NOT envision baseball bats and knees because getting upset about this stuff usually just makes you more upset. But I did tell my boss that my own morale was really suffering because I know they both get the same pay as I do and both of them act like they are minor level clerks and to expect anything more of them, such as acting like a project lead which is what we are, is too hard and too much and why don't I do it instead. Another friend pointed out that I might be in a good position to ask another department I work closely with if they've got any jobs they might be able to hire me for and I find I am very much thinking about that. So, basically, I told my boss that this was the place I was in now. That I knew he might not be able to do anything about it but that I didn't want to hit my limit a month from now, so to speak, and just up and quit and they'd all be "but why???" I've actually done this before, that is tell my bosses exactly (EXACTLY) why I was unhappy in the job and warning them I was thinking of leaving and the response was basically to ignore and dismiss me. I hope it doesn't happen again, but I need to know that *I* was professional and gave them every chance.
In that former situation, my ex-boss came up to me less than a week after I'd moved to another job (at better pay and less work) and literally moaned "but you were doing so much and it's so hard and now I have to hire three people to replace you - why didn't you say anything?" and when I pointed out, quite sharply, that I had done exactly that I was informed that "well, but I didn't know you really meant it". And the fact that I wasn't listened to, I stated, was a major factor in my leaving. Please learn from this Miss Boss. Which she didn't as far as I ever saw, but there ya go. Whew - okay. Off to finish some more dictionary and maybe a forum or two. Oh yeah, and a quick email to jeannie.
And now back to Eileen's Talk