Working More, Enjoying Less

The faster I work, the behinder I get. After several years of a down economy, responsibilities for aging parents and our own health issues we're finally getting to the place where we can focus on us. Yet I feel like everything is falling apart. We should be having a lot more free time and playing, traveling and planning our retirement or just enjoying our time. Instead, we both feel like we're constantly running to take care of commitments to others and not to ourselves.

My job is absolutely insane. I'm pretty sure sometimes that I work for crazy people. Since the beginning of the Bush era we've spent our time figuring out how to cut or control costs, work with a reduced staff and redirect the company's focus more towards service than new construction. In the process we've endured major illnesses by a few key people, the loss of a few dear ones, and have shrunk our staff to the minimum. Suddenly, finally, the area economy is picking up and people are building again. At the same time, the service side, where we've directed so much energy and resources, is beginning to take off. We have added new people, who haven't stayed or have been asked to leave. Now we have three new people in key positions and we're trying to train them at the same time we're trying to keep up with the ever escalating volume of work. On top of it all, those of us who have slogged through the lean years doing double and even triple duty so we could keep costs down are tired. It doesn't help that I have a boss who believes his role in the company is to find out what we're doing wrong. So, instead of feeling supported, I'm constantly on the defensive for everything that has gone wrong or that he imagines has gone wrong. Plus, he doesn't differentiate between really, terribly, drastically wrong and a simple error. If it is wrong, it is wrong and everything else is probably wrong too.

With all this going on, I need to upgrade my hardware, so I may as well upgrade my software. So while I'm upgrading the software, I want the new technology: bar coding, document imaging, wireless, mobile and paperless. This is the part that is fun; the part that I really love. But I have to cobble together all the pieces from several different sources who don't necessarily want to work with each other. Everything must be compatible and the function must be seamless with no redundancy and no holes. Unfortunately, I have to educate myself on a lot of the technology and train new people and keep up with the daily stuff. I haven't reconciled bank statements in six months and just writing that makes me hyperventilate. The quotes came in at about 30% over what I thought and, based on past experience, will run 30% over that. On top of it all, if I get all this approved and implemented, I'll have to support it.

I work with people who, at best, think that technology is a mystery. At worst, they think they are there to do the "real" work and it is my job to provide them with all the support and comfort that they need and want. I am rarely the first one in, but I am always the last one out.

Writing all this out, I realize my only solution is to win the lottery and walk away. I could do that with no regrets but chances are slim that will happen so I'm going to have to come up with a plan B. Tomorrow I'll start working on that; tonight I am done.

 

 

 

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SUNDAY NIGHT COMING DOWN

Here it is, Sunday night again. We didn't win the lottery – again – and I have to go to work tomorrow. I DON'T WANT TO GO TO WORK! Even though the days just fly by during the week, they don't go half as fast as my days during the weekend. I always have so many things on my To Do list that I don't seem to get to my Want To Do list.

Saturday morning I spent spray painting protest signs. I get such a kick out of this, that 30+ years later, I am making protest signs. This time, instead of protesting the war, I'm protesting neighborhood rezoning. It would be a far nobler thing to be protesting the war, but I just painted Don't Rezone on 100 +/- signs, front and back with a group of my neighbors. Seems the local car dealer wants to buy three houses on the next street and pave the back yards for "employee parking". Then, since he has stated that he doesn't want to be a landlord, our theory is that he's going to sell the houses to a local developer who told one of our neighbors to get used to the idea, because the property was too valuable to just sit there. Since current lot sizes are much smaller, we speculate that he'll replace the three houses with six to nine houses.

Our neighborhood was developed starting in the early 50's. The first houses are four-room, 1-bath homes built in the post war boom. Our section was built in 1960. Although our house is just a standard ranch of the era, with very little closet space and small rooms, it has a very large lot for the city and is loaded with wise old oaks. We struggle to grow grass, because these wonderful old trees provide so much shade. Lots of our neighbors are the original owners of their houses. We have a lot of rentals in the area, but we also have a lot of young couples moving in because it is an affordable neighborhood. One thing this threat to our neighborhood has produced is a feeling of community. The rezoning request comes before the City Council in a little more than a week. I hope we win, but I feel like the City has decided our area is expendable; that our land is too valuable for a middle-class area with such a good location.

