12 July 2010

How to Change a Tire and Not Panic

Oh crap, I hit a bad spot of the road. I hope the tire isn’t flat. Hm, the driving wheel is shaking. My tire is probably flat. Find a spot to pull over, preferably not in the mud and is generally flat so can work. Be completely prepared to ruin/dirty up my nice clean dress clothes. Make phone calls to the sleeping husband. Try to remember what to do. Do not panic. Open up the trunk. Realize that you really should’ve finished unpacking from the move over a year ago and dig through to get the spare. Also, putting on the parking break would be a good idea. Don’t want to have car run away while trying to fix it.

Pull out the tools and the spare. Assess the spot to put the thingy that lifts up the car and have it click in place. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Left makes it lift, right makes it go back down. This is very important. Take the tire iron and fight off the hubcap. Then take off the bolt/screws. Be careful as depending on which tire it is, they may be quite steamy. Remember to utilize leg and stomping power in getting them loose. Remove sad flat tire and replace with spare. Screw on and then lower car. Put flat in trunk along with other stuff. Please to be remembering to turn off the parking break before attempting to drive away.

I still think I’m going to move to Australia.

23 June 2010

Don't Panic - A reminder for me...

Don’t Panic.

I am loved, I am cared for. I have not been abandoned, I will not be abandoned. If people aren’t around that doesn’t mean that they won’t come back. Even if people have disappeared to not return, doesn’t mean that the people that are currently around are going to do the same. I have family, I have friends, both here in VA and elsewhere around the world via the Internet. They love me, they care about me, they look after me. They will not give up on me.

07 June 2010

Something New

The crazy that was my old job in a way blew up in my face. It was quite irritating to say the least and left Philip and I both unemployed for a little more than a month, and for some reason VA Unemployment didn't send me any moneys.

But through divine intervention, luck, or something, both Philip and I found jobs and began work in them Tuesday of last week. It is too early for us to tell how well it's going to go, but we're both fairly certain that we will get out of the mess the crash and burn of the old job put us in.

My old company is in what the boss calls a "moth-ball state". He's desperately trying to find work for them... because there is no money to pay anyone. Honestly with how I felt the last few months at the company, I have no desire to go back even if it came back up. I've felt more welcome in this company as of the first day than I ever did within the last year of my employment at CRS. Boss blamed our problems on the toxic atmosphere in the company... where I believe most of that was created by him, but of course he refused to take responsibility for it. The CEO here at HCI instead, has no desire to end up in the same situation that CRS has... and everything seems much more positive here. Sure things are fast paced and busy... although I've not really been let into the actual crazy fray just yet... but this is definitely an improvement to the old place. Except the commute and hours... it's earlier, but the same commute. Because it is earlier it is actually not the same commute. So I have to learn the traffic patterns in a whole new and very frustrating way.

But in the end, things are looking up. Hopefully they will remain looking up.

18 March 2010

Trying for Positive Thinking

It is difficult to maintain a positive thinking environment when you feel as if it is made out to be your fault that your company has not had business in the last 3 months due to the website change. I need to increase the search rating of the site, which hopefully will get the desired effect. This can be either very simple or very time consuming. I have a feeling it will be the latter.

But what I need to figure out is how not to feel attacked for the decisions that I've made in regards to the website. I've worked very hard on updating the information to suit the boss. He is even willing to take responsibility for allowing me to post it up without it being ready. He was just impatient for the new information to be put up. Well it's up, but what good does that do if no one is looking for us.

But really does a website make sales? Especially one such as ours? I think it is highly possible we have too much information (read box text) on the website without a very easy way of seeing what exactly the customers may want. I have done whatever it is that I could, but there is little I can do when the information that is provided to me is pretty much lots of large paragraphs as opposed to bullet points. What is it that customers really want though? I'm no marketing expert and apparently neither is my boss.

Maybe appealing to people's emotions or pity is not the way to grab sales. "We are at the end of the road" or "we may not make it next month" are not the most positive things to hear. How does that make us feel about our job security in this festering economy? Oh did I mention, I've never once heard him say anything to the employees about this. Only on the phone to old friends or potential customers.

But I thought last week's meetings were successful. I know he's been working hard to garner some sales. I don't see how my putting up a new layout and website was as catastrophic as he's making it out to be. But what do I know. I'm just the technical editor going above and beyond what I was originally hired for to attempt to make the website better.

In other news, I think I have allergies or a cold, but I am so glad the blizzards are gone and done (please no more... for a while... 100 years?) I've been looking into other employment, for example sending out 7 applications on Tuesday alone. I'm trying to remain positive. I'm trying to do what I can for my job. I'm trying not to get stressed out by everything.

Is it too much to ask for one week without feeling attacked for doing my job?

03 March 2010

Oh and...

Really sorry about all the rants about work. I'm feeling that I need to blog more and get things off my chest because it may help me in the long run. Planning to let the therapist read this as well for our sessions to give an insight.

Other than work and finances, I'm doing pretty good and am fairly content... I've been spending time with the hubby, reading good books, knitting again, and back to playing the game (hobby not addiction).

Take Initiative - but not that Initiative

I have worked very hard on this website. Is it all for nothing? It feels as if its my fault we have not gotten any new inquiries for our products, at least this is the impression I am getting from the boss figure. He rushed me to get the project up and done and updated, even though I had told him I had started a brand new layout from scratch. He told me when it was ready that it looked good and to go ahead and upload it.

And now he's talking about needing to probably put the old one up for these folowing reasons:
It doesn't work properly in IE6.

A browser that only 10-11% of the internet traffic even uses and is over 6 years old and Google themselves are phasing it out...
No "search page".

We have a site map and sheesh the code for a search page is complicated.
People cannot find our site on the first page of searching for one of our products.

I've done the "keywords" thing in the code, but apparently that's not enough. We're (other guys and me) not even sure putting the old page will fix this problem.

Part of me wonders if my boss really only wants to undermine something I spent so much of my time perfecting. Perhaps that is not the case. I don't really know. What really peeves me off the most is that the meeting talking about the webpage was held without me... and I only found out about it walking by.

I really should document how this makes me feel for my therapist. It's really causing some "bad thoughts" that are not helping me at all.

01 March 2010

Following Up

I survived this past week, barely, but I survived. Now to actually implement to myself that gaming should be a hobby not an addiction.

I sit here today while working on submitting a very late report thinking to myself, do I really not "follow things up" like my boss says I do. I'm not totally sure honestly. Sure I didn't follow up this particular thing, but it was late and I think there as a HUGE SNOWFALL between the last time he asked me to try to submit (only to find out I couldn't cause the CCR hadn't been fixed yet) and now. Perhaps no excuse.

So, I failed again. And it's taking me all I can to not wallow in my failure and just pick up and keep going. Not to mention my desire to actually work for a company that cannot afford to pay its employees is very low. But here I am scrambling to try to remember which document this is that I need to submit and get it submitted sooner rather than later.

Speaking of not being paid, I only got an advance check for this past month because we could not make payroll. Please don't ask me how this happened, I only look at what comes in and goes out, I do not get us loans or jobs. I have a theory that Snowmaggedon, Snowpocalypse, and Snowverkill may have had something to do with this, but that's all it is, a theory. Since learning this little fact, I have been working together my resume and looking around for other places to apply to.

Unfortunately there is another step that must be completed before i can submit a report. I probably should investigate what else needs to be done before we run into problems due to the late report, that was late because our CCR expired and I had no way of knowing it was going to expire, and then I didn't realize we could still submit the thingy even after it is late. I expect many more lectures over the one "failure" to occur and no thanking me for finishing that one thing that saved us over a million dollars. And people wonder why I get depressed sometimes.

25 February 2010

Withdrawel Day Four: well actually it's three but who's counting

My Day One ended with me getting a reward of playing my game. I think my husband is a tease. But I love him anyway ;)

How does one live for themselves? I'm personally not completely sure. Selfish, only concerned with oneself, or is it something completely different?

Does it mean defining who you are without basing it upon relationships that you have? Or am I completely missing the point?

What I believe it means is finding value in yourself. Defining your value based upon your own merits and not on what others think or what you think others think of you. Now this is difficult for someone who can't even see their own merits.

I am an aspiring writer with writer's block. I haven't been able to construct a story in quite some time on my own. I have started many but finished very few. Ideas come to me and then run away.

