Category: Work

Feeling Overwhelmed

As I type this out, I have six stitches in my arm from an excision surgery last week. Not only did I have a uterine biopsy in October, I also had a skin biopsy that resulted in this surgery. So for those of you who don’t want to do the math: I’ve had 3 biopsies now in roughly 6 weeks. The surgery was a few days ago and while it appears to be healing fine, I wish I could say the same for my mental health. Yet again waiting on pathology report to help me know whether any further action is needed. If you have never had to play the waiting game of “is it cancer or not?” lemme tell you, it is a fun one <insert heavy sarcasm>.

I have been on a mission to get up-to-date on home inspection and repair stuff since this home is now approaching 22 years old. And the wasband (i.e. ex-husband LOL) didn’t do any of this shit (I would have known because I managed our finances while married). I have had dryer vents cleaned, trees trimmed away from the house (no more critters in my attic please!), chimney inspected and cleaned, and this week was to have the HVAC units inspected. I had suspected the HVAC units were original to the house…and as it turns out, I was right. Since this house has 2 units (one in the attic and one in the basement), I am looking at roughly $15k-$20k to replace them. The technician told me they are safe for now, but it’s all basically a house of cards at this point, because the furnaces have basically passed their average lifespan. The good news? That total cost is both the furnaces AND the A/C units, so it’s doing it all at once. The bad news? I dunno about you, but I don’t know any elder Millennial or Xennial that has an extra $20k just laying around. I’ve spent this entire weekend agonizing about how to finance this amount of money. How I can work it into my budget. If I replace one unit at a time or just do the whole schebang at once. I think I have a plan devised, but am fraught with worry about making sure I pay this off and don’t get myself into a financial bind. I am so grateful to my bestie, who is a whiz with finance and budgeting, and am running my plan by her to make sure it is sound. If there are any holes in the plan, she will find them.

To add to that fun of financial worry, our Chief Human Resource Officer at my job sent out a memo about hiring for 2024 that seemed pretty bleak. More or less no new roles will be added in 2024 (that wasn’t already budgeted for) without his express approval. Every single role. Seems excessive right? There’s also talk the new CEO wants to look at cost cutting measures so he will look good to the board. So yay to uncertainty there. While I don’t think I may get laid off, I don’t know for sure, and come up with contingency plans because nothing would surprise me. Having been laid off from Corporate America previously I don’t put stock in anything anyone says about whether my job is safe or not.

And last, but certainly not least, I had been texting with someone for a few weeks off a dating app that seemed promising. We hadn’t met up for a date yet because we are both divorced with kids and it’s been hectic trying to find free time on already packed holiday schedules. I had this niggling feeling this week that I am still over-giving, being the one to initiate all too often as that has been my historical role in relationships. I am an anxious cutie (I like the term Therapy Jeff has coined!) and know I have the tendency to fill in communication gaps myself because it makes me uncomfortable and to get validation they do in fact still like me. Well, the last time we texted was on Thursday and I was the last person to send communication…and I haven’t heard from him since. Admittedly, I am a bit bummed, because I was genuinely looking forward to meeting him but I don’t want to be with someone where there isn’t a more equal exchange of effort. And looking back through text messages, I told him I skew anxious and that if there will be communication gaps, it’s helpful to me if he’s proactive in letting me know. I even told him consistency and effort are key things I look for. <insert sigh here> This has been probably the first time in my life where I am able to observe this and actually find the inconsistency unattractive, instead of me wanting to try harder to convince him why he should like me.

All of this has felt heavy on my shoulders this week, and although I have a good support system of friends and family, I still feel alone in dealing with all this. Plus I have been feeling lonely for awhile now. Going on year 3 of living separate, almost a year and a half of being divorced, plus being lonely for years in my marriage, I have had the thought of “when is it my turn?” I know that is a completely human reaction and I’m trying to have compassion and sympathy for myself in this moment. Beating myself up or trying to toughen up isn’t going to help…in fact, it’s only going to make me feel more like shit than I already do.

Here I sit in the overwhelm, acknowledging and holding space for these feelings as best I can. Ultimately I trust I will be able to figure this all out, because up until this point in my life, I’ve been able to successfully figure everything out. I trust that future me has got this and know the rain and storms I’m currently in cannot last forever. Things will eventually get better. I’m trusting in that thought today to keep me going.

The New Workplace

This week at work, we had some changes in leadership, including our CEO and other high-level executives. As a result in a departmental meeting, this talk of what will happen to remote working under our new leadership began circulating. It seems to be ever present in people’s minds. Our leader mentioned that our old CEO hated remote work and would have rather we all be back in the office. Our new CEO didn’t even live in the same city as the region he was representing, so there was talk that he may be more flexible at keeping remote work in place. I sat in the meeting, wondering to myself, “Why is this even a point of discussion three years into a global pandemic?”

