Category: Work

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.

Time for a breakdown

A lot has gone on in the past month. I’m not sure if this post is going to be breaking down all that has been happening or detailing my breakdown that I seem on the verge of having.

I’m on my 2nd week at a new job. I’m working with and for some people I previously worked with and I’m very happy about that. Overall the environment seems way more positive than the one I was in. But I came on board to find out during the first week that my manager wasn’t really my manager. There was a director role missing so he really is supposed to be my boss’ boss. Then I find out that my faux manager is going to leave this current team to manage a different team in the company. My new REAL manager starts at the end of the month and they are looking for a new leader also. And THEN I find out that the lead person (again interviewed with him) is leaving after my first week. And 2 other people from a team of 6 are done in early August. What. The. Fuck.

That leaves 3 people left on team that are staying. And none of them know diddly shit. I’m supposed to greet my new boss and orient him…after only having been here 3 weeks myself.

Beyond the people/staffing clusterfuck there are a lot of different moving pieces. And acronyms. And I don’t have the right access yet.

To say I feel overwhelmed is a complete understatement. Our stuff is utilized by the whole company and I’ve been terrified something is going to stop working and our team will have no clue how to fix it. Today I wanted to cry but it’s kinda hard to have a good solid cry in those new collaborative work environments where you have zero privacy. I held back the tears, only because I didn’t want someone to see me cry and label me as the new person…who is unstable.

There’s more to report but I need to take a deep breath and head back to the office to have more shit dumped in my lap. BRB – fighting back another round of tears.