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  • Meet the new boss…

    January 15th, 2009 she Posted in It's a Living 5 Comments »

    My group was hived off from our previous department in the “great fallout of 2009” (TM) and today my old boss and I met with the new boss. I’m not certain what this means for us in the long run. We’ve removed a management layer – which can only be a good thing – and re-aligned with a department that I’ve always thought my group needed to be working closer with. The new boss seems approachable and “gets” a lot of the things I worry about. He doesn’t seem to want to micro-manage and wants to leave chunks of the current structure in place. I’ve worked with him and many of his team members before and know that this change is probably a good thing for my smaller group.

    It occurs to me that I don’t even know the name of my new department…

    For the moment nothing changes for me other than the software I’m working with and the reporting structure. I will get a new dev server and continue my daily supervision of my minions. For now. We will have a tonne of new and unexpected work resulting from the switch in LMS’s but I’m sure R and I are up to the challenge.

    However, I’m just a geek and the real workers might not find the change large enough – or his knowledge of their needs and challenges strong enough -to result in permanent positive change. For the moment I choose to remain hopeful as I await additional news on the secret email front.

    I know. Not so secret when I blog about it. Then again, I’ve been about as descriptive as a blank chalkboard lately.

    I did have a bit of a grouchy break this afternoon. A not-so-liked co-worker was given (taking?) credit for some excellent work done by a different co-worker who wasn’t there to defend herself. So I jumped in to ensure she was recognized. Normally it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. We share credit for individual work here all the time. Today it just really bothered me and I wasn’t ready to let it go.

    I have arranged to take tomorrow off to run a tonne of errands – groceries, packages for Drew, bill payments, and studying are all in the plans for my day off. I need the change of pace to refresh and be ready for whatever Monday brings.

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    ARRGGGGGHHH!

    January 13th, 2009 she Posted in Frothing At The Bit, It's a Living 1 Comment »

    I am trying to decide how to process today. Like a true useless female critter, I got so angry and frustrated that I cried like a baby. I hate it when I do that. It’s a completely involuntary and silly response and I wish I had better control over myself so I didn’t take things so personally. Or at least that I could get angry and just explode like most people do. Instead I fell apart. I don’t even have something useful like menopause to blame my reactions on.

    What’s worse, no one is able to provide any sort of answer or direction to my underlying question. Instead, we’re all supposed to fall on our swords in order to appease others. Many times I’ve accepted responsibility for the actions or mistakes of others and willingly stepped up to the plate.  Today I felt an extreme amount of pressure to do so despite knowing that there was very little of the mess that I had any authority or manner of control over. I feel like the nerdy kid on the playground being harassed by the school yard bully. I am sure I’m not the only one.

    Things are changing. I hope for the better.

    When I arrived home I found the snow shoveling fairy had made a visit. This small nicety from a neighbour immediately improved my mood. I am incredibly grateful for the wonderful people who surround me and the things they do, without expecting anything in return, that shows that someone cares.

    I also got an interesting email tonight. If nothing else, it provides a sense of hope to cling to. I just hope I can hold on to the second quarter.  Many times I feel somewhat unemployable as I sit in limbo between odd skill set and past experience and formal education. I often wish I had something else to fall back on, like office admin skills, so I could go work elsewhere. But I don’t.  I have a lot of respect for admins because they know how to do things I can’t imagine how to complete. I used to joke that it was my ego that kept me from applying for positions like that. But it’s not.  It’s a combination of other things. I know I don’t have the requisite knowledge and skill set to be good at the position – and I hate not being good at what I do – and I know I’d be quickly bored.

    Bored me is not a good person to be around.

    In the meantime I guess I wait.  And hope. And keep my eyes open and ears to the ground. Obscure much?

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    It is definitely a “Monday”.

    January 12th, 2009 she Posted in It's a Living 2 Comments »

    I work up early and planned to be into the office a good hour earlier than normal to deal with any issues arising from the start of a new semester. It was not to be. I spent nearly an hour in traffic stuck behind a grader on the drive to work. I forgot to wear my hat and scarf so my neck and ears froze on the walk from the parkade to the office. I spent my morning waiting for ears to thaw. I’m told there’s a mini-blizzard outside again today. At least I remembered to wear my boots!

    There continues to be fall-out at work from last week’s game of guess what’s in my head.  Sometimes I wonder if the people who cause these types of panic attacks are completely oblivious to the root causes of the issues and their own responsibility for the occurrences or if they just don’t care about the impacts of their choices and behaviour on their sub-ordinates.

    Both options seem poor but I think I’d rather it be the former than the latter.  Ignorance can be corrected. Downright abdication of responsibility as a leader and intentionally blaming those below you for issues that had been flagged for your attention – and that you played a part in the lack of resolution for – is a poor example to be setting from any position of power. The lack of ethical behaviour at higher levels often astounds me. The fact that everyone is too afraid for their jobs to call the perpetrator of the behaviour on it saddens me.

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    Glad that’s over

    January 9th, 2009 she Posted in It's a Living No Comments »

    Work has been nuts these past few days. It’s a good thing that we all get along with each other cause I know I was crankier than usual today. Next week appears to be shaping up to be more of the same…

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    Half a brain

    January 7th, 2009 she Posted in Friends & Family, It's a Living 7 Comments »

    I get a long very well, in my not so humble opinion, with my office mates. Frequently I’ll give advice or instruction to one only to learn that they’ve already completed the task exactly as I’ve just described. We have similar senses of humour and have been known to blurt out similar phrases in response to a stimulus. There’s a lot of laughter in our office. Some is humour related. Some is a stress reaction and letting off steam. Either way, we have fun most days.

    Months back we began joking that we share the same brain when we’re working or in class (R is completing a Business Diploma, I a BA in Psychology). When one of us is about to complete a paper or exam we joke that that person has been assigned the brain for the duration of the project.

    Today Dr. D suggested that we were sharing half of a brain. Little did he know his half was immediately cut into quarters since we were already “sharing” a single brain amongst the three of us. Poor “Marion”. I’m sure he didn’t know what he was getting into when he made that wise crack.

    Sleep deprivation definitely has a negative impact on cognition. I noticed my attention span was nearly non-existant for periods of the day and I felt like I was slogging through water – uphill – while working. I made an annoying mistake at the end of my day – restoring the wrong backup to the server. This resulted in my having to stay at work for an extra few hours in order to fix the mess I made. Bad me.

    Tonight I’m going to take my vitamins (thanks Dawn), thank the powers that be that I can safely avoid shoveling snow until it’s a bit warmer (it’s still snowing at the moment) and continue to hope the show shoveling fairy will appear, grab some dinner, skip studying and try to crash early. Sounds like a plan to me.

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