When Things Are Complicated

The job that I currently have, and which I have had for two years now (!!), has been challenging in a number of ways I could not have anticipated. Middle management, for one thing, is just as bad as it has traditionally sounded to me. I avoided managing people for years for this reason. As a middle manager, you are sandwiched between your boss and your employee(s), and must run interference when there is a problem on either end. Managing people takes an insane amount of time and energy, and quite frankly, I already have children so I don't find managing adults all that fulfilling.

I work with someone who has naturally-occurring high levels of stress, to the extent that every speed bump is a ten on a scale of one to ten. She takes work-related things personally. If someone doesn't respond to an email in a timely fashion, for example, she tells me she hates that person, and from then on, that person has a terrible track record in her eyes. She also then gives attitude to that person, who understandably does not enjoy receiving attitude and thusly, tries to avoid working with her. 

I explain to her how she can't respond to people from a place of hostility, how it will work better if she recognizes everyone has multiple demands on their time and her request is just one of multiple requests that each person has to manage for themselves. I urge her to approach co-workers in a spirit of collegiality rather than as adversaries who have perversely decided to ruin her workflow and her life.

I am turning the tables on myself and for my own sanity, not taking things my boss does personally. I do pretty well with everyone else, but my boss can come across as rather judgmental (she is a bit of a perfectionist). You can see how this might make me a bit nuts between the two.

So today, I give you this:

 

In case you can't read it, it says: 

The sun is up

The sky is blue

It's beautiful

And so are you

It's a postcard for a business called Lyrical Kids, which offers "music classes for babies, kids, and their grown-ups."

It is a simple message. I keep it by my desk to remind myself when things get complicated. They don't always have to be.

The Way Things Work

If you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out… Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.
― Randy Pausch

Oh, my. So Thanksgiving happened, and NaBloPoMo ended, and I went back to work on Monday and it has been days on end of bitching and moaning. Surprisingly, most of it is not coming from me! 

I recently came across this article on the Greatist site, and while I don’t work in a cubicle, I do work in a shared office with no divider. Working in a shared space means that you are always painfully aware of what the other person is doing – for example, when they are on the phone or when someone stops by to ask or answer a question.  Or when they feel comfortable enough to just blurt out whatever comes into their head, regardless of whether you are deep in thought and on the cusp of a breakthrough as revolutionary as the theory of relativity (What? It could happen.).  Also: I am a talkative person anyway, and easily distracted. If you start talking to me I will all too easily start talking back. And then we’ll look up and fifteen minutes have passed and I am still no closer to cracking the next big thing in particle physics, or better yet, finishing up my quarterly fundraising report.

At any rate, this article reports that “employees in cubicles face 29% more interruptions than workers in private offices,” and that those who are frequently interrupted “report nine percent higher rates of exhaustion.” Yeah, that’s right.

The problem with the shared space is exacerbated when the person with whom you share space is having a hard time.  Even when the issue is a legitimate one, because there is another person there to hear the tale of woe, it seems to drag out the issue rather than resolving it. I don’t want to minimize the tale of woe, but I want to make it go away, because my involvement detracts from me getting any of the skazillion projects I am working on completed in any coherent or satisfactory way.

I am currently putting together a pitch to convince my boss to let me work from home at least one day a week. I think I will be way more productive if I don’t have to manage multiple interruptions. If she doesn’t go for it, it does not bode well for my future here. Sweet Dub’s schedule has been changing lately and I may need more flexibility, so perhaps I should be looking for a different environment anyway.
 

What’s your ideal work environment?

Perfect Vision

Photo:  Eye Test, by John LeMasney, Creative Commons

My darling husband is in a bit of a funk. This is hard for me, because he is generally a positive person and he is always working toward something. He is having some moments of self-doubt, not sure of what direction he wants to pursue, frustrated because the hooks he is putting into the water are luring no big fish.

 
“I’m thinking we need to do a vision board,” I said to him this weekend. “You need to be able to really envision what you want. It can be very simple, but I think you need something to look at every day in your workspace so you can see clearly what you’re working toward. Even if it’s something as simple as what you want your home office to look like, where you’d store your cameras and video equipment – just something positive to move toward and look forward to.” 

Many years ago I was introduced to the concept of a vision board (sort of the Pinterest of its time) through The Artist’s Way. Vision boards are boards you create to graphically illustrate your hopes and dreams – what you want to see in your life. The process is designed to help you create a clear, very detailed picture in your mind of what you want for all aspects of your life.

