Growing Pains

So it's been about a year since I've posted here and I'm sorry about that.

But it's been a heck of a year.

I'm in full swing as a Pilates instructor, alongside my freelance work as a proof reader and copy editor. I've had some cool freelance jobs come in, and I've really enjoyed doing them. I've got another iron in the fire as a project manager for an online product, and I'm enjoying the people I'm working with. Thus far, it's all good and clearly this decision was the correct one for me to make.

I'm also still adjusting to the way things are around hearth and home. Things are a little less tidy, and I've learned that that's OK. Things are also a little bit more chaotic, but that I think goes with the kind of schedule that I've got, now that I'm no longer a 9-5 kind of gal, and that's OK, too.

The kids are fine, and growing up fast, and that's really the main reason that I've decided to do what I'm doing now. I see them a lot now every day, to the point where now they're saying things like 'Mummy I really liked it better when you had your other job'.

Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

Still, I suspect that it's just that familiarity breeds contempt. I'm always here (well, except for the nights I teach, but even then, I'm still around between when school gets out and bedtime), and so I'm the face they see all the time. And sometimes I'm the most horrible person/mother in the world.

But tonight I wasn't. Tonight I spent time with my eldest, who is soon to be nine. She blew off both the choir show she was supposed to sing in at the local beer festival, as well as her ballet class. She's been saying all week that she's just tired, she doesn't want to go to her after-school club, she doesn't want to go to Brownies...so today, instead of participating in all her stuff, she just put her jammies on and mooched around the house all day. But while the husband and the youngest child took themselves off to the event, I had strict instructions from the husband to not let eldest child use the iPad, have fun, have a friend round, etc., because if she was 'too ill' to sing or go to ballet, then she was 'too ill' to have any fun. Fair enough.

But tonight she and I made stuff. I've recently completed the crocheted blanket I've been working on for 18  months (gift for sister-in-law), and now I'm working on a quilt. But I, of course, have to have an interstitial project to go to when I don't have time to concentrate on the quilt, but I've got a few moments to spare. So I've started plaiting fabric scraps to make a rag rug. And eldest came to hang out with me. And after a while of her watching me and some chit chat, she said she wanted to make something. And tonight I taught her to sew.

She cut out some bits of fabric and said she was going to make an apple. I taught her how to pin the wrong sides of the fabric together, and sew a seam with a sewing machine, and then turn the right sides out, and she stuffed it full of sheep's wool that she'd collected on a walk a few weeks ago, and hand sewed the top closed, and put a green ribbon on the top. And it's great.

And then after that was complete, she just hung out and we talked.

(Incidentally, we've already had the chat about where babies come from, and how they get in there in the first place, and what happens to your bod when you get closer to being a teenager.)

So she asked me how old I was when I first decided I 'liked' a boy. I said 'about nine or so', and she said 'OK'. And then she told me about how a friend of hers (male, also almost nine years old) kissed her the other day, and then we talked about when that's OK, and when it isn't. And then she said, 'I know that when I'm a teenager I'm not going to like you or Daddy very much, right?' -- and I said yes, that that was probably right. And then she said, 'But I like you quite a bit right now.'

And then she got up and went to get ready to go to bed. And as she left the room, I said 'I love you', and she was silent. So I 'ahem-ahem-ed' at her, and she just looked at me and rolled her eyes, and the door closed behind her as she went out.

She likes me 'quite a bit right now'.

For this moment, that's lovely.

I'm Outta Here...

Glad to report that my days are numbered. At work, that is. I've officially given notice, and boy has the stress level gone down. A LOT.

I love the fact that my team leader, who is one of the main reasons I'm going (don't get me started), hasn't even acknowledged that I've given notice. At least the head of my department has sent me an email saying I'll be missed. The team leader just goes right on talking to me about things that will be deployed/happening long after I'm gone. In a meeting the other day, he started talking about how he's really excited about a new development we'll be able to use in testing our products, and how it applies specifically to my colleague and to me. Deployment estimate: August. My last day: 30th of June.

Not to mention a host of other things that have done nothing except confirm for me that this decision is the right one for me right now. My mental health is sure to bounce back. The teeth grinding has already lessened. I don't feel as worn out as I have in the past. I no longer dread Mondays. And I have a positive view of my future (which is certainly something that I haven't felt professionally for a long time).

I've still got 26 days left, which is a long time (or it SEEMS a long time). But I'm not making any plans to do more than what I need to do. I have finished going to the extreme for this company. I've finished with going beyond the call of duty. I have 13 years' worth of experience, know-how, understanding of how it all works. I know things that could only be known by someone like me because of how long I've been around, and because I listen to what people say, and I know who to ask about things, and how to ask for help from people who would tell other people to just get in line. (As an aside, I think people are willing to do things for me when I ask them because I treat them like people. There are many around here who treat their co-workers like production-line flunkies. I'd like to remind a few people around here that just because you happen to have been promoted to 'manager', it doesn't necessarily mean that you know bugger all about how to manage people, or how to lead a team. I can tell you unabashedly: you don't know squat).

