The Times They Are A Changin

  Truer words were never spoken. However, despite my desire to blog and share everything that's been going on, I've been a little afraid to do it because of who might be reading... Remember last year when I was like, oh, I think I'll leave grad school to go to work full time because I like my job? Yeah. The tides have turned a bit. I don't regret leaving grad school, and I don't regret starting work full-time, but it is taking a toll.
    My physical health is not terrible, but it's definitely affected by working at a computer all day. Sitting at a desk with a gigantic monitor (that always seems too bright no matter how low I turn the brightness control down--I think it's at 35 right now out of 100) for 8 hours a day is bad for your health. Period. I get up, walk around, grab a snack, chat to my coworkers, but then I have to go back to my desk and work after a few minutes of break time.
    I know I have eyestrain. I know my posture's not great anyway, and looking at a computer all day doesn't help. I have started to get a little twinge in my lower back sometimes from my desk chair, even though it's probably more comfortable than some of the office chairs we have. I get tingles in my hand sometimes from using my mouse if I have to do the exact same task for too long in one day (there's a name for this I read the other day, but I can't remember what it is right now). I even have a trackball mouse, which is supposed to be more ergonomic and easier on your hand and wrist, and most of the time, it is, but you do anything for too long and you're bound to get some carpal tunnel symptoms. Not only are these things I could tell my doctor, but I'm also stressed. Eight hours is just a long day. And I always feel out of the loop or behind on my work which stresses me out.
    We currently have an influx of interns at our office which is causing me more stress. Our new three year plan is to have a company "fueled by interns." Now, they're all nice people and I don't begrudge them coming in to get job experience, and I certainly didn't go to business school to say whether or not this is a sound business plan. But I have to admit, it makes me a little nervous. I'm not afraid that one of them will come in and take my job. I'm more afraid that interns won't be enough to keep up with the workload we have because they aren't trained well enough or aren't there enough hours in the week.
    I was hoping they would arrive to relieve some of my workload so that I didn't have to worry as much as I do about how much stuff needs to get done. I find that lately, I've been a little more forgetful than usual about some things, which makes me think I might spread a little too thin between doing my administrative and assistant work (aka my job title) and my more time-consuming and more job title fitting duties of managing and editing the content for our websites.
    It's really hard to switch back and forth between playing the admin role and the editor role, and I have to do it several times during the day. I have brought it up to the boss about being shifted into a job title that fits my duties more accurately, but that would mean they would need to find another assistant, and with the intern plan they are running on now, they seem reluctant (if not downright adverse) to the idea of actually hiring someone for pay.
    On the one hand, the intern plan makes a little sense to me. They sell it as, we want to make sure the person likes to be here and likes the work here before we hire them, and we want to make sure we like the person and they fit in and do good work before we decide to hire them. But on the other hand, these are all kids. They are college students who don't see our little college town as the end of the road in terms of career options. I don't blame them. So it's hard to find an intern that is not only good at what they do but wants to stay here for longer than their 3 month internship requires. There are plenty of talented, smart, hard-working kids that are coming in, but that also means that they are talented enough to find a job somewhere else where they can make more money and live where they want to live.
    I'm not going to complain too much about the money, because it's not my main complaint to make, but technically, I should be making three times as much as my rent, and right now, I'm only making about two times as much, not including all the damn utilities. And, technically, a competitive wage for the type of job I do is quite a bit higher than what I'm currently making. I currently fit into about 10 different job descriptions--no, I'm not exaggerating--and some of those jobs are supposed to pay three times as much as I do, based on current industry trends. Even though I don't have ten years of experience, I am still doing a job that someone with ten years of experience would be doing, and I think I'm not doing too bad at it either.
    But my main focus, as I said, is this intern thing. What I think is not being said, or unfortunately, perhaps not realized, is that more interns will go than stay. It is not only somewhat inefficient to have to interview so many new people because you're always looking for replacements and people to fill new, previously unfilled positions, but it is also inefficient because a lot of these interns need to be trained and acclimated to how our company works. That takes time that an intern who's there for maybe 8 to 10 hours a week doesn't really have.
    Again, I have liked all the interns we've had so far. They're all nice people and most of them are doing a good job at what they've been assigned. But I know most of them are not going to stay past their internships. They're going to graduate and move somewhere else. The incentive to stay here is just not high enough. While they may enjoy the work, they don't enjoy it enough to stay in town. Or, they may enjoy the work, but they don't enjoy it enough to get paid what we pay.
    I have stayed because it was enough. I like the work. I like living here. But they're raising my rent when my lease ends in April, which is going to spread me even thinner than I already am. I budget like a champ, but this is going to be a little rough without another raise. And with all these changes that are happening, I'm not entirely confident the company will still be here in three years if the intern plan fails.
    Although this new plan is the major cause of my concern for my job security, there is also the fact that they fired one my coworkers a week before Christmas. I haven't quite gotten over that. Not because it was right before Christmas, and not because we were friends. It's the principle of the thing. He worked harder than all of us did, stressed out more than the rest of us did, and was pushed and judged harder than the rest of us are. He didn't deserve it, even though he is probably better off not being here anymore because I know he is way less stressed now than he was.
    What it comes down to is that without him, we are down to two full-time employees, including myself, and with all the new work and new clients and stuff that we are planning on adding, we are extremely, perhaps dangerously, understaffed, no matter how many interns we bring on.
    All in all, I'm worried. I'm stressed out from working forty hours a week, I'm too tired at the end of the day to take care of myself as well as I'd like, I'm worried that I might be on a sinking ship, and I'm worried that I might have to move in with my parents again if things do go south. (Yes, I'm mixing my metaphors. Deal with it.)
    As much as I complain here, I have started a "positivity journal", thanks to a handy-dandy free app that I got for my Kindle (my over-budget Christmas present to myself). I have been told I'm too negative and complain too much, so I started trying to track some of the good things that happen to me during the day so that I have some of the good to balance out the bad. I think it's helping. But it's not going to stop me from sharing my thoughts here because they always come out so much more cohesively when I write them than when I tell them to someone else.

