Longest week ever!! I feel like I got thrown under a few busses this week and had to do my best to conceal how butt-hurt I am about having tire tracks across my back. You remember the one about my putting more focus on school and trying not to get sucked into the work madness. Yeah, laughable. I discovered last week (via Joshua) that Matt complained about how dedicated I was to my employer. Yeah, true story. And apparently I don’t have a very good self-preservation instinct to keep it from happening again.

So I’m on the cusp of skipping a semester in school and I’m gravitating toward that over pushing back on these work shenanigans. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why I can’t push back on work stuff instead? What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m doing the best I can with the time I have and reminding myself daily with that. I also have to remember that no matter how I feel right now it doesn’t hold a candle to how I felt in 2016 and 2017 when I was employed full time at an organization that had no conscience when it came to taking advantage of their people and their dedication. At least the people I work for now seem to care about my health and well being.

With that being said, it should be easier for me to communicate with them about the situation. I’ve been pretty transparent about the max hours I am able to work and even as recent as a month ago said “If I take this contract, it will likely be my last one”. I also said something will have to give with regard to the 6 projects I am on. At the time they made a plan for rolling me off a few of those. After that 2 projects got put on hold until 2019. My mind was then at ease with the direction.

Then this week hit and not only did I have to put my game face on for in-person meetings with the customer but also got blindsided by having to run a knowledge transfer session about some stuff that I know very little about. I had to scramble and research and put together an agenda and then I had to be the main presenter. That kind of shit terrifies me. If I’m the SME, no problem, but don’t ask me to talk about something I’m vaguely familiar with like I’m the expert. Good grief!! 🙄

The triple whammy yesterday was that the client “decided” that it would be great to have me on site. Wait.. what??! I’m supposed to be remote. That leads to a whole other host of unknowns about the project and also calls into question that this was sort of the plan all along. Did they just need to get me on the train? They probably knew that once I was on I would be agreeable. That’s a pretty pessimistic view, but I can’t help but feel like there was a bit of a bait and switch that happened. It was probably unintentional, but it just doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have a problem driving town and reporting to a desk. That might actually be great because I’ll be with the team I’m supporting and have more opportunity to establish great relationships. It might be the perfect balance of in-person and remote working. I have to think about that.

They also proposed I get a particular certification yesterday which normally would be a fabulous opportunity but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be receive that info and my reaction was not awesome. I think he expected me to be jumping up and down on the phone and I was like “hmmm, ok”. I’m an open book people. Thinking about it after the fact, I think it would be great, but it does pull me in a little deeper when what I really want is to get out. I guess that’s my big hang-up around all of this is that I want to go in a particular direction and I keep going in the opposite direction.

I don’t want to skip a semester of school. I don’t want to work more hours. I don’t want to be the person leading the charge. I want to go to school and work less hours and just be the supporting role behind the scenes. Why is that so difficult? And now I feel like I am just being greedy with life. I was spoiled last year when I took 6 months off and now I just want that life back. I should be grateful for my job and the opportunities that are right in front of me, but it feels like a constant struggle to think along those lines. Can’t you just feel the angst and indecision oozing off of my words?

In any case, I am grateful that it is Friday and this day has finally been restored to its former glory – the day that signals the start of the weekend. For a while there, all the days blended together and there wasn’t a whole lot of distinction between Monday and Thursday and Friday and Sunday. Now I’m definitely back on that regular work/life schedule and looking forward to Friday’s and the weekend like everybody else. This weekend I’m hoping to have a relaxing time, enjoying spending time with my love and being lazy around the house. We have a few meetups with friends and family scheduled so that should be good too. After all, what is it we are doing that whole work thing for but to enjoy everything else even more??!!

Infinite wisdom from Mr. Mraz…

It takes a thought to make a word
And it takes some words to make an action
It takes some work to make it work
It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

La-La-La-la-la-la-la-Life is Wonderful,
~Miss SugarCookie