Hunker Down

I think that when humans are going through a period of stress, instinct kicks in. Our natural reaction is fight or flight. And thus, you will face your stress head on and fight through  it or you will do like I did, turn and run away and withdraw.

I probably talk about my work life a bit too much on this here blog. It’s been a stressful point in the almost 20 years (!!!) I’ve been in the corporate arena. I’ve made some choices early on that are starting to affect me now and because I am married now and have another person whose welfare I must consider, I’m a bit angry with myself. But that’s neither here nor there, at this point. God has blessed me yet again. My contract at my current plantation ends today and I start another one on Monday at a new plantation. But getting from point A to point B has been difficult this time. It has been stressful. I have been worried and my faith has taken a tremendous hit. My normally cheery personality has not been so cheery. It has affected me, it has affected my husband. He doesn’t like to see me upset, but at the same time he cannot carry my burdens for me. He can encourage me, but I also have to encourage myself.

And so I haven’t been writing, mainly because I haven’t had all that much to say. I’ve been hunkered down in my little hole in my mind, stressed out. When you are in your feelings, whatever it may be, it’s hard to see that it will pass. But it always does.

I blog because I like to get things out of my head and into a written format and to share a bit of my life with the people who read my small corner of the internet, because in a sense you are my online family. And while I like to put up pretty pictures, recipes and funny stories, it’s important to share, to some extent, that I am human and have my own personal struggles.  My struggle may not be your struggle, but no one person’s  issue is bigger or smaller than another else’s.

I would submit to you to not hunker down in the depths of your mind and wallow in your stuff. Talk to someone, get it on paper, cry it out, do what ever you need to do to make yourself whole again.

My coworker sent me this video one day when I was particularly in my feelings and sometimes I just have to put this bad boy on repeat:

Mary Mary – “Go Get It”

Don’t run away from whatever it is that you may be dealing with. Fight through it. You are going to come out the other side just fine. I promise.

(Shout out to Tazzee and Jeanine for checking on me.)

Ambition

When I first graduated from college, like most naive kids I thought I was going to be much like Pinky and the Brain, and take over the world. By the time I was 40, I thought I would be a big time bank branch manager with a staff, making long money. I never aspired to be CEO, but I’d be damn close to it!

Of course, life never turns out quite like you expected. I’ve got quite a bit of good experience in my years in Corporate America and I am definitely a senior level professional, but I’m not in management. Part of of that is circumstance, I’ve worked at several different companies and my tenures haven’t been particularly long but part of it is by design, I’ve seen what my friends who manage people have to deal with and I’d rather herd cats. Managing people and getting them to execute is more than a notion. I wouldn’t mind being a manager, as long as managing people doesn’t come along with it. I do have friends who have those titles. But as long as I can continue to get paid well, I’m good with being on the professional track. I guess I adjusted my level of ambition over the years. *shrugs*

What about you? Are you where you want to be career wise? Are you a manager? Or are you pretty good with what you are doing and where you are at??

Muddling Through

This post has been in my head for a few days but I’ve been struggling to get it out and on the screen. As I’ve alluded to and if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve made mention of being back on the interview grind. I’m not ready happy about it either. I am working and I am certainly grateful for full time employment and weekly paychecks but this role is just a means to an end. It’s contract which means when I don’t work, I don’t get paid. When I sick, I don’t get paid. If I have a dentist appointment, I don’t get paid. Notice a pattern there?? When I took this role, I decided that I wouldn’t get comfortable again, and I haven’t. But I still don’t like the grind of interviewing.

 I was talking to my mom the other day, and she knows I’ve been interviewing and we started to talk about my old job and I realized something. I am still very angry about being fired. I really thought I had processed and unpacked my feelings about that entire situation but after I got off the phone with her after venting about a job that I haven’t been to in almost 4 months, but apparently I haven’t.