When I was young I was always the gullible girl in the neighborhood who deseprately wanted friends and wanted to please people but would get constantly get abandoned or threatened by what the neighbor kids called "the wizard." I doubted the existence of this figure, but they would constantly tell me that he was after me. They would shake up my soda, leave me alone in the wooded area near my home, and once I was even tied to the bottom of a slide with a jump rope. I don't even remember what happened around that point or what caused it. All I am left with is images. I don't even remember if I was scared, hurt, or anything of that sort.

There was another time when I was teased incessantly for a story that I wrote. My notebook that contained it got stolen. Mind you if I looked back at my middle school stories I would probably cringe and wish for their demolition, but back then it was the most important thing to me.

So I'm not really sure how my past has shaped who I am now. I am still very easily trusting but I have a huge bout of social anxiety. I get bored hanging out with people even if we're watching a movie. I have to be engaged in what's going on. I tend to feel detached most of the time.

And the work situation doesn't help. With pretty much no one to talk to at the office outside of work related things, I feel more and more isolated and detached and lonely. It doesn't help that the finances at work aren't there, and staring at my own bank account made me realize I really can't afford to work at a company that may or may not be able to pay me. But that is an issue for me to take up with my boss tomorrow. Until then, I applied for a couple jobs today. I hate job hunting... but honestly, it may be better for my sanity if I got a different position elsewhere.

22 February 2010

Withdrawel Day One: Collecting My Thoughts

So... I need to take a break from my addiction, a game called Mabinogi. Even my friends there understood and are being supportive in any way they can. Guess this is evidence that I have a problem, that even they were worried and agreed that this was best.

It all started I think when the stress of my new position at work combined with the financial stress from after getting married. The "addiction" I have is based on, in my opinion, roleplaying games... multiplayer roleplaying games. What was a simple hobby became an addiction to a story being formulated by many participants. It became more important to me than chores, work, and even sometimes my husband. I did not even realize the downward spiral I had put myself in.

You see, I don't want to lose the hobby, the stress relief at the end of a long stressful day, but I do not want the addiction. I have chosen time and again hanging out on the game over hanging out with real life friends. I burnt out on my other stress relief method, knitting, some point after the wedding, because I had spent a long time working on things for it: my veil, my garter, and some gift bags for my girls. I forgoed most everything productive in real life for the sake of the game.

The stress at work was already pretty bad before I started having online chatrooms (talking with friends from my online games) open at work. My way of staving boredom, curing loneliness, and keeping myself sane became an even worse problem. But I'm not sure that is the only problem. Sure my boss is old-fashioned and does not get multitasking (nor does he probably see that I'm not the only one doing that, but since I don't have internet in my own office it's not as easy to be covert about) but I don't think the internet use is the only problem. This is because just this morning I hadn't even touched the internet computer for anything other than company email and he met me with hostility because he thought I hadn't done something that I actually had. Now part of that could be my fault because I might have forgotten to tell him that it was already done, but I had been working on normal day to day accounting in the office at the time.

My company has financial problems. I have no idea where payroll is coming from this month. He is stressed out and from my opinion he is looking for someone to blame: the government, the economy, me... opinions from some former employees was that we shouldn't even have taken on the 2 mil job that eventually screwed us, and put us in the hole with a large product that we have difficulty selling. I don't know whose fault it really is, but why does it have to be taken out on me, the technical editor who helped edit the proposal for that particular project back in the beginning of my time at the company (5 years ago) who has taken on the accounting job without accounting experience except for what I have had to learn on my own through experience.

I get it, the economy sucks and he's even admitted to taking advantage of us because of it. If Philip had a job and he could afford to, I'd leave. But he doesn't and we can't. So I feel trapped. I am not angry at Philip's lack of a job. I know he's tried and its difficult for entry level with this economy. But maybe I am angry but more so that I am angry because I don't want to be and it is out of my control. And there goes my downward spiral again.

And I have little to no desire to hang out with real friends lately. I'm not sure if this is new or if this is how it has always been. I don't like calling people and I normally don't really know what to do in a setting like that. That's Philip's strength, not mine. But they miss me. I don't even totally understand how I came to prefer online to real life. Perhaps the stress associated with work has reverted me to my college days... where I preferred online to real life because it was easier to meet people online or people I already knew than go out and meet new people, or I figured that everyone usually had something better to do than hang out with little ole me.