The amount of gaslighting going on these days by Corporate America is insane. We are anchoring results against the pre-pandemic world. We talk about going back into the office as “getting back to the way things were”. It makes me want to scream, “What have you witnessed in the past three years that makes you think that ANYTHING or ANYONE is the same as before the start of the pandemic?” There is no getting back to the way things were. Like it or not, we are all forever changed as a result of living through this moment in history.

Across the globe, we watched over 6 million of our fellow humans die from this disease. A lot of us are either experiencing or bearing witness to the devastating health effects of long COVID as a result of having had this and actually survived. I was fortunate enough not to lose a close family member or friend during this time, but I know plenty of people who did. For those of us with children, it was an exhausting daily task of calculating the risk of whether or not to take your child out into the world, deciding to put them in daycare, etc. because even though there was a global pandemic, we were still expected to show up and do our jobs. At my company, and my ex-husband’s company, we operated completely remotely for over a year and guess what? Those companies did not significantly suffer having a remote workforce.

For me personally, the pandemic shifted a lot of my own personal values. Pre-pandemic, I was overly concerned with my own career track. I had often felt “behind” at progressing up the corporate ladder and was overextending myself to try to make strides to get promoted, etc. Now? I could honestly give a shit less about the “corporate ladder”. It’s all bullshit. I am no longer interested in participating in capitalism the way I once did before. Now I am interested in doing a good job for my own personal integrity and also I want flexibility to attend my daughter’s events, pick her up early to do something to go make memories, or not be exhausted at the end of the day that I don’t have the energy or inclination to pursue some of my own hobbies and interests. I learned a very emotional yet important lesson during this time: you do not know when your time is up. I want to savor the moments, both individually and with my because I will never get that time. My dad used to talk about making memories with us, and his words echo on repeat in my head.

I am waiting for employers to catch up and finally realize this is the new workplace. Workers globally no longer care about sacrificing their mental health and time with family and friends to help the company earn ridiculous profits. As for me, I will be sure to take time to make memories with my kiddo.

Perfect Timing

Perfect timing for my daughter to get sick. 2-1/2 weeks into a new job. With no manager or director right now. Sigh. Tuesday night we were up half the night with her because she wasn’t feeling well. Poor peanut, I know this is not her fault but shit. What awful timing!

Yesterday I stayed home from work with her. I tried to do some work when she napped but also wanted to make sure I took good care of her. I was able to still attend a conference call because the husband came home from work. I felt so incredibly guilty when I was working and not taking care of V, and then felt guilty when I was with her and not attending to my work. It’s incredibly exhausting to feel like an octopus juggling all these balls in the air. And the sad fact? By trying to spread myself so thin I’m not doing any of these things well. At all.

Last night she still had almost a 103 fever. I felt so bad for her because I knew she was miserable. Poor baby. Even though she woke up with no fever this morning, I still wanted to keep her home for another day.

Which meant another morning of trying to juggle. Then rushing off to work for an afternoon filled with meetings and trainings. Sigh. These are days that I wish I could clone myself.

This Morning’s Drama

My morning started off by me dropping and shattering a coffee mug, coffee splattering all over the floor and my dress. Guess I didn’t really want to wear that outfit today. Husband left for the gym so I was left to wrangle the toddler to get her ready for school.

First she didn’t want to leave the house and was scream crying. Then I tried to coax her with tablet. It turned off so she started crying again. We get to school and she didn’t want to give the tablet up. She screams at me. Out of frustration she throws the tablet so I take it and put it away. More screaming and crying. I tell her it’s time to go to school and she tries to slap me and physically fights me when I try to take her out of her car seat. I back off and try telling her again it’s time for school. She’s shaking her head and hollering “Noooooooo!” at me. I try again to get her out of seat and I have to hold on to her carefully as she is flailing and fighting me all the way. We walk into the building and she throws her milk, where it promptly spills all over the floor.

I take her to classroom for drop off. She wants nothing to do with me. I kiss her goodbye and as I walk out of the room, I feel the tears welling up. I quickly walk out and get in my car and lock the door.

I lay my head on the steering wheel and sobbed uncontrollably. It’s barely 7:30 and I’m already emotionally and physically exhausted. Now it’s time for me to buck up and head into week 3 of my new job, where I will face an entire day of not knowing what-the-fuck-I’m-doing, adding to the incompetence and ineptitude I already feel.

I feel so badly about how things went down with my daughter. I feel completely at a loss on how to deal with her when she’s like this. And then I feel like a terrible mother when I lose my patience with her. I vaccilate between trying to understand what she may be going through and thinking “I don’t have time for this fucking shit.”

Here I sit at the office, working on a server outage I know nothing about, praying I don’t dissolve into tears at work. Keep your fingers crossed for me.