 So I’m mad. I’m mad because I have a lot of movement on my resume in my 20s and early 30s and I think it’s hindering me somewhat as I stare age 40 dead in the face. I’m mad because I had a job that I really liked and people that I liked working with that at a decent company, with decent benefits and a really decent boss (well before I ended with the demon that fired me). I’m mad because I got fired and even the HR rep knew it was some bullshit and said as much. I’m mad because this company was supposed to be my last stop, at least for a while, where I could build some tenure and perhaps move around to a few different roles and now I’m back out here in a still somewhat down economy, grinding.

 I’ve actually had several interviews and phone screens in the last month or so, but I’m mad that employers are assholes and don’t even have the decency to tell you if you have gotten the job, especially if you took time off to interview (recall that don’t work, don’t get paid thing, right).

 I’m mad at myself because the folly of my youth is catching up with me and biting me in the ass. I’m mad because I’m ashamed to be complaining when there are folks who still need jobs. I’m mad because I shouldn’t be comparing myself to some of my friends who have been at their companies for 10 years and I’ve had multiple jobs in that time, but I do. I’m mad because I thought I knew what to do next and I don’t.

 So yeah, I’m kind of muddling through right now. And I’m kinda mad right now. Sorry.

 But not really.

Odds And Ends: The Tuesday Edition

• I’m really wishing this recruiter would call me back about scheduling this second interview. I gave her dates and times I was available on Friday.
• Myron and I were both sick as dogs about a week ago. Two sick married people in the house is no fun. We were both very stabby.
• The weirdest thing about being sick (we both had upper respiratory crud) was that my ass hurt. Like I could barely walk hurt..pain all in the hip bones hurt. I started to break down and use Myron’s crutches. My booty is fine now though, thanks for asking.
• The Z-Pack is your friend.
• We finally saw Django Unchained this weekend. The scene with the Ku Klux Klan members arguing over the pillowcases…funniest shit ever. It got 2 thumbs up from the Macks. Next up for us: Zero Dark Thirty
• Nerd Girl is hosting the book club over at her spot again this year. Since I was a lame and didn’t participate ANY last year, she made me pick the first book of 2013. We’ll be discussing on February 11^th.
• Taking hubs to a co-ed baby shower this weekend. THIS should be interesting.
• Looking to go to Puerto Rico in the fall. I think the 52 week savings challenge will be the vacation fund.
• We’re back in the gym tonight after an absence. Pray my strength I don’t pass out on the treadmill.
• Myron cooked yesterday’s and today’s dinner last night. Today’s dinner is going to be SO good that I’ve been quietly seat twerking about it all day. What??? You don’t do the happy dance for good food? Just me? Oh.
• I had a meeting with one of the managers that I support yesterday to make some changes to his financial model. Why hasn’t he sent them to me yet? Why do I have to chase down people who need me to do work for them? The joys of Corporate America.
• I really wish I was independently wealthy.
• That’s all I got, what’s going on with you??

Three Strikes

I mentioned that I started a new gig at the beginning of November. So far, so good on the job itself. I’m getting acclimated, getting training and meeting people..all is well.

As a part of my on-boarding here at this particular plantation, there is an orientation about the facilities and whatnot and the usual spiel about safety. Before I went to the orientation meeting, my manager impressed upon me the need to pay particular attention to the parts about driving in the parking garage as my plantation was is rather ANAL about garage safety. I mean they ARE DEAD. ASS. SERIOUS about it to the point where there are “safety ambassadors” skulking about who can give tickets and speed monitors that light up if you exceed the speed limits, stuff like that.

So, I’d been trying very hard to stay within the confines of the law, as any infraction would result in an email from Security to you and your manager and would necessitate the need for a “refresher” talk about the safety policy. So imagine my consternation and dismay to receive an email last week, after being employed all of 3 weeks, stating that I had a garage violation for speeding!!!! And to add insult to injury, it was actually my THIRD violation but because they couldn’t find my name in the database (they were looking under my maiden name and how they are linked in with the state of Texas database is both baffling and scary). I dutifully forwarded the note to my manager so that we could have our talk.

So that unsavory bit of business was done and finished with right?

Wrong.