Late night, come home, work sucks. I know. 

What do you think of this 3 year plan? Or my poor health? Or life in general?

Tell me about it in the comments!

Sweet Exhaustion - Er, Victory

  What a rough month! Writing this novel was like pulling teeth! Truly a labor of love, I guess. Novel completed just a short while ago, with the final word count at: 50,748, based on Nano's word counter (MS Word is about a hundred or so words extra--though I have no idea where it could possibly be pulling them from...). Winner's badge now on the sidebar, and doesn't it look so snazzy ;)
    Surprises: My main character got married--something I never thought she'd do. She also ended up with the guy I didn't think she was going to end up with. I managed to make the best friend pregnant, instead of the main character like I usually do for whatever reason--it is an excellent word count padding technique when used appropriately, though. And I finished! This was the first year I doubted finishing, just a little, though I was determined to finish anyway, come hell or high water. I'm just a little surprised i finished because I had to write the last 25 thousand words within the last week alone because I had fallen so far behind during the earlier part of the month.
    In other news, work just got really busy! I felt like I've been hit with something new to add to my to-do list almost by the hour, and the to-dos I had at the beginning of the week are now being pushed further and further down the list. But, I'm always glad to be busy than unbusy! My boss hesitated to ask me to write a 1400 word piece (or rather, several of them) yesterday, and I was like, 1400 words? No sweat. I'm about to reach 50k on a novel. Now that I have, I no longer fear word count. I never really was bothered by it before--I only hesitated if it was a topic I wasn't too familiar with. But now, I really have no fear of it. 1000 words? Five? Ten, you say? Let me at 'em!
    I feel like I've become inordinately cheesy, and I'm going to blame some of the people I've been dealing with at work recently. Cheesy and clever are not the same thing, and I hope that because I'm able to recognize the difference, I will be able to strike the cheesy element down and continue with my previous quippy, sarcastic, and hopefully occasionally humorous tone.
    While I'm not counting my chickens on new winner's goodies from Nano this year, I'm hoping for something new that I will actually put to use this time. Free stuff is always best, but discounts are ok if it's on something I really want. I have not taken advantage of my winner's goodies too much in the past, and I'd like to do so this year, but only if it doesn't make me feel poor or irresponsible for buying something I don't really need...
    Also, getting better at skiing. I've been twice, and despite the cold and wind, I think I'm improving. I've been told I'm improving. However, I may have been told a few too many times, because the first day I went up, I did so great on the bunny hill, that I thought I was ready for a regular hill. Unfortunately I was taken up the highest damn hill they had open, and my overconfidence and decreased fear of falling got me going WAY too fast and I couldn't stop. I wiped out hard, broke my goggles, and got a nosebleed. I didn't break my nose or my leg or anything, and didn't get a concussion, I don't think, but that was terrifying. I think I better stick to the bunny hill a few more days before I take on another hill. (Also, icy conditions plus me as a beginner do not mix.) In any case, I don't think my fall ruined me. Just humbled me. It's the boyfriend/teacher's fault--he kept saying how good I was doing. And picked the large hill with the never ending chair lift ride.
    Anyway, Happy End of November to All, and to all a good night! And if you participated in no shave November this year, shave!

My eyes are killing me. 

A nap, perchance... 

Then again, hockey's on! 

What else is new with you? Did you participate in Nano? Did you win? 