When I made mine, I was close to 30 years old, single, trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Oh, and my 18-year-old cat had died. I was doing a lot of soul searching and I realized I was lonely and kind of directionless. I found some lovely recycled deep purple paper, took a stack of magazines and a glue stick, and went to town. My vision board included a handsome black man, an adorable brown-skinned baby, a cat, a dog, a writing table, lots of pictures of nature, a cup of tea, and a beautiful woman with a gorgeous smile who to me just screamed “happiness” and “fulfillment.” I hung the board on the closet door in my bedroom.

Within a year I met the handsome black man who would become my husband, and 18 months after that had my firstborn adorable brown-skinned baby. I have no idea where that vision board is today (we have moved approximately 700 times in the intervening years), but Sweet Dub still teases me about it to this day. As a toddler, Viva looked eerily similar to the vision of the baby I had. He jokes that I dreamed her into existence.

I believe our success in life is in direct proportion to our clarity of purpose. After thinking about it, Sweet Dub agreed that perhaps visioning would help him focus. He has been trying all different kinds of things in an effort to create some income streams, which is admirable, but it translates into his energy going in a million different directions – some of which occasionally result in him getting paid, which let’s face it, no complaints about that.

We have decided we will each create a board and hang them in our bedroom where we will see them every day. It may sound kind of nuts, but I’ve already seen it work once. I’m interested to see what his will look like, where there are areas of overlap or surprises, if he wants a pet unicorn, etc. Have you ever done anything like this? What would yours look like?

Life Lessons: Dealing with Conflict

What I would prefer to do.

Has someone ever said this to you?  “I don’t like confrontation, so…”

Does anyone really LIKE confrontation? I guess some people do get a charge out of arguing and trying to prove their point. To some people it’s a game. For me – having grown up in an unpredictable household – my survival instinct is always not to make waves, to fly under the radar, or whatever non-confrontational metaphor you’d like to insert here.

However, I have been trying in my grown up years to alter this tendency – not to become confrontational, but, when there is a conflict, not to back away from it. Today, I have been dealing with a work situation in which I have been treading very carefully and diplomatically around a top executive who felt they were being taken to task for something that was outside their control. I do not feel this person is completely absolved in this situation, but I can’t outright say that. Hence, I’ve been trying to tactfully suggest ways we can fix the situation without making things worse.

It appears to have blown over – the most recent emails I’ve received thanked me for clearing things up and my boss even went out and bought me a mini chocolate cake in appreciation (which for some reason, no matter what I do, will only appear here upside down. Ain't nobody got time for that.):

 Are you confrontational? Or are you an avoider? Or somewhere in between? 

 

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands. – Richard Bach

Follow Your Bliss

Wow, I love this story:

80-Year-OldTeacher Makes the Grade

For Guzmán, teaching is not just a profession, it's a vocation. "You really have to feel inside that you can do this," she said. Asked what keeps her going every day at the age of 80, Guzmán laughed.  "The children," she said, "are my energy capsules."

Do you love your job so much that you’d still want to do it when you’re 80? If not, what are you doing about it? Is your job just a job, or do you feel it is a calling?

While I am not in my dream job, I know what my vocation is. I have always been a storyteller and I expect I always will be. I am hoping I will still be writing, in whatever capacity, when I am 80 and beyond. I imagine I will still have something to say. I intend to be an outspoken old broad!

Twenty Thirteen

Okay, no more fooling around. It's time to get serious.*

Returning back to work this week after a simply wonderful long Christmas break, I received a memo which detailed our company's closure schedule for the year -- which holidays will be observed and which the company will pay for. Employees are being told we must take eight furlough days this year, for which we can either be unpaid or use vacation days.** I opened up my date book and started adding the furlough days, and as I did, everything changed. I started thinking, "If you write it down, it is the same as envisioning it is going to happen. You don't want to be in this job in October (Columbus Day) or even April (Cesar Chavez Day). Don't write it down! Don't write it down!" And suddenly I started to have a panic attack. My heart started beating wildly, and I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. I felt sick. I took some deep breaths and went outside and walked around the block until I calmed down, but...yeah.

So...yeah. 

I have almost been in this job a year (two more weeks until my anniversary). It is time to get off the pot and get busy. I have tried to stay positive and focused on learning as much as I can -- and I have, as one does in any new situation. I learned that I can be the boss and it can be horrible at times, but that if I am tactful and respectful and retain empathy I can deal with difficult situations with staff. (By the way, I had to fire a volunteer yesterday. That may have contributed to my panic attack. Fun times!) But I'm not really being challenged here or branching out into other job responsibilities aside from leadership/management. You know I need to add to my skill set, mm-kay? (Stupid buzzwords. As soon as I typed that all I could think of was "swing set" and how much cooler that would be.)