The next day, I tried to turn into the garage to park and imagine my cracked face when the gate denied me entry!!! Better yet, imagine me with a cracked face and a line of cars behind me trying to park and get into the office…*sigh*. I pushed the call button and the security officer let me in so I wouldn’t keep backing up traffic. I parked, and made a beeline to the security office where I was informed that since this was my third violation I had been banned from the garage and sentenced to park in the surface lot across the street for 30 days…say what now?? Only scofflaws have to park over there and I had joined the ranks of those forced to make that walk of shame. *shamed*

But I was not to be denied my chance for appeal..I couldn’t go out like that ya’ll!!! I pleaded my case to the Security Manager (who was quite easy on my felonious eyes) about how could I be penalized for THREE violations when I didn’t know about the first two?? I smiled, batted my eyes, and had it not been cold that day I would have perhaps shown a little tittay meat in order to not have to walk from that surface lot in the elements. Sweet little baby Jesus was on my side that day because the Security Manager graciously decide to wipe my record clean and let me start fresh!! *praise dances*

So now I’m paranoid and I drive in the garage like an 80 year old lady but I guess that was the intended effect right?? Such is the life of a corporate wage slave, feel free to laugh at my pain.

Odds And Ends: The Monday Edition

What’s happening?? *in my TI voice*

How was ya’ll’s weekend? Mine was very busy and I am tired so I am happy to be at work, where it is slow and quiet so that I can rest up from it. LOL!

Let’s see, Friday morning I took a few hours off to go an interview for a perm gig. I ended up in the wrong building, hauled ass across the street to the right building, was late to the interview and then got in there and talked for 3 straight hours to 3 different people. That interview was painful and I’m sure I didn’t get that job but I will survive.

Friday evening started off a lot better. Hubs and I went on date to have dinner, see my baby daddy Daniel Craig in Skyfall and to have drinks at Dave and Buster’s with our favorite bartender, my BIL, Tony.

Saturday morning, we got up to run to the bank, run by the store and had lunch at our favorite Indian buffet then came back home to watch nap a little college footbal before our evening activities. As usual, we double booked ourselves for two birthday parties at the opposite ends of Houston. The first one was a 30th birthday party for Myron’s cousin. It was really fun, she had a craps and a blackjack dealer at her house and plenty of food and libations. We also got to see some cousins and their new baby. A time was being had by me but alas, it was time to make a move to the west side (yeyah yeah!) to the other party we’d be invited to. This party was for the birthday of the ghey guy who works at our neighborhood Kroger’s who we have struck up a friendship with. He’s actually a really a cool guy so we had to show our faces or else we’d never live it down. So we stopped by, had some drinks and were entertained by a 49 year old ghey dude in heels getting his boogie on to Whitney Houston. LOL! There’s never a dull moment when you roll with the Macks!

Sunday morning, we were up early (well 10 AM is early for me on Sundays), to get ready to go watch the hometown team, Houston Texans play the Jacksonville Jaguars at noon. We met my BIL at a sports bar and proceeded to see the Texans pull out a squeaker of a win. It shouldn’t have even been that close. After that, we had a fabulous ribeye dinner and got ready for the short work week.

And I still haven’t gotten my ingredients for my dish that I’m bring to my mom’s for Thanksgiving: my dear MIL’s sweet potato crunch. I suck, but I’m going to the store tonight, I promise!

So that was my weekend, how was yours? Big plans for the holiday??

Odds And Ends: Nothing Is Constant But Change

I’m still here. I’ve had so much to say but couldn’t talk about it. But I can say this: God works in mysterious way and I am extremely thankful for His grace and mercy. You all know that I’ve been stressed out the majority of the year dealing with my job and my difficulties with my manager and have been interviewing all year. I interviewed for a contract to hire position on Friday, October 12th.

I got fired on Monday, October 15th. Now I’ve been fired/laid off before so I know how these things go. You go into a conference room and hear the spiel from the manager and HR about why you are getting a pink slip.. But this was a bit new for me. I was being fired, but I was eligible for re-hire.  Say what now?? Also, my plantation was not going to contest me filing for my unemployment benefits. WDDDA?  Now I was thinking that something was up. My old manager had left from the conference room at this point so I asked the HR rep to confirm what he’d just told me and she did. She then asked me: You don’t seem surprised that this happened. I told her that I wasn’t but I wasn’t worried because his opinion did not define me and that I serve a mighty God. Her response: Don’t worry, folks like that always get what is coming to them. You just let God work it out.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Normally HR folks toe the company line so I was surprised to hear this.

We went over some other paperwork dealing with my 401K and she told me they would pay me out in lieu of a notice until November 2nd. I went on home and prepared to get my job search grind on.

I got a call about that other job I interviewed for on October 17th. Fired on Monday, new job on Wednesday.

I started last Monday, 11/5. Essentially I had a paid 3 week vacation, although I did do some other interviewing and networking in the interim. I’m actually waiting to see if I will be selected for a permanent gig that I interviewed for and made it to the second round of. If not, at least I know the role I have right now is very long term.

The funny thing about this is I was talking with a now former coworker about how I’d gotten a good vibe about the interview and the manager that interviewed me but I was scared about making such a jump because the job was contract to hire and not permanent. Well looks like God gave me a little push, didn’t he? I’ve slept like a baby every night since leaving my old plantation. I’m less stressed which means Myron is less stressed. I’m not coming home crying anymore. I’ll get benefits and vacation through the contract company. My hourly rate means I got an instant 7K raise. And I have the flexibility to keep on looking for another job if I want to.

What did I learn from this? No job is worth your sanity and peace of mind, even if it is “permanent”. Sometimes, you have to step out on faith. And even when your faith isn’t all that strong, thankfully God’s is stronger.

Odds And Ends: The Monday Edition

I was laying in bed this morning, waiting for the alarm to go off and I had a jumble of thoughts in my head so here we go:

• I was supposed to be reading 30 books this year, up from last years total of 25. I have failed miserably at this and going into Q42012 I am unlikely to reach that goal. But I have been reading, quite a bit actually. My Pocket app on my phone and my tablet is my new best friend. If I come across an interesting link on FB or Twitter, then I save it to Pocket so I can read it later. I’ve also started following 2 Twitter accounts @longreads and @longform, which tweet a variety of longer articles from the web on various topics from sports to technology to pop culture to literature. If I get stuck somewhere (like at jury duty a couple of weeks ago), I can always pull up something to read.
• I might not be reading many books but it hasn’t stopped me from downloading them like a crackhead, though.
• Do you consider yourself religious or spiritual? Do you attend church regularly? I ask because my mama was fussing at me last week about attending church. I must admit that our church attendance has fallen by the wayside in the last year or so. But just because I am not in church, doesn’t mean church isn’t within me. I still pray and I talk to God pretty frequently but I still feel some guilt around  the church attendance thing. I also think that Myron and I need a new church home, as our current church home (that we grew up in) isn’t really doing it for us anymore. This is going to require some more prayer, thought and discussion I think.
• I went to a kid birthday party of Saturday. I immediately got drafted into refereeing kid disagreements and dealing with tattle tails. It’s not as easy as it looks. And my soror’s little boy (the birthday boy in fact) asked her the same question SEVEN different times. Yes, I counted them. I keep wondering if I’m equipped to be a parent.
• I’m still having a struggle at my workplace. I’m still praying for peace about it.That’s all I’m going to say about that.
• I had an interview for a really exciting position last week. Got some goot coaching from a Twitter friend too. I didn’t get it. Turns out they didn’t like ANY of the candidates that were sent over. And of course, no feedback to find out what you did wrong. I think the recruiter was more aggravated than I was. At this point, I figure if I am supposed to get another job then I will.
• @OneChele over at Black n’ Bougie, did a insightful week’s worth of posts based on the Iyanla Vanzant’s Fix Your Life interview with Evelyn Lozada. Click on this tag: http://www.blacknbougie.com/search/label/Lessons%20learned and read all the posts from the week of September 17-21. You will be glad you did.
• Myron and I have been eating a mostly Paleo/Primal diet since the beginning of August and we joined the gym. I can see the difference in how my clothing is fitting. Slow and steady wins the race for us.
• Summer is over. Fall is upon us. I’m sad. Fall isn’t my fave time of the year.

