4:27 p.m. - 2004-03-24
Been gone too long...
I should take more time on these Wednesday nights to write before class... it's a perfect opportunity but I suppose I also find other things to fill that time.
Yeah, so it's been something like 40 days, and I can't say that life, as viewed in an entirety, has been particularly peachy. A lot of stress, a lot of ups and downs emotionally but I've been holding myself together good enough.
As we all know that facade eventually breaks, bringing along with it the great rains of tears to flood the plains of woe-is-me. Thankfully, that has past. I hate monsoon season, I should move...emotionally that is.
But speaking on moving. It has been one big stress in my life to find adequate housing for the family come May or at least this summer. The condo that never seemed like it was going to pan out finally panned (I guess they had to get the police involved to get this lady out of the place... they had trashed it too... go figure) and we got to see the place last week. We liked it. We're moving forward with it and everyone keep their fingers crossed that things go smoothly from here. It's the money part now... I hate money. Funny thing for a person with an accounting degree to say I suppose.
My brain is all messed up. I noticed it most of all yesterday as I talked to my coworker at lunch. I was multithreading up a storm and not once finishing a thought. I was all over the place. It's half hormone induced due to Aunt Flo's impending visit but usually I'm not THIS random while speaking so it just went to show me that there's a lot in my head.
Work is just off the wall. Too many DB2 projects, just one Tara. While I was talking to the same coworker today at lunch we agreed that if either of us tried to find another job somewhere we'd likely be bored to tears and miserable. I have wondered, often lately, if that would be completely true in my case, but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I can see the truth in that.
As much as I hate being this busy, the amount of responsibility and importance of the projects I take on feeds my "must do a fabulous job" need and I thrive under the pressure. Cracking every now and then a little when all of my projects push down on me at once.
All in all I'm learning to better delegate but I'm also finding the frustration in that as well. People just don't work like I do and the people I have at my disposal are often distracted by other things or do not work at the rate I know I could work at if I didn't have everything else to do. Ah-ha... I suppose I just learned something else that I can apply from my management class... I cannot expect the same from others as I do of myself. Of course, for some of these people that would mean they'd kill themselves from the misery :) I've got tough skin by now ;)
Hey... I'm learning.
We had a team meeting last week at work with some of the members from the different teams my boss now manages. It was a Myers-Briggs team building meeting. We took the Myers-Briggs self-score questionairre and came up with our personality types. We then spent the day reviewing each of the types and lumping ourselves into the various categories and discussing the benefits and potential short-comings of each.
Here's one explanation of my type... I laughed at how "like me" it is:
ENTJ
The ENTJ takes his/her energy from the outer world of actions and spoken words. He/she prefers dealing with patterns and possibilities, and making decisions after considering the consequences of the various courses of action. His/her life is organised on a logical basis. He/she tends to control life, organising systems and people to meet task oriented goals. He/she often takes the role of executive or director, using a business-like and impersonal approach. He/she may appear intolerant of people who do not set high standards for themselves or don't seem to be good at what they do.
The woman giving the training suggested we pair up with someone opposite of us in our weakest area... mine was, fittingly enough, "feeling". I told everyone straight out that I had the most difficulty in trying to identify the "good" in feeling at work. I suppose I'm just uber-task oriented and thusly can forget people's feelings when things need to get done. I don't care if your dog died or if you spill ketchup on your tie! I need this crap done! So yeah...
Luckily for me, the guy on my team that I eat lunch with is an F (which is a "feeler" as I refer to it) and so I said I'd use him as my sounding board when I thought I might need to or when it's apparent that my apparent heartlessness has negatively effected some poor soul at work.
Overall, at work (and slowly bleeding into home as well) I am becoming more aware of myself and how I deal with things and how I get things done. I suppose I've been so tired lately not only because I've been working so hard but also because I have this second powerful string running in the background that is continually auditing my behavior. That's resource consuming... I need to be more efficient :)
I don't believe that how I score on Myers-Briggs at work would equal what I might get if I took it in my "home world". I separate the two worlds to a very high degree because I have to in order to get things done at work.
I suppose, at work, I AM a Domme. I'm somewhat bossy, and I'll order people around to get the things I need done. Of course, I'll ask permission first... it's only proper ;) Right now things there are so messed up anyway because people are running on something like ten different standards and it just sucks. I like it much better when management isn't being so controlling and all the groups are talking to each other. When we have a single point of contact there's a lot lost in translation (otherwise known as forgetful bosses forget to pass on imperative information which gets individuals in trouble later when there is no time to perform a task needed "yesterday" but known about for three months. They're really good at doing that to me lately.)
I released the survey for our group project at school today at work. One group already has a nearly 100% completion rate. I'm thinking of picking up something for each of them. Nothing huge but maybe a physical thank you for being so quick to respond. I don't have much from other groups but I suppose that's how things go. I'll likely end up making the rounds next week or sending out another email, pleading for them to take the surveys...
My own team is insisting on being pains in my rear and posting off the wall answers... oye! How they love to antagonize me! It's a damn good thing I love them too!
School... I haven't been here in two weeks and, you know, vacation does not always make the heart grow fonder. Though I love the class and am learning/building on a lot, I just am -not- excited to be back. It's just another thing in the way of going home, getting the things I need done, done and going to sleep. I'm tired today. Stupid hormones.
