My Brain is Tired

 I've been churning all morning after just 1 hour meeting this morning related to an audit. I already knew it wasn't my jam, but there I was regardless.

I can't wait to sleep. I like my boss, but more and more I'm tired of this job already. Oh well. Yesterday I did some browsing on our internal job site. I suppose that technically wasn't the first time, but it felt different this time. 

I just have all these internal timelines going on. My competitive prideful nature is telling me, well the last person that got promoted, got promoted after 2 years, so I want to do it in 1.

Then a girl on the other side of my department is as much a go-getter as me, so now I feel like I have to outdo or at least match her initiative. Terrible right? Oh well. 

Then in general, I'm just ready for something more organized and structured. Less talking, more work product. 

How is it still January?

I want to celebrate my aunt this weekend. I was going to get takeout and do something memorable - artsy, maybe go to Walmart, watch something she might have liked on TV? 

Yes, the tears came back this month. 

In the morning, I always have so many thoughts. Now I can't think. 

Bonus Target and What to Do After

 1/23/21

Decided what I want to do if I don't reach the bonus award I hoped for. 

You see I'm starting to run out of steam running on 200%. I'm spinning my wheels and just landing in the same spot because mediocrity and sub-par is just not a comfortable state for me. But I can get on board. 

Having no other way to gauge how my performance is perceived or appreciated, I decided to focus on our upcoming bonus. After all, I am here for the money.

Each year the company doles out a multiplier of your target bonus.

In past years, the multiplier has been 98%, 154%, 167%. It's expected to be pretty low this year.

But I need something to keep me motivated because I'm running out of steam.

I decided if my bonus award is not at least Multiplier + 30, I am going to spend the next 30 days after award date actively displaying and annotating what "average" looks like.  Then just adopting that attitude as a default. Fully immerse myself in not-it, last minute, rebuild all the wheels culture. 

What does this look like: 

- Strictly working 8 hours a day. Default = 9a-5p; if a meeting starts at 8a, I only work until 4p that day. No exceptions. No more weekends. No more last minute requests.

- No more personal assistant duties. I like to tee up emails for her meetings when I can. I take menial administrative tasks off her plate when I can. 

- I fill in the blanks when I can. I update our project slides weekly with many reminders. If she doesn't provide the update, the slide is going to be blank or say - No Updates. 

- No more proactive responsiblities. I will begrudgingly adopt our corporate reactive culture.  I will not point out or create process improvements. 

- When she says she's going to do something, I'll let her do it (even if I know she won't do it). 

- If I see a better way of doing something, I'll say nothing and let leadership figure it out.

- I just want to coast.

I'm running myself ragged and I want it to be acknowledged and I want to be compensated appropriately. 

- Things I've been proactive about as of late

       - Trying to organize product training to a more streamlined process

       - Updating our 400 document database 

       - Updating our templates, after an agent noticed one mistake on one. I took it upon myself to look up all 96. (dumb)

      - Updating our walking deck

       - Creating a better slide presentation for product training

 Anyway, I just wanted to document this so I can hold myself accountable or have something to focus on till bonus day. It's a win-win in either scenario. I either get a fat bonus or I get to do less work and can stop running myself ragged. 

Thanks, God! 

Does Airing Grievances Magnify Them

 I think it does. I feel like talking about my problems brings them top of my mind and I tend to experience my world through that lens. So then I only remember things that support that narrative.

I decided that this job was frustrating and a constant putting out of fires. I'm anxious and I can't turn my brain off because there is always tedious work to be done.

I tried to lean into their corporate culture of just always being on and submitting average work and moving on to the next thing. I didn't love it because I don't feel like I'm growing that way.

A guy that started the same day as me pointed out that everyone here is really nice. And I thought, he's right. To me it's a bit of detriment because it just takes longer to do things because everyone treads lightly. But I suppose the alternative is worse. 

There's nothing like having a meeting about the meeting you just had.

It's just hard to know if it's going to be better elsewhere. When you hear all the advice of other people's experience, it's difficult to filter. It just makes early retirement such an appropriate goal for me. 

One barometer I use to check-in with myself is, if I hit my FIRE goal tomorrow, what would I do in terms of my job.  In this particular moment, it would make the job more fun because I don't think I would feel this pressure to succeed. Which I don't know if I would eventually hate that. But I think I would be okay living reactively because I would see myself as more of a consultant. I wouldn't be so focused on establishing good process or thinking beyond the moment. 

But in present day, I do feel pressure within myself to establish good processes so that in 6 months we can be in a better place. 

Right now my most immediate goal is to churn out work product until bonus day. I'm starting to second guess my co-worker's thoughts that there is another review before bonus day. Because bonuses are for the previous year. I'm guessing whatever the managers want to award as bonuses will probably already be submitted by now. 

Another Anxious 3am Post: My brother, a set-up and more

 So what is making me anxious this early morn.