Have you had unseasonally early snowfall in your neck of the woods? 

Whatever. Comments are open!

LONG Day In Denver

  Today I attended (not by choice) a conference for administrative assistants at a Holiday Inn in Denver. It was the nicest Holiday Inn I've ever been in, that's for sure. It was supposed to help me be a better assistant and learn some more tools and skills I can apply to my job. It wasn't a total bust, I'll admit, though I had a less than sunny outlook on the whole thing at first. These workshop things where you're supposed to meet people and do workbook exercises and teambuild is absolutely not helpful to me more often than not because that's not how I learn. Plus, I don't really like the idea of meeting strange people who I'm supposed to befriend for a day and then never see again. (I'm trying something new where I have to say positive stuff if I'm going to say negative stuff. Something about a silver lining or whatever. Bear with me.)
    Again, the conference had its moments. The speaker I sat in with for the majority of the day (there was another one whom I wish I had sat in on her discussions more) was extremely bubbly and chatty. She had some helpful points, but she didn't really give as many examples of how to put those ideas into action. The other speaker had better real-life examples and her analogies made more sense to me--again, making me wish I'd sat in on her discussions (there were 5 from each speaker throughout the day) more than I did. But some of what they said was interesting--learning about how to communicate better with different personality types; how to solve problems in the workplace in a creative way, etc.
    However, it seemed very focused toward the corporate world, which doesn't really apply to me since I work at such a small company, and other times, it seemed focused toward a more traditional office environment, which mine most definitely is not. Technology seemed to get ignored completely, which was yet another downer because, um, that's kind of a big thing where I work--web design company and all. The speaker asked for suggestions or examples of how we communicate in our offices, and I said we use Skype to Instant Message each other, which we do. It's not awesome, but it's quite useful some of the time. The speaker seemed to write it off, saying IMs could get annoying because they flash at you when they come in before you look at them, and that can distract you from whatever other work you're doing. True, but that doesn't mean it's not faster and easier than email for short messages or questions, and much faster and easier than getting up and asking people something (depending on the complexity of the question).
    All in all, I felt like it was a little too old school for me. There were a few younger women there, but most were between about 30 and 60, so there was a lot of stuff about writing stuff down, rather than using some sort of electronic system for organization. I'm like, we don't have files. EVERYTHING is on my computer. The only stuff that is on paper is stuff I've printed out so I don't have to keep tracking down that one email or that one document for a particular current project I'm working on. But those get shredded or tossed pretty quickly--they don't get filed away somewhere, never to be seen again. (Of course, it's a lot easier to bitch about the things I didn't like about it and what I didn't find relevant than to explain what I did like and did find to be relevant, which is why I'm doing it.)
    I learned some good suggestions on how to approach communication with both my bosses and my coworkers, so that was helpful. Also, learned how to approach problems and how to come up with solutions first before going to the boss, if possible. I didn't learn too much about organization because I'm a little too set in my ways on how I keep on my tasks (basically I write them down on paper/sticky note/Outlook calendar in several places, several times, so the repetition gets the task stuck in my brain and much harder to be missed or forgotten) but I did think of something I maybe could implement as far as task management goes at work. I don't know if it'll be useful, as many of our spreadsheets and files tend to get used once and then forgotten about. We have a problem at my job of implementing a system, and then not actually sticking to it and utilizing it fully. It kind of falls to the wayside sooner or later.
    Aside from sitting in a really uncomfortable chair for the better part of 6 hours, which is longer than I sit at my desk at work because I'm constantly getting up and asking questions, getting feedback, checking on my coworkers and their tasks, etc., it wasn't as awful a day as I had imagined. I did remember about three things that need to be done at work, which probably aren't done, and won't be done by the end of tomorrow, but they're all things for other people to do, so maybe I won't take the heat for not getting them done...
    Somewhat off topic, for those non-Coloradans who have no idea what Denver is like, don't drive here. Get someone else to drive you. Getting to the hotel this morning was easy, relatively traffic-free. Getting home was another story, even though we ended about 15 or 20 minutes early. Rush hour starts at like 2pm so you're pretty much screwed no matter what. Then, after two or three weeks of 80-90+ degree weather, got POURED ON the entire way back too. I waited for the storm to clear in Denver and then as soon as I headed out, it was just dumping rain the entire drive back. Hydroplaning was imminent, but I survived this time. (Sidenote: You know you live in Colorado when: you get rained on across the entire drive along the Front Range. But this only happens like once a year so it's manageable in the grand scheme of things.)
   Overall, the conference would have been better if the whole thing had been more focused on one thing like project management or communicating with your bosses and coworkers rather than trying to squeeze it all in over the course of a day. Everything got skimmed over a lot, and there could have been more examples, more in-depth coverage of topics if it had not been so broad.
   One last little complaint: I had to bring my own lunch. WTF. Cold, leftover Chipotle for lunch at an all-day conference where you have to pay $200 to get in kind of sucks.