Hey Ma! Look at my cool new skill set! All the kids in the neighborhood wish they was cool like me!

Anyway, added to that, I don't really want to keep doing what I'm doing. I recently learned that my old job is launching a brand new initiative and all I could think was "they're going to need [someone like me=me!] for that" and then I thought maybe I could negotiate a work from home gig with them. And I got a little excited about that but who knows what will happen. Because the future is, like, unknowable. But I will keep the lines of communication open.

I also spent some time around 2 AM today drooling over this site, which combines a lot of my interests -- i.e., writing, drawing, layout/design, and editing. Not sure who I'm more jealous of, the artists who get to create these books or the people who work in publishing and get to bring them to print. In an alternate reality, I would have about ten careers.

This morning at about 3:15 (yup, still awake and driven bonkers by monkey mind) I made a resolution to draw every day -- to take my sketch book with me everywhere and even if I have to sit in my car and draw at lunch, to just give myself that. I need to stretch my muscles a bit. Drawing for me is very energizing and meditative at the same time and I have not let that part of me have fun in way too long.

So for 2013 my mantra is:  Just Do It. And also, Make It So. So that's two mantras. I don't know, maybe it needs work, but you get the gist.

And you?  What do you have in mind for 2013?

*"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." Sacha Guitry, French actor, dramatist and director

** Which is some bullshit, because (a) this is one more furlough day than last year; and (2) if you don't use your vacation time for these days, you don't get paid -- which for a majority of our staff including myself, is simply not an option. I am lucky because I get three weeks (15 business days) of vacation per year since I am a director. Other folks are not so lucky and only get ten days. So if they want to have paid time off, they are being told they have to use their vacation days at specific times - and then have only two vacation days that they can plan independently. In my case, more than half of my vacation time could be theoretically eaten up by furlough days if I want to be paid for those days off. In essence, I feel I am being robbed in many sneaky ways by this job. Oddly, this is not a good feeling.

It’s Baa-aack…

About a million years ago, when I first started dating Sweet Dub, I had just taken what would turn out to be the worst job I have ever had. My boss had a work ethic beyond anything I have ever seen, and would begin emailing me as soon as she got up in the morning, at around 7, and would continue as she thought of things before she got in the car and drove to the office. Once she got to work, the barrage continued throughout the day by email, phone and in-person visits; I was continually interrupted and pulled in eight different directions. It was very difficult to get any real work done. Once she left the office, she would still email throughout the evening. Since this was a million years ago, I did not have a smartphone; hell, I barely had Internet at home. She was ahead of the curve in terms of being plugged in. While our office hours were supposed to be from 10 AM to 6 PM, I began arriving at 8:30 AM and staying until 7 PM or later to try to keep up, and feeling guilty and anxious about leaving even as I was returning home at 8 PM.

Now, I will tell you, I am generally a very conscientious employee. I have a strong work ethic on my own. But I could not keep up with this woman’s demands, and though I had only started working for her in October, by Christmas I had developed a twitch. A nerve under my right eye started jumping. This went on for weeks. Sweet Dub was horrified. Mind you, we had only been dating a few months at this point.

Finally, by March, we had both had enough. “You have got to quit this job,” Sweet Dub said. “Look at your eye! She’s affecting your health!”

And then I did something unimaginable:  I quit that job without another one to go to. I gave my notice at my apartment, moved in with Sweet Dub and started freelancing. I had some savings set aside, but really didn’t have to dip into them, since fortunately I was able to get the freelance gig off the ground fairly quickly. By June I was working 40 hours a week, mainly from home with occasional client meetings.

But I digress.

The point is: once I quit the job, my eye stopped jumping around. Sure, it was stressful trying to get the freelance gig going, but not nearly as stressful as dealing with my boss’ craziness.

And now….

The twitch is back. Not as severe as before, but it’s back.

Recently, I had an encounter within my department which pushed all my buttons. I believe this incident was condescending and revolved around a bit of racist microaggression on which, if I had called the person on it, I would have been given some crap about how I was misinterpreting what this person was saying and being too sensitive. But you know how it is: when something gives you a sick feeling in your stomach and you can feel the heat rising to your face, that’s a pretty good sign that you’re not misinterpreting a damn thing.

Hence, the twitch.  I don’t have the financial cushion I had back then when the twitch made its first appearance, and quitting is not an option. Freelancing is also not an option, since that’s what Sweet Dub is doing. For now, one of us needs a full-time job so we can have some crappy health insurance that we’re paying too much for.

Without getting into details, this recent incident is not the only reason I am unhappy with my current position. So, I’ve updated my resume, and I’m determined to just grit my teeth and bear this until I can work out where I want to go next. My boss is happy with my performance (I got a glowing six-month review), the job pays well, it keeps food on the table and a roof over our head.

Sometimes you just gotta suck it up. Either that or start drinking heavily. And I don't think I'm cut out for that.

Greetings from the Island of Misfit Toys

I am having angst. It is career-related angst, and it is not a pretty thing. It is a bright red, heavy, sharp-horned little creature yanking on my neck and piggybacking along throughout my days.
 
In a recent post I wrote that my current job, the one I referred to as Safety School and where I’ve been for all of two months, is not Awesome with a capital A. I bemoaned the fact that I took the job out of desperation. I noted that a position at my First Choice, where I really wanted to work, was still open.

I don’t think I have fully conveyed how unhappy I was at my previous job. I had been there for 5 ½ years, still love the organization and the people there, but the job itself was killing my soul. I wasn’t growing at all and there wasn’t any way for me to move up or even laterally there.

This new thing I’m doing is a higher level than what I was doing before, but I am still basically doing a lot of the same functions. Now I am supervising staff and that is taking up a lot of time, because I am editing work as well as writing my own.

But it is still the same hamster wheel.

I am trying to figure out what to do now, realizing it is partly the place where I work but also partly the work I am doing that is clouding my days.

In all this, I am aware that I am very lucky to have a job. My job is what gives my family health insurance and a steady paycheck. It has now been almost two years since Sweet Dub was laid off. He continues to freelance, and some months are better than others. Quite honestly, I feel a steady low-thrumming, kind of free-floating anxiety in the back of my mind much of the time.

I am wondering how to transition out of this. Can I afford to take classes on the side? Should I actually enroll in a degree program or just pick up a class here or there? How can I handle this job in the meantime? Why won’t a pile of money drop from the sky? Would I be better off just dropping off the grid and moving my whole family to…I don’t know, where would we move to?

I feel I am operating out of fear rather than out of enthusiasm in this career thing right now. I am skateboarding (badly) while holding an egg. I can’t just leave, and I don’t want to bail out of this job into another one doing what I have grown to dislike. I have decided against trying to re-apply for a job at First Choice as the appeal of that job was not the job itself but the organization, which is very artsy and creative—as opposed to where I am now, which is very rigid and sterile.

(An aside: I have never worked anywhere where such a high degree of social awkwardness pervades nearly every interaction. It is truly bizarre.)

(Also:  I found out that the person I now supervise interviewed for my job. And really wanted it. And is rather bitter and sarcastic, occasionally flaring up with an attitude when I ask her to do things. Work things, conveyed to me by my boss as Things We Need To Do. Oh, it is a blast and a half at Safety School.)

(Not to worry, I am documenting everything.)

 So, yeah. It is a conundrum! A dilemma! And being the Grown-Up sucks some days, the end.

Safety School

When I was job hunting this fall, I applied for a couple of positions, and I got an offer at the first one I interviewed at before I even interviewed with the one I really wanted. It’s like being picked by your safety school and having to give them a decision before you hear from your first choice.

So:  as I was in the midst of the serious due diligence required to be employed at Safety School (fingerprinting, criminal check, etc), I got a call for an interview from First Choice, but they couldn’t schedule anything for nearly three weeks. You know where this is going, right? I scheduled an interview, and in the meantime as much as I delayed with Safety School, they made me an offer. At this point I still hadn’t had an interview with First Choice, so I decided a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, or whatever that crappy expression is. I took it.

I took four weeks off in between jobs and I have now been at Safety School for six weeks. To be blunt: it is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Today I found myself driving past convenience stores when they weren’t even on my way home*—oops, I mean I found myself back on the website for First Choice. It appears that the position is still open.

Er-hrrrrm.  This is a bit of a pickle. More to come.

* Sorry, couldn’t resist. I just have that image in my head of Nicholas Cage driving slowly past the convenience store in Raising Arizona, feeling hemmed in by domestic life and trying to resist going back to his checkered and more exciting past.

Change

There's a light on a hill

That's far out in the distance
And it calls out my name
It calls out for a change
- Fishbone, "Change"

Well, my friends. There have been a lot of changes going on and it has been pretty overwhelming.