That’s all I got. Got any odds and ends to share?

Social Butterfly

I ran across an interesting question in one of my FB groups yesterday. A group member was seeking opinions about how much after work socializing others did with their co-workers. She mentioned that she had started a new job and had gone to a couple of work related events after hours, but it seemed to be the norm that the folks she worked with did a standing happy hour every Friday and sometimes hooked up to hang out on weekends. Because she’d declined to participate in with them, a few side bar comments had been made.

Her contention was that she saves her after work and weekend personal time to connect with her REAL friends, not co-workers which I totally agreed with. She asked for help in balancing the need for “face time” and her own personal time. Some folks suggested going to an happy hour once a month and staying long enough to have one drink and then leaving. I suggested initiating lunch plans with people so she would have that excuse (of having to run errands that couldn’t be done at lunch) to pass on after work plans. Others gave examples of how they’d been counseled by  management or mentors to be more sociable and how they’d benefited in the workplace because they were or had become more sociable.

So my question is: do you socialize with your co-workers after hours? Has it helped or hurt you in your work life? And how do you draw the line between work and personal time? And how do you feel about “mandatory” work social events? Love them or hate then??

Are You Better Off?

One of the major themes of this year’s election is the economy, with the Republican party asking the electorate if they are better off than 4 years ago, when President Obama was elected. I’ve also been following a series in the NY Times which is discussing the state of the middle class in the US today. In a follow up blog post, the author highlighted selected comments from that post:

“Most of the income gains seen in my lifetime have been created by families going on afterburners — sending the other adult out to work. Now, we are seeing families going backwards, but that may be a good thing. But we will need to learn to get by on less, especially if competition by foreign workers accelerates.” – jstewart58

“Interesting that this appears on the same page as the article about Caterpillar. Is it really necessary for them to freeze wages when they are making record profits? You can bet that the upper echelon of company officers will not have frozen wages. There are many hard issues that contribute to the problem, global wage competition, automation, poor education, but these are exacerbated by actions taken by companies like Caterpillar.” – Oh Please

“Since WWII, the idea that one is solely responsible for their own success has widely taken root and the generations since have increasingly failed to acknowledge that success is the product of both individual initiative/hard work AND opportunity. The first generation that had the privilege of combining hard work with unprecedented levels of opportunity was the baby boomers and, speaking very generally, they seemed to forget the opportunity component as they rose through the professional ranks of business and government. This explains policies that reward the haves while eroding the opportunity (education, health care, higher minimum wages, pensions) that allows have-nots to use their individual initiative to pull themselves out of the lower classes.” – Dan

“The uncomfortable truth is that America’s economy has progressed beyond blue collar jobs and is now a service economy. Our biggest export is knowledge (in the form of technology, patents, business, etc), and is no longer ‘stuff.’ So it is slightly misguided to blame manufacturing companies that don’t pay workers higher wages, because these companies are no longer in industries where their workers can demand a premium.”– Austin

“Tax cuts for the rich have turbocharged inequality, beginning with Reagan and culminating with Bush II. To afford these tax cuts, we’ve cut everything else that helps the middle class, especially really great public schools.”– Carol

Honestly, speaking it’s a mixed bag for me. I am better off than I was 4 years ago because I got laid off in February 2009, worked contract for about a year and have been full time at my current employer for a year (after being a contractor there for a year). I got married which added a wonderful husband and an additional income to my household. But, the value of my house is upside down and there are additional expenses that must now be paid. It’s been difficult to save money, this year in particular. But I know so many people who are so much worse off that I feel I shouldn’t complain.

How about you and your family? Are you better or worse off than you were 4 years ago? Do you agree with the commentators from the article?