After my protest painting, when I managed to turn my hands a reddish-brown tint, I was off to my shopping chores. I don't know how I used to go to school, work full time and raise two children. Now it seems like a grocery trip turns into a day-long expedition. Sunday, all I managed was reading the papers, doing a little yard work and catching up on 24. I don't think it is a particularly good program, but DH loves it. We were Tivo-ing the entire season for a marathon watch, but we're upgrading to HD satellite this week and we'll lose everything on the current DVR.

Sadie and I did manage to knock out a few miles around the neighborhood this weekend. We did 1 mile yesterday and 2 today. She was dragging a bit today because it was around 80 and she doesn't do heat too well. I've entered the lottery to run the NY Marathon and I really need to get started training. Three miles of walking per week is not going to be enough. I just can't get up for it. I've been blaming it on the stress at work, but it could be middle-age, or menopause, or depression or who knows? All I know is, the best way for me to "win" this lottery is not to train while it is still early. Twenty-six miles requires a build-up; I learned that after my last marathon. I spent several years afterwards limping and having mysterious aches.

As I write this, I am listening to APM Word for Word. Arnold Schwarzenegger is talking about his awakening to "post-partisan" politics. It is an interesting concept that seems totally obvious but it has not been observed in recent memory. I'm not sure if it goes all the way back to Nixon, but surely it goes back as far as Clinton. The gridlock and sniping and demonizing of the other side have made politics irrelevant to most of us. The politicians, now more than ever, seem to be for sale to the lobbyists and we "little people" have felt powerless to fix government. The issues are so complex and the ad writers are so sophisticated that is easy to get distracted by the side issues or personalities or to vote our fears. I get a sense that after the midterm elections the pendulum is shifting; I think that people are wising up to the clever marketing that has guided past decisions. I signed up for Unity08, an organization that is petitioning for a national online primary to vote for a bipartisan ticket for the next election. I've long thought that we need a new political party. Both parties are now so vested in consolidating their power and getting re-elected that they have completely forgotten to do what is best for the country. Ross Perot was clearly not it. The idea of Unity08 is worth considering.

    

 

I LOVE FRIDAY’S

I love Fridays. Not that we ever do anything on Friday nights. As a matter of fact, I don't want to do anything Friday nights. By the time Friday gets here I'm totally wasted, and not in a good way. But I do love Fridays. I get to come home and do practically nothing, a really perfect state after a typically killer week. We eat something evil under the new healthy eating standards, like pizza or, tonight, Reubens, from Tuedsay's leftover corned beef. We drink a little too much wine and we watch something from the DVR. Tonight it is Grey's Anatomy, one of the best programs on TV. Then we just crash. Tomorrow morning I'll sleep in until about 7:00 if I'm lucky and spend a little more time on the paper or online news, then it'll start.

Actually, just writing it out makes it sound pathetic. No wonder I can't get this weight off. I haven't done a morning workout in months. I barely even walk the dog during the week. I eat responsibly, but not lightly, Monday through Friday afternoon, then have my Friday night blowouts. I spend Saturdays doing chores and frittering away Sundays. Good grief, if I keep up this pace, I'll end up crying myself to sleep tonight. Well, as Martin Dugard says, "Onward".

This weekend is Spring, figuratively and literally. The temperatures are going to be in the low 80's with plenty of sun and no humidity. We're going to ride out bikes, do yard work and otherwise be active. The Bradford pears and various types of cherry trees are in full bloom. There is a feeling of excitement and movement in the air. Yellow daffodils have been swaying in the March winds for the past few weeks and the wild onions are springing up all over the yard.

Today I am wasted. But tomorrow, onward!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LEARNING NEW STUFF

Wow! This is exciting and also a little challenging. I'm still learning my way around my new laptop and Windows 2007 (trial version). I sometimes feel as if the technology bubble has passed me by. Just finding out what I can possibly do is mind boggling. Even though I have always thought of myself as a techie, my husband and I seemed to have reached the age when it is easier to get our son to do everything for us than to try to figure it out ourselves.

It is really kind of karmic that I would find myself struggling with technology. Dad went through a period after he retired when he wanted to play with his computer all the time. By that, I mean he wanted to dismantle and reassemble the computer, change all the settings and then watch me spend all of my Saturday putting it back together again. I complained vehemently to my mother, who was never on my side about anything in my entire life, and she chewed me out, telling me that I would indeed spend my entire weekend putting this together for him because I owed it to him. I left their house every Saturday stressed to the max.

Turns out that Dad had dementia. Every person seems to experience it differently. Dad apparently delighted in taking things apart and then couldn't put them back together again, although he gave it his best shot. We shouldn't have been surprised of course. Growing up, we used to laugh and tease Dad that he always had plenty of spare parts left over whenever he tried to fix something. We'd have to put the parts in a safe place so we could give them to the repairman when Dad would finally cry uncle and call in an expert. Still it made going over to my parents' house even more of a chore than normal.

At work, I am the person in charge of technology. I still have my "day job" however. Lately, I've been so overworked that I tend to stay away from new things because I know I will end up taking care of them. I keep trying to hire people who say they are computer people, but they usually end up knowing less than me. Fortunately, I outsource the really technical stuff. Over the years I have developed a relationship with "my computer guy" so that I just call him up and let him talk me through it. When we went to the Window 2003 server, I basically handed admin over to him. Sometimes, though, he gets a little touchy. And sometimes lately, he gives me the feeling that I'm pushing it with him. My take on it though is that I pay him well for every hour of his time, so even if I could fix it myself, I want him to do it.

But, I got this fancy-dancy new machine and I need to learn how to use it. I also told myself that the only reason that I didn't post to my blog regularly was that I had to go down to the den and fire up the ole' desktop. So I shall learn. Maybe there are just enough brain cells left for me to learn a new trick.

Over the line

Argh! I calculated my BMI at one of the fitness websites today. I've officially crossed over into obesedom. I can feel it. I'm carrying so much weight around my middle. My backside moves in a different direction from me. My thighs have an extra layer on top of the muscle. I feel fat! I am fat!

Not too soon, I'm getting on the bandwagon again! I've been weighing myself only on the first day of the month since I tend to obsess about the scale so much - I got into weighing morning and evening and taking the best number. So I only weighed today to get my new start point - and I'm obese. I can't stand it any more.

Knowing that I've crossed the line, maybe I can stay motivated to get this weight off. Also, publicly proclaiming my fat is kind of like an alcoholic at the AA meeting. "Hi, I'm BS and I'm fat".

I'm resorting to rather drastic measures for a jump start. I'm doing the Medifast diet for as long as I can hold out. Right now the plan is for four weeks. We'll see how it holds up. It hasn't helped that I've spent the last year in home chef mode. I've spent more hours in the kitchen in the last year than I did in the gym. I guess I'll have to reverse that!

Another year, another post

I've always wondered about my ability to keep a blog. I've been busy as hell at work and I'm totally empty by the time I get home. Plus, truth to tell, I really don't have that much to say. My life is full of tasks but not much excitement. I want to change that.

I got a nifty new laptop. I've been coveting one to replace my old desktop for ages, but just didn't want to spend the money. Well, I'm not getting any younger and Costco has a special on a 17" HP with the extended keyboard - my dream machine. We picked it up yesterday afternoon and then went to a friend's house for dinner so I was only able to fire it up and play a few games last night when we got home.

This morning I started setting up my "easy to install" wireless router at 9:00. I finally ended up calling the Netgear help line at 1:30 and got it up and running. The problem was not entirely my fault since we had to change some of the settings to get it to work. Entirely annoying! Plus the help desk assistant wouldn't let me off the line until I filled out the "voluntary" satisfaction survey. Sheesh.

Next we had to go to a neighborhood meeting of our anti-rezoning group. We toured the site where the car dealership is trying to get approval to buy three houses and put a parking lot in the backyards. In reality, they want to pave our little piece of paradise and put in a parking lot. It was 40 degrees with 30 mph winds and bitter cold. But, standing out there, we affirmed our resolve to fight the developer and City Hall on this. I've had a few deja vu moments with this "protest". It brings me back to the days when I was protesting Vietnam. One big difference is that this time I'm not burning my bra!

Anyway, I finally have a chance to sit down and play with my new toy. Maybe now I will update more frequently. We shall see.