For one, I changed jobs. Of course, every job is different; every job has its good and bad things about it. I had been at my last job for over five years and I guess I got pretty comfortable there. So now, being in a new place, I am struck by the contrast. There are good things: the people I work with are really on the ball, super organized and detail-oriented. The work flow proceeds at a much quicker pace, so there is definitely a sense of accomplishment. Some things are neither good or bad--just different. Among those: the corporate culture here is very reserved. People don't do a lot of socializing. There seem to be an inordinate number of rules and safety regulations. To be in compliance with licensing, we do multiple types of drills--earthquake, fire, civil unrest. The bad: many of the employees are unhappy. There's a lot of talk about how the organization has gone downhill in recent years. Interestingly, this has not a whole lot to do with the economy, which you might expect, but rather with what many see as a shift in corporate culture. What also strikes me is that at the last place I worked, people uniformly seemed excited about the mission and purpose of the organization--even people who didn't work directly with the clients were proud of the agency's work. There was a sense of ownership. Not so, here. There is a definite divide between the people who work with clients and who genuinely seem enthusiastic about their work, and those who don't (no buy-in whatsoever, it could be just any job). These are just my impressions, but it is a big difference to me.

Other changes:  a lot of family drama. A LOT. Not in my immediate little Blah Blah circle, but in my family of origin--i.e. my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law and ther family. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but that whole crew lives together. Until my grandma passed last year, there were four generations in one house. In the last year or so, relationships there have deteriorated. My mom and brother-in-law stopped speaking, there were periodic outbursts followed by more not speaking, my mom packed her things and went to live in a hotel for a few days, etc. It has gotten really out of hand. The ownership of the house is complicated; the value of the house is 2/3 of what it was when they bought it five years ago so they can't sell it and get away from each other even if they could overcome the ownership issue. It is a basic nightmare. Oh, and my mother was evidently diagnosed with a mental illness several years ago and no one told me.

All these years I have been trying to come to terms with wildly erratic and sometimes downright hurtful behavior from my mom, completely bewildered by it. Trying to respond from a loving place, with understanding, and yes, sometimes anger because it was so frustrating and it seemed like she was at times being malicious. And maybe she was. But I feel like I would have been more understanding had I known what was really going on.

Oh, so much more to say. I have just uncapped a flood.

Other changes:  My sister just got let go yesterday. She had been at her job for 14 years. The economy.

I love my sister so much. She has a heart as big as the world and is so very sweet. She makes mistakes in judgment at times, but mainly from wanting to make everybody happy. She was already so stressed by the situation with my mom and the house and her husband that her eyebrows started falling out. (I am not making this up.) I am disheartened by this latest development, but buoyed by the hope that her recent job interviews will pan out. Yes, she had already begun looking for a job. She worked for a family-owned small business that had really been struggling in the recession, and she could tell by the balance sheet that something was going to have to give. So I am trying to remain hopeful.

It helps that my little bunch is a messy, loud, hugging, smothering ball of goodness. At the end of the day, when I get home from work, I am coated in love. Sweet Dub is a child-wrangling, dinner-cooking, laundry-doing, always-kissing rock star. Viva is a doe-eyed eager-to-please sweetpea. And that Ceeya--well, I am here to tell you that Age Three can be Challenging. I much prefer the Terrible Twos in some ways. But Ceeya is always quick to run to me and wants to be by my side constantly. For better or worse. (Like especially when one of us is in the bathroom. she wants me to sit down next to her while she's on the toilet. Sigh. She won't always be this small, I know. I should enjoy even this.)

Next time: a little more fun. Maybe some discussion of Viva's upcoming birthday and what our plans might be. If you're still reading, that is.

Moving On

So:  I gave notice at my job this week. No worries, I have another job to go to. More to come.

The Present

Happy New Year!

So far, this year 2011 has been very busy. We are almost a week into it, and it doesn’t suck exactly, but I was hoping for less running around like a rat in a maze for 2011 and more—I don’t know exactly, but more of things kind of going swimmingly well, with everything tinted in a kind of rosy backlit kind of way.

I am doing lots of things! Not really anything that is interesting, unfortunately.

I have been caught up in the swirl of the holidays and vacation and, back at work this week, we are preparing to move to a new office building 15 minutes away. There has been a lot of activity at home and at work and not much time for doing my own thing. My co-workers and I have been pranking each other and making snarky remarks about how we’re going to take over the new building once we move. My co-workers are a rowdy bunch. Every now and then we actually pack our crap into big black crates and slap labels on it. The move is allegedly happening tomorrow and over the weekend, and on Monday we are just supposed to show up at our spanking new offices and everything is going to work perfectly, forever and ever, Amen. I am skeptical.

At home, Viva is in her THIRD WEEK of vacation from school—curse you, Los Angeles Unified School District!—and Sweet Dub has almost certainly had enough of her. He has played Legos, and Bingo, and Monopoly, and scheduled playdates and sleepovers, and they have ridden bikes, and they have fought over the remote. When I arrived home last night he said defensively, “I haven’t been letting her watch TV all day,” even though I had made absolutely no such accusation. Viva was still in her pajamas at 5:45 PM. We were out of milk, and dishes were piled high in the sink. I took a deep breath and went back out into the night to the supermarket.

Our house is a wreck. But the kids seem happy to have had all this intensive one-on-one time with us, so much so that Ceeya won’t let me close the bathroom door between us.

Speaking of Ceeya: somewhat good news on the therapy front! I have contacted my local Regional Center and based on what I have told them it appears she is eligible for FREE services for her developmental delays. I must now get a referral from my pediatrician and/or the occupational therapist who conducted our initial assessment, HAND-DELIVER it to the Regional Center (tell me that will be easy) and then begin the nasty bureaucratic process—er, um, I mean, the exceedingly pleasant process during which I will run across happy government employees who will indulge my every request—of whatever I have to do to get her free therapy.

I have to say that Ceeya is doing much better on her social skills, somewhat better with her fine motor skills. Still needs work on depth perception and oral motor. Her food issues have seen no improvement. Somehow despite this she is growing like a dandelion. I include her hair in this characterization.

As for the title of this post: it is not a reference to a gift. It is a reference to what is happening now. Much as I resist New Year’s resolutions and their ilk, what I want to focus on this year is being present, as much as possible. Forget the dishes in the sink, forget all the stuff on the “to do” list, and give my attention to what is in front of me at any given moment. Easier said than done, but as 2011 motors along, I’m hoping I can retrain myself to do it.



P.S. I also want to cut down on using ALL CAPS in my posts. Rereading the post: what was the yelling for?

Working from Home

Sometimes when you are working from home all the planets align and even though you might occasionally stop working to throw in a load of laundry, you nonetheless are able to buckle down without the distractions of the "water cooler talk" and the like and you write something totally kick ass and you can actually check off a huge project on your TO DO list, a project which has been hanging like a millstone around your neck, like a big frickin' piece of granite or even a giant block of ice, whatever, it's heavy, dude.

Or sometimes, like today, you decide you will buckle down to work right after you make a big pot of coffee. But when you happily pull out the bag, it is suspiciously light, and you realize in horror you are almost out of coffee. And then you go searching through your freezer in hopes that a random bag of java might have fallen behind some tater tots (which you just mis-typed as tater tits, which is a bizarre notion in itself). And no, no hidden coffee, but then you notice that a bag of edamame beans was not correctly closed, and so there are assorted beans littering the bottom of your freezer, along with assorted coffee grounds. And of course you notice there are things in the freezer that are well past their prime, like pot roast that has been frozen for well over six months, so you go on a veritable freezer purge and a good scrubbing, and then you realize that you have just spent half an hour when you should be working, cleaning out the freezer. And the coffee still isn’t made.

And then you think this would be a funny blog post about procrastination, but then you think you don’t have time to blog, you have a grant to write, and then you promise yourself that if you buckle down and finish it, you’ll write the blog post too. And then you make the coffee and go out to the backyard and write out in the sunshine for 15 minutes so you get some Vitamin D and then you go back inside and type for 3 hours and finish the first draft of the grant and email it off and then boy howdy you feel pretty good about that, so here we are.

Happy weekend to you all, procrastinators and non.

Blog Angst

Much has been happening in my personal life and I don’t feel I can share much of it here, although when I sit down to write, that’s all that’s on my mind. Then there’s the larger question: what is the purpose of me writing here? What or who is it for?

When I began blogging many years ago, I did so at the suggestion of some friends (Splooey and Mr. X, and they know who they are). “Blog? What’s a blog?” I said. They knew of my writerly ambitions and thought it would be a good way for me to get started writing regularly, with no pressure. Maybe they thought I would find my voice.

I like to write, and I like to make people laugh. I think I thought blogging might help me write some humorous essays, a la David Sedaris or something. Maybe. But all I know is I’m not feeling very funny these days, and I’m wondering if it’s because writing is an introspective exercise and when I take a half-second to get introspective, I get depressed.

But when there are these significant lapses between posts, a year later I look back and wonder what happened. Hence, I’m writing this so I can document where I am.

I am exhausted in just about every aspect of my being—physically (we just recovered from a family-wide bout with a nasty stomach virus), mentally, emotionally, the end. I no longer enjoy my work. I still enjoy my kids (most of the time). I miss Sweet Dub because he is in the middle of a manic creative phase right now, trying to launch a new career and get a TV project off the ground. My extended family is a huge mess and I’m trying to stay out of it. Work is really making me unhappy and I feel I have no options for fixing it.

It’s just a rough time.

Follow-up to this post: due to liability issues, one can’t actually tell this prospective employee that she needs to do something about her hair. Total can of worms, and what a shame. She was the top candidate for this job but eliminated from consideration for this one reason. (See the comments section for more info if you'd like.)

Can This Be Salvaged?

Something has been weighing on my mind over the past week or so. I know of a situation in which there is a job opening and three candidates have been interviewed. Of the three, one clearly ranked above the rest in terms of experience and consensus was that this person was the most personable and all-around best fit for the position. The position was not offered to this person because of this person’s appearance. This person would be going out to meet with people to get them involved with the organization and it was unanimously felt that this person’s appearance (more specifically, hair) was unkempt and disheveled and that this person would not present well to the public for this reason. This person is warm, well-spoken, and passionate about the cause that they would be speaking about. Everyone who interviewed this person liked this person and wanted to hire this person. Everyone on the interview panel agreed that it was a shame they had to discount the person for this reason.

In this economic climate, I can’t imagine that this person (who, like the other two candidates, has been unemployed for some months) would refuse to do something about their hair if they really wanted the job. This is probably hindering their job search considerably, so even if they are offended that this criticism is made, it just seems the decent thing to do to let this person know what’s up.

The person who ultimately makes the hiring decision has been agonizing over this for the past week, particularly given that another interview was held yesterday and the interviewee was not anywhere near the caliber of the first person. The interview panel now compares every interviewee to the first person and finds them lacking.

The hiring person really wants the first candidate. If you were in the position of the hiring decider (just made that up) how would you handle this situation? If you were the really strong candidate who is being passed over due to your appearance, would you want to be told? And how?

Good Times

Yesterday Sweet Dub and I met for lunch and inadvertently celebrated an anniversary: it’s been a month already since he got laid off.

I know! Doesn’t life always fast forward at the worst times?

At any rate, it was kind of a fun lunch. Laid-back, and Sweet Dub was dressed all casual and hip, wearing a new hat which makes him look even more like his doppelganger, Mos Def.

(Hm. Inserted a picture here of Mos Def in hat. Blogger will not recognize. What the fizzle?)

We talked about current events and other things not related to the kids. We ate Italian food and shared coffee afterward. It was kind of like being on a date.

We are working on a couple of creative projects together—well, mainly he is working on them, and I am trying to do my part in my spare time, and telling him whether I think this or that is a good idea, and helping with logistics when I can. And in this way, I think, the lay-off has been a good thing.

He is simultaneously happier, and a little stressed out, and excited. It’s an interesting, unpredictable chapter in this life we are building together.

That said, more to come…

Too Many Cooks

It is never simple here.
Everybody has an opinion.
A brief piece which is time sensitive is held up.
Repeatedly.
Because so-and-so has to review.
And then whats-their-face needs to read it.
Please say This and not That.
Take This out.
We can’t say That.
I find out that This is also politically sensitive.
In the sense that if we say This, we might not get That.
This could cause big problems for us.
Did he say you could say That?
I am tired and cranky and sick of this game.
Write it yourself then, I think.

It is just this moment.
Tomorrow or even an hour from now I will feel differently.
Inhale, exhale.
I go play with the kittens that were rescued from inside the wall while a crew was renovating an office.
They are tiny, and wide-eyed, and full of beans.
How can you not smile when watching them?
I defy you.

Back from the Doldrums

Well! I just dropped a bomb on you and then skedaddled away, even though so many of you so kindly took the time to comment and commiserate.

That’s not cool, and I apologize. What’s happened is that Sweet Dub got laid off and that very same day, our modem decided to die. What with one thing and another (oh, the intricacies of health insurance and COBRA and such, and by the way: SUMMER CAMP! You gotta start thinking about it! And by the way: cell phone! Sweet Dub’s was a company phone, so he suddenly didn’t have one and lost all his contacts! And hey: pinkeye! The baby got it! And T-ball! We are smack in the middle of T-ball season! And sickness! Sweet Dub and I are both neck-deep in phlegm! And exhaustion! And, scene.) – well, what I’m saying is, I’m pretty invested in keeping my job right now, so I’ve not been blogging at work, and I’ve had no Internet access at home, and I don’t have a Smartphone, so I’ve been somewhat off the grid in terms of blogging.

But here we are, and ten days post-layoff, we are managing to stay positive. I am trying to avoid thinking about health insurance because it makes my eye twitch, so I won’t go into that, but just know this: the Blah Blahs can’t ever catch a break with something like that. Every avenue I tried came back to this: I must pay through my employer for health insurance, and it is $1,100 a month. COBRA is not cheaper, and we don’t qualify for the federal subsidy because Sweet Dub is eligible for health insurance through my job.

But enough about that. (Already I can feel my blood pressure spiking and my heart rate increasing, just in writing those few sentences.) At least one of us has a job. And we have some severance pay and we have some savings (partly for the hypothetical house which is impossible to buy in Los Angeles anyway) and if worst comes to worst, we have credit lines that are not being used. But I would hate for it to come to that.

Here is where I should insert something pithy and somehow poignant and inspirational. But instead I want to tell you a silly story, because it’s finding the humor in the everyday that’s keeping me going right now, and maybe it will make you laugh, too.

Earlier this week, I discovered that if I said, “Ready, set –“ to Miss Celie, she would say, “GO!”* But she would say it with such force that she would literally rock forward on her toes and the vein in her neck would stand out. And then she would break into a huge grin, as pleased with herself as could be.

Last night, I was talking to my mom on the phone and I figured this was a perfect “show off to Grandma” moment, so I said to Miss Celie, “Ready, set –“ and she said, “No.”

Ready, set – NO. It’s kind of appropriate, I think.

* And she doesn’t pronounce it plainly, “GO,” it’s more like “Goh!” which for some reason is more endearing and harder to convey on the page.

Holy Crap

Sweet Dub just called me. He got laid off today.

Holy freakin' crap.

Still Snarky, Still Sleepy

Wow, so here I am, off to a raging start with this blogging thing in 2010. It’s February already and I’ve posted only 3 times this year. Three cheers for mediocrity!

I meant to post, really. But I am being eaten alive by work, have been semi-obsessively watching the catastrophe in Haiti, and had horrible medical news about two people I am very close to (okay, one who I am very close to, and one who I work with – we are friends, but not like we vacation together or anything. But still I wouldn’t wish what he’s going through upon anyone.)* Oh, and Sweet Dub has taken on a new project outside of work which necessitates a commitment of more free time than he has, and I have these two small kids (have I mentioned them to you, ever?) living in my house who seem to need me for things like food and laundry and cuddling. When I have a moment to myself I like to maybe read a book or go for a walk or even watch TV. So there’s that then.

Last night, Viva had a total meltdown when she was told she needed to stop playing Wii (which she never does on weekdays, so it was a special privilege to begin with) and go take a bath. She said some things! She stomped her feet! Sweet Dub said some more things in a loud and angry tone! She was sent to her room! Much loud crying and screaming commenced from behind the closed door!

And then Sweet Dub came to me, where I was feeding our pajama’d Cily her bedtime bottle and said: “You know, we didn’t think about this before we got married. Your mother and my mother? Oh my God, we have fused them together to get the perfect drama queen!”

Yikes. We are smart in so many other ways.

P.S. Do you remember this post? About the Overnight diapers? And maybe that’s why Cily wasn’t sleeping through the night? Yeah?

No. No, that wasn’t it. It was just a fluke. She still wakes up Every. Flippin’. Night. at sometime between 3 and 4 AM. You can call that morning if you want to be technical, but to me, it falls very squarely into the time when I want to sleep, hence NIGHT. Gahhhh. When 6 AM rolls around, I am too through!


* My grandma’s tests came back even worse than before. Her lung cancer is not operable; it has spread too far, which is a very bad sign, because even a couple of months ago doctors thought that if they could just get her healthy, they could perform surgery where they would resection her lung. Since it has spread that quickly in just a couple of months, I am very scared that this means her time here on earth is much shorter than we anticipated. Never mind the cancer in her stomach and whatever the hell is going on with her liver (inconclusive).

As for my work friend: his newborn baby has a one-in-a-million type of disorder for which the only solution is brain surgery. My heart breaks for him. I can’t even imagine. This is going to be a long and difficult journey and I can’t even crack any jokes about it, which is my default way of dealing with things when things are not going well. So you see the situation I'm in.