Laundromat, 125%, and Grace

 After more than 3 months of funk, I finally made it to the laundromat. My white sheets were getting quite discolored. I looked at one tanktop that I probably wore for 3 weeks straight, and it was actually brown. 

The best part was I did it during the workday. I completed some tasks last night which afforded me some leeway this afternoon after my 1p meeting was cancelled.

It was a slow news day for the most part. 

Some updates:

I may have written it already but I decided to give 125% at work. I was reading some blogger's post and they had advised their daughter that if their employer pays them $1, they should give $1.25 worth of effort. It doesn't necessarily jive with another inspiring post where you are encouraged to treat yourself as a consultant demanding higher salaries with solving pain points and switching jobs. 

Switching jobs has led to more negative outcomes than good ones for me. So not worth it. And I'm not fluent in corporate code, so making demands has only led to frustrations. I've tried many of the tricks in the book, but it is hardwork trying to be someone else and develop this soft skill and do my job. 

I could've lied today and I wish I did. See what I mean, I'm so anxious and disempowered, that's tough to shake. While at the laundromat, a colleague asked me to let her know when I was out of a document so she could edit it. I remember closing it but couldn't confirm since I wasn't on my laptop. A fluent corporate code speaker or "creative storyteller" would have just confidently said, I'm not in it or just feigned ignorance (even if they were sure/unsure or knew there were in it). It didn't even occur to me to lie. I think I felt guilty for "leaving work" and going to the laundromat and I had actually considered driving back home to log out of the document. 

One thing I did do was say, I'm not at my computer can you force me out. What a fluent person would have said was, just force me out, I'm not in it. And kept it moving. 

Although, I wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong, I don't want people knowing I'm "not working." Because when you're a girl that looks like me, your perceived "mistakes" follow you. But I really can't care right now. 

And of course because I'm still not fluent, I came back home and made sure to let the colleague know that it was in fact not my error. Ugh. Can't let things go.

I'm especially less forgiving and more anxious when I'm already anxious about something else or feeling a lot of pressure. 

Which I am because I have this like looming to do list that I can't quite wrap my head around. #Groupwork

It's just pending and making me crazy.

Again with these slide decks. We just keep going in circles and I just have this fear that a ton of work is going to get dumped on me. My manager even assigned a deck to My Buddy but in the same breath offered to do it if My Buddy doesn't get it done. What?!

I can't be bothered. 

And then her direct report I've asked to keep track of his updates in the new database, and he was like oh, we'll just batch update them when it's time for Go Live. I'm like we-who?? This just feels like another thing I'll have to manage. 

As much as I love my manager, her management style has some things I'd like to tweak.

But then of course I felt bad this week because she did make a point to interact with me yesterday via text, and it actually helped calm me down. And during one of the demos, I got so excited I asked 2 of the agents if they wanted to share their screen and walkthrough one of the steps. 

One flatly refused. The other agreed but felt embarrassed and put on the spot. But then afterward it occurred to me, this is what my manager has been doing to me. I have been feeling very hateful towards her when she does that - puts me on the spot. But now I see it from her perspective. I think she just thinks because she can do it and is maybe enjoying it, that I would want to take part. NO! 

And it's funny because when I was facilitating, I was thinking, I'm an active learner, if I'm one of the agents, I would want a turn to show off my learning or get help. How quickly we lose our ability to empathize. 

So then I had to offer my manager some grace and of course it made me like her more. I think she just wanted to include me. That's what I wanted to do for the agents. I felt with the agents it was pretty low risk, but now I can see that my manager probably felt the same way because she is very forgiving. 

But I still hated it. I don't like looking like an idiot or being confused - at least not in front of her or when other people are watching. 

But it's funny that that happened just a couple days after I was so annoyed when my manager put me on the spot to lead an impromptu training I wasn't prepared for. 

Oh and I realized, I didn't actually reach $400k sometime in March. One of my account aggregators pulled an account in twice. My investments are much closer to the $300k mark than $400k. 

Now $400k that seemed so close seems so far away!

With the growing list of tasks I have to do, it feels like the high school or graduate school days when you had a paper to write. Even if you had the time, doesn't mean you could find flow or the ideas would come. 

It's adding stress to my life and I can feel my eye on the verge of a nervous/anxious twitch, but I can't find a place to dive in. 

I'm just going to say it - I'm not that impressed with our vendor. There I said it. 

Oh and a colleague tried to pin some blame on me yesterday, and I was like.. unh, unh, this is your process. Please own it. How dare you!

I did succeed in not calling anyone the whole work week or complaining about work to anyone else. And I technically didn't apply for any jobs. I did get a rejection from a role that I was for sure I'd at least get a screening for. So that was nice! So there's that.