I'm going to do what I must do, and that's all. I'm going to record things that are part of my job description, but when it comes to divulging all my secrets about who to talk to, and how, in order to smooth the way and sort things out, forget it.

One of my strengths is being a facilitator. I'm great at getting people to work together. And what I've come to realize is that, around here, that's not desirable.

I'd also like to quote from my most recent appraisal, from a comment from my team leader: "I see the need for [her] to progress, and her enthusiasm to gain extra experience with which to make the case for further progression when appropriate roles arise that she can apply for." I've added the emphasis here. Two and a half years in the same position, without a pay rise, nor a promotion. What is the point of working your arse off to get a great appraisal, or to ask for help with learning and development, when there isn't a chance in Hell that you're going to be promoted? OOooh. You mean I'll be ALLOWED to APPLY for a job to move up in my department, but I'd still potentially be shunted aside, just in case there's someone from outside the organization? What about that old fashioned gem -- promotion on merit? Remember that one?

He 'sees my enthusiasm to gain extra experience'. Gee. That's nice that he SEES it. But he's never done a thing to work with it, or provide any opportunities to help me move forward. And when it's been queried, he just bounces it back to my line manager, saying 'oh that's a management issue -- not something for me'.

I'm gone. Long gone. Even though I've got 26 days left. I'm well and truly gone. And I'm taking my information, my know-how, my experience, and my secret ways with me. So have a good time after I've gone, trying to figure out how it all works.

Oh. And I'll be watching the salary and career progression of my replacement with interest. I reckon that if there's a promotion, or a pay rise, before two and a half years are out, you'll be hearing from me. And one or two of my professional friends. You know - those people with the letters QC after their names?

Coping Mechanism

I'm starting to think that I'm just not cut out for staying in my job much longer. It's not the job, actually. I really like being involved with what I do. What's starting to wear me down is that there is almost nothing left that has to do with people, or job satisfaction, or with making me want to do a good job.

I could be a robot. I'm so tired of words being bandied around that haven't got a thing to do with people. It's words like 'workflow', 'protocol', 'process', 'infrastructure', and garbage like that. I used to be a part of a team that worked together on something, and we had to work together on this something once a month to continually produce new stuff to display on our something. And we DID work together.

We discovered problems. We hashed them out. We argued about stuff in weekly meetings. But ultimately, we all worked TOGETHER to put a plan in place to make things work. Now, a few people have moved round within teams (which happens), and suddenly, some of the new team members are more interested in tittle-tattling to their managers than they are talking to the rest of the team, and trying to work with the team in order to sort stuff out.

Gone are the days when we'd all approach a dodgy situation, and everyone would pipe up with an opinion, good or rubbish. And we all depended on each other's experience and savvy. And then we'd figure stuff out, and everything would fall into place. It would work. It was on time. We were successful. And we loved doing it.

Now, the only things that seem to happen is that people can only say why they CAN'T do something; why something CAN'T be accomplished; why something CAN'T be pulled back into a schedule and launched on time.

I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of people giving excuses as to why things can't be done. A year ago, we were delivering twice what we're delivering now. And granted, maybe people went a bit off piste with things occasionally. I understand that it can be dangerous when that's the norm. But CLEARLY what's happened is that all these processes and workflows and protocols and other corporate bollocks that gets spouted daily haven't made things better. Or more streamlined. Or faster/cheaper/nicer.

All they've done is ruin what was working well. The team isn't a team any longer. It's fragmenting. And what we're supposed to deliver is fragmenting as well. To borrow a phrase from someone I admire, we've adopted the 'labour economics of the call centre' right into our open plan office. Pretty soon it'll be about adhering to a script, as part of the 'workflow' we're adopting in order to create the 'infrastructure' that will guarantee the 'resource' we need in order to define the 'scalability' of the 'deliverables'.

Someone asked me yesterday if I were asked did I still want to work on this project, what would I say? And I answered 'no'. I said I wouldn't work on it if I didn't have to. Because suddenly it's not about us all working together to provide 'excellence'. What's been going on hasn't got bugger all to do with excellence. All I'm hearing is no, can't, won't, isn't. And ultimately, it's now no longer about people working together, using their brains and ingenuity and cleverness and experience, to do something really cool and great.

Now it's about being robots.

Walking Behind Keyser Söze

Subjectivity has been on my mind lately.

In one way, it's helped me clarify a lot of things - especially about how I tend to view other people with regards to my own performance, or opinions, or general ways of existing. I have a bad habit of seeing things only in relation to myself, which can be an incredibly dangerous and stupid thing to do.

Generally speaking, most of the time we think that someone's angry at us, or thinking ill of us, etc., we're not even on their radar. It's something I learned a long time ago from a woman I used to know named Valerie. She used to suggest to me, when I'd complain to her that everyone was out to get me, that I sure had balls to think that I was so important that people would be thinking about ME above everything else they had to think about in their lives.

I love that idea. I love reminding myself that, for the most part, I'm just not that important. Somehow, it makes me feel better.

The new job is going well. At least I'm pretty sure it is. I'm enjoying the hell out of it, anyway, if that's anything to measure success by, which it probably isn't. But just the same, I get to Friday afternoon now, and think to myself, 'I've EARNED this weekend.' It's a nice feeling.

But the point is that there have been a lot of things going on where people are certain to have taken things personally, when there wasn't anything personal about the situation, or the task at hand. And there have been definite times when various people have dug in their heels and simply refused to do what was asked of them. And the funny part is that in the time spent in refusal and explanation of said refusal, the requested task probably could have been done twice over.

And all because someone thought that the situation was about THEM, instead of it being about the SITUATION.

********

Granny Söze knitted these.

There's a woman who lives in my village. She's a functioning human being, and she's got a job, and friends, and a schedule...normal. Except she's NOT. She's a person who, for whatever reason, came out wrongly. Her body isn't put together right. She speaks, but it's hard to understand her because of the way her mouth works. She wears mittens, not gloves, because her fingers aren't right. And she walks differently, because her legs don't work the way legs ought to work. They work just fine, but not properly.

And I see this woman just about every day - going about her business, commuting, joining in various community activities, cracking jokes with the bus driver and the train manager. And at the end of our journey, she gets off the bus, and says good bye, and goes home. And I walk behind her as she walks up the hill, and I see her go in her front door. And she does what I do - hangs up her jacket, puts her keys on the hook, opens her post, wonders what's for tea, and settles into her evening.

But it's all subjective, isn't it? I worry about getting older, and getting wrinkles, and trying to stay up to speed with what the 'kids' are doing. I worry about getting fat, about my escaping youth, about trying to be the mom/wife/employee/woman in the magazines adverts, or the IDEA of that person.

My neighbour probably worries about all that, too. But where I sit and think about how I'm never going to be the beauty on the big screen, or have the flawless face I wished I'd had when I was 21...I wonder about the bars we set ourselves. Does my neighbour sit and think that she'll never be able to walk like normal people? Does she wonder what it's like to have a face that's shaped so that she can talk without a speech impediment? While I'm sitting here thinking about how fat my ass is getting, I have to stop and get a grip on myself.

My legs work. My face is shaped so that my words come out correctly, even if what I say isn't the right thing sometimes. I can wear gloves AND mittens, because I've got two hands with long fingers. I can wear any shoes I like, because my feet are the same size as each other, and they've got the correct number of toes on each one.

Keyser Söze had the option that most people don't have. In the end, he straightened up his crooked body, walked away, effortlessly climbed into the back of a car, and disappeared.

But the rest of us don't have that option. We are who we are - and sometimes we can't just straighten up our crooked bodies and walk away. When I think about this, and I look at people every day, I realize that we're all struggling with some sort of thing -- we've all got our own versions of hands that fit only into mittens.

Ship Ahoy

The countdown has begun. While I'm certainly going to miss the way that certain things have been, I'm also really looking forward to the way that things COULD be, because it's been a long time since I have anticipated something in this way.

I wonder, though, what it will be like when I'm presented with a blank slate? The 'tabula raza' aspect of what's about to happen is daunting at the same time that it's inviting; the unknown is supposed to be exciting - to provide the adrenaline rush that encourages movement forward.

While what I'm about to embark upon certainly isn't something that equates to my sitting down and have a quick but judicious read of The Art of War,  it has made me think about things that have, and haven't, motivated me in the past. It's also made me realize that I can be particularly immature about various things. While I'm convinced that part of this immaturity is something I come by genetically, I've done some work on trying to stifle those parts of my cell makeup that lend themselves to hysterical denial of responsibility of things that are truly my fault.

With this in mind, though, I do feel as though I have a small (but present) ability to perhaps look at what I'm about to do, and where I'm about to go, and make some decisions and choices about how I want to be perceived, how I want to function, and what I want to accomplish.

I'm rather sure that I'll never be a heavy hitter in any aspect of my life. But I'm looking forward with relish to sinking my teeth into some new things, and some new experiences, and to learning how to become a new person professionally.

I mentioned over the weekend to the person I love best in the world that, while I may be crap at lots of things, I can sure as hell cook.

I'd like to think that I'm going to be pretty darned good at doing what I'm about to set out to do, as well. It appears that I'm going to have some people who are very willing to help, teach, encourage, and support me. It's been a long time since I've felt that way.

We'll see how it all goes.