I have a 10 page paper due on the 7th. Shouldn't be too difficult though. It's double spaced and it's an application paper so basically all I have to do is write about how I've been using the concepts I've learned in the class and applying them to work situations. Thankfully I've been doing just that all along so this should be cake. Lords know I have plenty to talk about and so, I'm not concerned. I'll probably start the paper next week some time so that I finish it in time. There's no class next week anyhow for me so I'll have some time alone at home.
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He says I've been talking in my sleep again... keeping him up even. It's the stress. Thankfully my new assignment from Him helps me to refocus and center on home and forget most of the woes of work so that I don't annoy Him with my constant work babble. I don't even like talking about it all at home because it frustrates me. I want to just leave as much of it outside the door as possible. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It's a balance and I've been doing okay maintaining it. Leaving most of it outside the door allows me to be a little more focused and does allow me to usurp that little freed-up stream of energy for home things rather than wasting cycles on work-woes I can't fix when I'm not there.
I need to sit and do a mental cataloging session sometime soon... to see what else besides all this that has landed on the page today. Thankfully my brain is feeling lighter and though I know I'm still abundantly random I'm happy to have an outlet to be random to without being criticised for such. My coworker looks at me funny when I get like this. He (Stephan) usually just asks me what is wrong and usually I don't have an answer for that. I suppose I could say my brain is full but then He's ask "with what?" and I wouldn't want to go into it because I know it would involve work things that I don't want to talk about.
blah blah blah...
My mind is clicking away here so fast that I can't possibly empty the thoughts onto the page as quickly as they come and go. I know I had another topic to flip too after I was finished that one but someone walked in and was talking and I got distracted and the thought was gone. It's all good... that just means there's still a lot in there to come out.
huh... that last paragraph... in the window I'm typing in... every line but the first one begins with a word starting with 't' except the first line... cool :)
My mom called me today and told me she has an interview this week closer to where she's living now. That's good and it sounds like the job is a perfect match for her skills because it would be utilizing the classes that she took while working at her last job. My mom does pretty well for herself. I'll be happy to know that she's only driving 11 minutes to work instead of something like 2 hours one direction. I worry about her and that also can't be any good for her back.
Still no decision on what I want to do for Easter. Usually I'd travel up to see the family... I'm not sure what I want to do this year. I think part of me just wants to stay home, close the doors, pull the shades and sit quietly and do those things I never get to do anymore. I have to figure out soon what we're going to do. Perhaps I'll ask as the weekend gets closer if He has a preference. He's going to tell me that it's up to me... I know this already, and so I suppose I should put some thought to it beforehand so that maybe He'll at least let me ramble my way through until I figure out what I do and do not want to do.
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I need to repaint my nails again... they're currently this pink color... not girly pink but pink all the same (yeah, I know, I know... don't faint or anything, I'm wearing PINK!) I ordered a new color from Avon though (provided that my avon lady knows which one I mean)... it's a blue... probably close to what Jenny used to call "Tara blue". It's actually a lot like this pink... well, except it's blue and no one but me would really understand that logic I suppose... *smirks* I'm weird sometimes (yes, more than sometimes, I know)
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Good conversations lately in face-to-face situations with people. I think this is some of the reason I've been infused with a certain passion for getting the lifestyle aspect of my life worked back into my schedule. I need more time in which to pursue those "to do"s on my list and get things in order soon. I've always been enthralled by talking philosophies with people and watching them and reading them and shocking them with my knowledge of their reactions even when they don't think I know. People don't understand the magic in that and so, it surprises them. I can't say that -I- totally understand the gift but it's a nice one to have all the same. And when He and I are together our gifts seem to feed off one another and we're twice as effective sometimes at getting through people.
I'm learning to accept my role in the lifestyle again. Learning where my boundaries lay and that sometimes I need to do those things for me even when it feels like I need to be doing something completely different for the others. I suppose it's almost like learning to be selfish again but on a different level. It also ties in with my expectations comments earlier when I was talking about work. I know my girls are probably smiling just thinking about my obsessive compulsive expectations... They're not changing, my sweets, but nice try ;)
Again, my busy-ness has pressed upon me the importance of time in my journal. And obviously as shown here by this entry I need to take more time so as not to create "War and Peace" editions of my journal entries.
So much going on though...
So little time spent on the PC anymore.
I even considered taking up a written journal once again!
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I want to READ again. I have all these books that I want to finish. That I want to start, that I need to use as references for other activities that I've chosen to do. Am I getting any of that done? No... Treadmill time... I have to start doing that again so I can at least have a half hour of reading time a day (or every other day if I'm going to spinning or some other class). I enjoyed my week on the train last week because I read my entire assignment for class this week and some of the notes that I missed for one of the classes. It was fabulous! I remember when I was still working for CSC and I was commuting on the train from Fitchburg to North Station every day for something like 3 months. I read more Gor books and a few other books than I even care to remember! Reading good! Sign me up for more spare time!
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On the happy front at work, I found out from the many-mentioned coworker that my boss asked him if he would transition to a more DB2 role. WOOHOO! I get someone who's at least partially familiar with the databases and environments! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO! I guess there's a rec open too for another resource but I don't know how true that is or not. I can hope and wait and see what happens. It would be nice if I could get said-current-coworker up to speed before they hire someone new who knows nothing about our databases at all. New people take longer to traing. Plus, you end up with questionable database skills and all that good stuff.
*yawns* I should have taken a nap in my car like I had planned to!
I've been babbling for nearly an hour and so... I think I should just shut up for now and troll around the news so that I might have something to talk about when we talk about "Org. Change and Leadership in the News" in class.
Ta for now, folks.