So much yet so little.

I got a message from my brother last week that he's moving in with my aunt. Appended to that was the suggestion that he stay with me for awhile. 

Say what now? 

Given all the people that have opened their home to me you'd think I'd be more amenable to that.

But mostly I'm thinking, this is why I like to keep things closer to the vest.  I knew once I started telling people I'd bought the house or that I had a 2 bedroom, it would automatically be seen as a resource for others. And... I was right. 

I don't know how to be selective with whom I tell certain things, so my default has always been to say very little to everyone. Then the last year or two I just started saying all the things. Definitely need to pull that back. Vulnerability, transparency where cool pop culture buzz words much in the way of therapy and closure and talking things out. I've received no benefit chasing any of those things. 

When will I learn that TV is not real. 

Yesterday my boss and my buddy met for almost 2 hours to do audit prep. I sensed something was amiss when at the beginning of the meeting they acted to be fumbling around for who had a draft of the audit prep document. I'd edited it with some preliminary notes over the weekend, but my boss had not responded. Sometimes that's because she hasn't read the document, other times I'm guessing it's because it's not what the end product should be. 

A few months ago, my buddy had met with me and her direct report to talk about how she wanted to establish an audit plan for 2021. She made sure to say how she and her direct report were certified auditors. And my boss went on and on about how my buddy saved her during the last audit.

To me it naturally made sense that this was in my buddy's wheelhouse.  My default setting is to fall back anyway when they are together since they have vocally expressed how well they work together. 

Back to the meeting. Basically, my boss and my buddy pretended like they were going to be the point person for the audit as we went through the questions. Then at the end when we were nailing down who would be the point person, it ended up being me. My boss said she was not available and couldn't block off the whole week. And my buddy was going to be off for 2 days next week, and my boss said she wanted it to be the same person for the whole week. All these things were known before the meeting, so why are we pretending that you, boss lady, didn't know you wanted it to be me.

To me, I would have paid more attention and asked more questions for the last 2 hours if I knew I was taking the lead on this but alas. 

I hate to think that she's been on trial, but lately some of the things that have been coming out of my mouth and running through my mind leads me to believe I'm ready for a new position. 

I'm hoping to hang in there and keep producing noticeable work product until bonus time. I could be convinced to stay if my bonus award is at least 30% more than the base. Meaning, if with the multiplier the minimum amount I could get is $10,000, then I expect $13,000. That's the metric I've set for myself. It just better be higher than other people's. 

Speaking of, I've noticed now that I work with Frenemy, she talks about her finances less. When we were talking about bonuses, I was trying to assess what would be considered a good bonus, and the fastest number she could come up with was someone else's.  Strange right?

Anyway, so yeah. I'm more anxious, more frustrated with work. But I'd like to keep my thoughts under wraps until bonus time. 

A Cluttered Inbox Leads to a Restless Night

 Do our dreams really tell us anything?

I'm feeling cluttered and mentally constipated. I'm stressed and anxious and not quite sure what to do about it. 

I wonder if I'm menstrual but since I don't have a flow, I can't tell. 

I left my inbox cluttered last night because I just wanted to bury my head in the sand. 

I've been ruminating about early retirement goals and leaving my job. I'm not sure why. I don't know if another job at this company or another company will even be better. 

I don't want to say can't, but I certainly don't enjoy functioning at this level of daily emergencies. 

I stayed at Call Center #1 for four years because it was routine and methodical until I went to the busy project and started to feel anxious everytime the phone would ring.

Now I have new feelings in these meetings. I feel crazy because I don't know what people are talking about and I don't know what the expectation is on my part. People ask questions and people answer questions that weren't asked and everyone gets high praise. 

I don't know how to excel and it makes me feel bad. And I feel like I run at a different standard than other people here. Like everyone seems to function last minute, and it's okay. Or they do a copy and paste job of someone else's sub-par work, and it's okay because everyone here is very good at "talking the talk." 

Then I can't get excited about possibly being ahead of schedule on my FIRE path because then it will get taken away from me. 

I just feel like something bad is about to happen - like my boss is going to get too stressed and explode and we will be responsible for running the business without her.

I guess I'm just running out of patience of being asked to do things at letter X when I wasn't part of the conversation from A-whatever letter comes before X. 

I'm tired of the emotional rollercoaster. 

And I want to get excited about FIRE.

And I'm also tired of this house - I miss my studio. I knew I wasn't ready for this responsibility.  I wish I had kept my aunt's car. Because when thinking about FIRE, the car and house are my two biggest unknowns which translates into two biggest worries. 

I don't think I would want to rent an apartment in this area because the people here are too transient, so I don't know what the solution is. 

But if I ever reach FIRE ($500k), I think I'll take the following 3 to 6 months to find a new place to live and develop a life.  That way I can use that money to do those things and not have to worry about penetrating my nest egg.