Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Currently at home sick, trying to fight a sore throat and some serious congestion. Head's pounding and spinny and my stomach has been going from upset to ravenous and I just want to lay around watching Christmas movies or something silly like that. I blame that woman about five cubicles away (no idea who she is, she's on a different team) who's been hacking up a lung the last few weeks. Not worrying about the job though. That's dropped considerably on my priority list over the years.

Day Jobbery continues as expected. It's not exactly terrible, but I'm still pissed off that I have to be there four times a week. I've been making the best use of my time there by continuing my Daily Words during slow times. I'm still playing by the rules (sort of) and doing what needs doing and scheduling vacations and whatnot. I don't know how long I'll be here, but I may as well keep up the facade in the meantime, yeah?

Writing continues as expected, and I'm actually more productive than I'd expected, so I can't complain!

But yeah. I don't remember the last time I worked myself sick in Q4. To exhaustion, sure, but to illness? Probably not since my Yankee Candle days!

On the one hand, I'm happy that I have a desk job instead of retail or warehouse at this time of year. I still remember the Q4 insanity all too well...stock quadrupling and the deadlines to get it all out shortening, the exhaustion of extended days and weird schedules, the stress of shitty commutes...the inevitability that I'd end up damaging my back and/or catching the flu...I don't miss those parts of it at all. All I have now is a front seat to witness all these clients attempting to finish up their quarter-end business transactions at the last possible microsecond. And a frustrating but not entirely hellish commute.

Lately I've been feeling a lot like I'm at a crossroads. Not exactly a portentous one, just one that's kind of fallen into my lap. My schedule has changed considerably -- not exactly detrimentally, as I'd originally thought it would -- and I've just completed a major writing project and have not exactly started a new one to any serious extent. But instead of wasting my time throwing a fit or falling into despair or whatever else would end up wasting my time, I've decided to turn them into positives: I can work with this. I suddenly find myself with time on my hands and nothing long-term that desperately warrants my attention. 

Which means: I've been thinking lately about focusing more on my art and music again. I've got about two dozen guitar riffs that I've recorded on my phone that I think I might be able elaborate on, and I've been meaning to properly teach myself how to record music on my PC for years. And on the art front, I'm finding I really miss creating book covers and playing around with photography. I've been focusing so much on my writing for the last couple of decades and kept putting these two avenues aside for 'when I have the time'...and damn it, I HAVE THE TIME NOW. So why the hell not, right?

Even the job search is temporarily on hold. I mean, it's Q4 and I'm getting inundated with 'We need warehouse workers STAT!' spam (I'd rather not go that route ever again, tyvm) and not many new opportunities, so I'm thinking of putting that all on hold at least until the start of the year. Maybe keep one or two searches active, but that'll be it. That'll also give me a fresh outlook on it all as well, which is yet another thing I've been meaning to do.

Change is a-comin', and I'm down with that.

Okay. Okay. So.

Usually about this time of year I'm running around like an idiot, trying to balance far too many projects, the Day Job, and Year End lists and everything else. Somehow I always make it through, but just barely and with a lot of stress and freaking out about the lack of time to do any of it.

This year, I'm taking the time to think.

I could do a year-end/decade-end series on my blogs, but right now I'm not going to worry too much about it. I'll do it when I have the time, and I'll remind myself that IT'S OKAY TO DO THEM IN 2020. I'll do them eventually because I really enjoy doing them.

I do in fact have a new writing project in the preplanning stage! I'm sort of dancing around it right now, making some mental notes and printing out a few old outtakes and thinking about how I'm going to approach it. What I'm trying not to do is Make Everything Perfect From the Outset, which I am wont to do now and again. Every time my brain insists that my prose needs to be at 100% the first time out, I remind myself that The Phoenix Effect was pretty damn terrible as a first longhand draft. That the first Meet the Lidwells draft looked nothing like the end result. That the first attempt at writing Diwa & Kaffi took four tries and a temporary ragequit before I got it right.  But yeah...I think I have a new solid plan for The Next Writing Project and that's all that matters right now.

Speaking of D&K, I'm happy to say that I've heard back from my Tagalog assistant, and I will be making the final text adjustments in the next day or so! I'm planning on sending the story out sometime early next year.

So what about the Day Job/Possible Job Opening front? it is what it is. It's tiring and I've chosen Friday as my Get Out Of Jail Free Work from Home Day (I get one a week now, woo de frickin' hoo), which works nicely because it's like an extended weekend and I get to listen to New Music Releases. I'm going to reach out to the PJO place tomorrow just to get an update on what's going on -- it's been about two weeks and a courtesy follow-up makes sense. All in all, I'm dealing with it the best I can.

On a personal note, I seem to have tweaked my sciatica this afternoon, after not having an issue with it for, well...a pretty damn long time, come to think of it. I think it happened while vacuuming today, and hopefully it'll go away by tomorrow. Other than that, not much to report...

So the first week of returning to the office for the Day Job has been the complete shambles we all expected it to be. So far:

--My assigned cubicle is nowhere near my team due to overcrowding so I'm all by myself, in a hallway that gets constant foot traffic. It's just like working from home only I don't have my home PC next to me playing music. Oh, and I'm sitting right next to a wall that has a constant hum from the HVAC system. One of my teammates who was assigned the cubicle next to me refuses to sit there because it's even louder there.
--My cubicle was completely empty and not set up on Monday. I finally got my monitors later in the day but no laptop dock. And the first dock they did give me was faulty.
--We were told to bring in the bank-assigned phones we'd been using at home, only to find out they weren't set up. After much delay the tech team emailed me inquiring about a ticket that had been opened, asking what was wrong with the phone. And then proceeded to be told by the person who opened the ticket that I needed to email the info to the tech team.  Suffice it to say, I kind of went off on them (in the nicest way possible, of course) until the in-building tech boffin stopped by and actually fixed the damn thing.
--Apparently management had ordered us nice chairs ahead of time...and as expected, they were yoinked by other people in the building before we even came back. So now they're ordering more.
--I've been told that I can work from home one day a week but I REALLY need to keep an eye on my VPN usage to the point that perhaps I should turn it off for lunch and breaks, because I'll get yelled at for going over the usage limit.
--No one, and I mean NO ONE, on my team is happy. We are all absolutely miserable that they've pulled this shit. One manager (the one on the other coast who's not affected by this idea at all) is doing the 'we're here for teamwork!' cheer and we are all sick of hearing it. Another manager is putting on a brave face and trying to keep people calm. And a third manager is NOT happy at all but can't really do anything about it. The atmosphere is not exactly tense because we all get along really well, but we're definitely not a happy group.
--I don't exactly hate the commute, as all the crappy traffic is going the opposite way both morning and evening. I do enjoy driving, even despite the idiocy of the occasional other driver.  What I do hate is that I'll be spending roughly about $100 a week on the commute: $7 toll every night (x5 = $35) and I've filled half the tank twice this week at around $25 (x2 = $50). I'm not complaining that I have to pay this per se; it's that I have to pay this when there is really no fucking reason for me to do it.

And it's only been the first week.

So yeah. No one's happy there. Everyone thinks this is a really fucking stupid idea that some old coot in Upper Management came up with. The immediate upper management "feels our pain" and "hopes it gets better" and "looks forward to seeing everyone in the office when we come for our visit next year" and blah de blah de blah blah. I would not be the least bit surprised if more people end up jumping ship.

It's a fucking clown show, I tell you.

I've been informed that I will be having an in-person interview for Potential Job Opening on Thursday afternoon! This is the one I'm really hoping I'll get but saying very little about until I know I have it for sure. Heh. I will say this is the furthest I've gotten so far in the job search game recently, so I'm quite happy about that. If all goes to plan....well, we shall see, shan't we?  :D

As for Current Day Job, the Return To Office (Lack Of) Plan is still ongoing, and it's been one embarrassment after another. Not towards me, mind you -- this is Upper Management's Brilliant Idea and my immediate managers are supposed to find a way to make it work. Considering the office is already crowded to full capacity already, me and one other person have been assigned a desk way out in the back of the beyond, away from the rest of the team, in a major hallway. I should *hopefully* be up and running come Monday, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not going to complain if nothing works, because it's Not My Problem to begin with.

ANYWAY. Things are coming to a head very quickly and I'm actually kind of surprised I'm not as anxious as I thought I'd be. A bit nervous about whether I'll get the PJO or not, sure...but plans are in motion and things are looking pretty good otherwise.

The first interview on Friday went quite smoothly and although I have no idea if I aced it, we got along quite nicely and there were positive things said on both sides, so we shall see.  The second interview, however, took an interesting and very unexpected turn. Without going into too much detail, let's just say that I was offered a position different from the one I'd initially signed on for, and one that VERY much fits me to a T. So much so that I'm finding it hard not to think of it as reminiscent of my old job at the Emerson College Library. Suffice it to say I'm intrigued by this offer and would like to know more, thank you very much.

I'll be having another talk with the recruiter tomorrow about this position, what it entails and all that, so we shall see where this goes...

I'm still holding my cards VERY close to my chest on all this at the moment, but I've got as many of the moving parts in this job search right where I want them and I'm keeping my stress levels as calm as they can be. I'm hoping this all turns out very positively, but I'm not going to say either way until everything is set in stone.

Although I will say that this potential position could in fact work positively for me in multiple ways, so... ;-)

Had my third interview for an Office Manager position here in the city, and I think (I hope!) it went well. I seem to have passed the first two tests with flying colors (which is funny, considering I thought I failed miserably), so at this point I think they're going to share our video with the company in particular and if I'll pass the audition again.

Have I already said I really dislike interviews? I dislike interviews -- if only because I feel like I babble and ramble too much, and I've never been able to shake that. I'm a much better writer than I am a speaker so it's an obstacle that I always have to fight past more than anything else.

Still -- I think this one went really well, so here's to hoping this one pans out!

Woo! We'll be heading out for a two-week vacation to the UK on Saturday night and I cannot wait. Of course I'm all kinds of nervous...did I get all the tickets I needed to buy? Did I buy the correct ones? Will SFO's current runway reno screw with our flight plans? Will we get there in time? Am I forgetting something really important that A told me to do two months ago that I never followed up on? This is why I have multiple calendars and a clipboard with all the dates and whatnot so I can keep it straight in my head. I'm sure everything's accounted for but I'm going to be stressed anyway. 

And of course we need to pack. A's got her own thing going, debating whether or not to underpack to save space/keep the baggage light (we always do a load at the local laundrette in Earl's Court about halfway through the trip), what coat/jacket to bring, and so on. I of course am the "grab a week's worth of each item of clothing" sort of packer, but I should at least pack for the weather. It's supposed to be warmish, but the UK is also known for unscheduled rainstorms!

Lastly, I'm still debating what writing to bring. I'll be bringing my tablet for reading/revising/internet purposes. One of the possible new projects? Maybe...but which one? And should I bring something to read on the flight? If so, what?

Most importantly: what should I put on my mp3 players?? Those SFO-to-Heathrow flights are pretty damn long, so I'll definitely need something to keep me sane.

Decisions, decisions....
 

So I've just been informed that the move-in date for the Current Day Job is 11/1. You know what? I ain't even mad, bro. Not anymore. It's given me the impetus to follow through with some important life and career choices.

I can do this. 

Bleh. Feeling sleepy lately. I think it's a bunch of things: walking all over creation the last few weeks, changing weather patterns, Day Job stress, frustrating stress dreams (the common theme once again seems to be People/Things Getting In My Way When I'm Trying to Do Something Or Go Somewhere), and just having a lot of things on my mind lately. I just want to take a pre-vacation vacation and sleep for a few weeks.

As always, my path here tends to be to gripe about these issues for a bit just to get them out of my head so I can move forward again. It's tiring, but it's a necessary evil, I guess.

Right now I'm just counting down the weeks until our UK vacation next month. Hopefully I won't be as much of a crankypuss then. ;)