I guess there's no such thing as a free lunch. Except I had one yesterday. 

So, WTF again.

Vitamin D Deficiency

It has been ugly and cloudy and gray for more than a week now, and steadily gray and rainy for several days. It is damned depressing. It's dampening everyone's mood and morale. And it's causing drowsiness. This is in a place where we generally get over 300 days of sunshine in a year. (Granted that number includes days where the sun was only out for part of the day, but nonetheless.)
    It's the first week of full-time work, and the first two or three days were overwhelming because I was busy. I was not as busy today, and I was hoping to wrap things up so I could begin another project, i.e. larger task that would take me longer than 15 minutes, but I spent so much time going back and forth to people's offices for discussions and meetings and assigning tasks that I don't know where half my damn day went.
    I thought that my colleagues were keeping me from doing my job, because they're entertaining and fun to talk to--and for someone who hasn't consistently had friends to talk to in person for a long time, having people like that around is really comforting. But, as a matter of fact, it might be my bosses that are keeping me from doing my job now. They keep assigning one thing after another, and having meeting after meeting and training after training that it keeps me there, listening to what needs to be done, and not able to actually do any of it! I like to get stuff done. I get a little thrill every time I get to cross something off a list or check a box as complete. And I don't even mind having a long list as long it's not all due immediately. But if people keep telling me what to do and not giving me a chance to do it, it gets really frustrating. I want to do it. I really do. So what might be better is to just make a list. Write an email. Carrier pigeon. Whatever. Just quit making me go back and forth so much so I can sit down and actually get stuff done.

UPDATE: I had to edit out some of this for security reasons.

    Rant over. Apologies for getting a little off topic. I'm going to blame it on the shitty weather. But that's the majority of shareable information that's on my mind today, so I figured it might make for the most interesting read. But interesting is a sliding scale. It's interesting by comparison, not by default.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

I Feel Way Too Old

Not only have I got a birthday coming up, dear readers, but I find myself complaining and scolding America's youth like someone 40 or 50 years my senior. These young kids these days, I tell you. Grading homework last night was positively brutal. Not only was I so exhausted I felt like my brain was disintegrating inside my skull, but I was doing an extremely mind-numbing and loathsome task that is fast disintegrating my hope for the future.
    These punk-ass kids, as my wonderfully witty and entertaining capstone seminar professor so aptly named them (or us, at the time), are doing absolutely nothing but wasting both their time in college and mine. If you're not going to actually try to do the homework, even to the point of mediocrity, why bother turning it in? Consistently getting 2s and 4s out of 10 points on homework is not going to help your grade that much. And the seriously abysmal ones always take so much longer to grade because I either: a) can't read their handwriting, b) can't figure out how they could have possibly gone so wrong, or c) can't find enough margin space to write everything that's wrong with their answer.
    It hit me last night, as my poor little brain was hanging on by a thread to both sanity and wakefulness, that these students are not just a bunch of punk-ass kids--they are the biggest group of underachievers I have ever encountered. I'm an achiever myself. So underachievers are, by definition, unacceptable and often useless human beings that are just sucking up too much oxygen and failing to recycle too many valuable resources.
    OK, that may be a bit harsh. But I do worry. Seeing so many underachievers--even in a class that may not be that enjoyable or useful to them--in one small corner of my microcosm worries me. This is the future of America's youth? I may as well move to Canada and be done with it. Why would you bother doing anything if you're not going to at least try to do well in it? Maybe you'll fail. But putting forth so little effort and still expecting to see results from it seems absurd.
    I don't know if the reason for this is laziness, lack of motivation, or just this mentality that if it's not easy, it's not worth it. I don't particularly care for this class that much either, but I'm still putting forth a substantial amount of time and energy to do well in it. I'm not doing an outstanding job, and I probably should be putting at least another hour or two's worth of time into it each week to be excelling in it, but I am doing the work. I am trying.
    Maybe I'm just venting because I was so inhumanly depleted of energy last night, and seeing what poor effort was put forth by these kids was so incredibly discouraging. But still, it has always baffled me that some people can be so blasé about things. Even if it's a class you hate, it's still part of your education, and if you value your education at all, it seems that you would have to put in a certain amount of work if you want to at least pass the class.
    I really hope these kids try to do something useful with their lives besides playing beer pong and video games for the next ten years out of their parents' basements. The world is in poor enough shape as it is without a bunch of underachievers bringing up the ranks of the new generation.

You've gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya--punk?

-Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry