RedJen's Rearview Mirror

"There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest." - Anaïs Nin

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book(Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this(or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death." - Anaïs Nin

Disclaimer: I still like my job.

Work feel so much like chaos right now that it is driving me crazy. So much is in flux right now that while we have plenty to keep us busy, there is a complete lack of strong direction. Maybe it just appears that way from where I am and there is something I’m missing. I almost hope there is something I’m missing, but I’m afraid that I’m right. What’s really difficult is that the one piece of the situation that I can see a way to fix isn’t mine to fix and we are between managers, so the person I’d usually talk to about this isn’t available. Our last manager is trying to look out for us, but she’s swamped with her new department and trying to manage the fallout from getting ready for an internal audit.

I think my biggest frustration right now is that while I’m good in a crisis, I don’t see a reason why I should be in a crisis right now. That is not to say that I don’t believe that a crisis exists, only that I don’t feel like I’m being given the information I need in order to manage my own activities. Everything seems so disjoint right now. No matter what I can prepare for, things keep coming up that shouldn’t be surprises. Today I found out that one of the people who shares support duties for one of my projects is on vacation until next week. No big deal, except someone else is already on vacation and this means that the bulk of the support falls to me. I knew the first person was going to be gone and I was prepared for that. Unfortunately, part of that preparation was in knowing that I had the second person to fall back on if I got stumped. Now they are both gone and I’m back against a wall if a difficult support situation happens.

I need information!

There are good things going on at work. I had a couple of great conversations concerning work over the last week. I have reached a point where I’m busy but bored most of the time and I feel like I need to stretch. Of course it is hard to stretch when you are in the middle of sprinting. It is probably a good thing that I don’t fight forest fires, I’m much more suited for strategic planning. I’m a capable fire fighter, but I get more out of helping to prevent the fires in the first place.

Because I have been bored and we don’t have a direct manager right now, I tracked down one of my previous managers and had a talk with him about what I can do to figure out what type of opportunities exist for me in the area I am currently working. He brought up a lot of things I hadn’t heard before and gave me some really good advice. I took his advice and had what will be one of multiple conversations to make sure that people know what I want to do. *Smile* He reminded me of something that I like remind people: If you don’t have something and you ask for it, you either get what you ask for or you have what you started with.

The second conversation I had wasn’t as enlightening, but I think it was a start in laying the groundwork for a next step later. In the past I had had a difficult time talking to this person, but this time and using some good advice, by the time we were finished, we were exchanging humorous articles that we had seen over the weekend.

It looks like good things are ahead, I just need to keep from getting mired up in the chaos of the moment.

Closing my eyes
Tensing each then relaxing
Slow, even, controlled breathing
Reach out and connect
Exhale to release and inhale to refill

Clouds in the sky
Full wings in flight
The silhouette of a woman
A stream between two hills
A soft breeze stirs my brow

Slipping gently into sleep

This comes close to being a list of the top ten things you can do to avoid driving me crazy.

Dealing with INTJs
1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts - or at least some pretty sound reasoning.
2. Don't expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.
3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being "right". Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.
4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.
5. Do not feed them a line of bull.
6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don't actually support for the sake of argument.
7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it or argue it well. Therefore, it will take more than fervor to sway them.
8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.
9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.
This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is "Does it work?" - end discussion.
10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Work: that which is broken must be fixed or else the people are going to break and that is much worse than any project schedule. Since I’ve been put off for a good month by the person who should be trying hard to fix it, I’m going to either have to try and ignore it (which goes completely against my nature) or find a way to effect some positive changes. In my opinion, things have been left unaddressed for too long. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but I don’t know how much longer I will be able to stand certain things. I’ve raised some of the issues through the proper channels, but due to other things going on around us, the issues I’m seeing are not of a high enough priority to garner action through those channels. I almost feel like I’m deciding whether or not to be an activist on an issue.

What this situation really hammers home to me the appropriateness for me the following statement really is: “… not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead.” Another analysis that I have read says that my personality cannot stand nonproductive chaos, when it negatively affects my ability to be productive. Check and check…

And it isn’t just because work has been crazy, I need a vacation so I can go to the beach and read for a week straight. As of today, I have 19 real books on my to read list. In a really strange turn of events for me, only 5 of the books are fiction. Add to those that I’ll probably read some “candy” books and I’ll either be reading these well into July or I won’t be doing much between now and when I finish…

Good news this week: I have a short week and I’m going to be meeting my parents to pick up my sister for this summer’s extended visit.

As crazy as work has been, life outside of work has been really great as of late. I’ve been very lucky to be having a new level of openness with friends as we all strive to become more than we are right now. I’ve had a lot of fun with friends. I’ve reconnected in an amazing way with a completely amazing woman that I am lucky to call my friend. Since my birthday I’ve felt freer than I have in a long time, almost like a weight has been lifted. A new year, a new focus…

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, regardless of the number of hours, so I should get some sleep.

I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job, I like my job

Well, that didn’t work. I shouldn’t be surprised since it didn’t work in grade school either.

* Flashback *

Now since you can’t seem to pay attention to what is going on in the front on the class, you can stay inside and write 100 times “I will not talk during class.” instead of going out for recess.

* Return to now *

It’s really bad when the person most willing to try and be positive is also the one on anti-depressants. I’ve come to realize today that the rest of my department is now going through something very similar to what I was dealing with last year. To be honest, I’m dealing with it too, but at this point, I’ve developed some coping mechanisms that they haven’t.

How much longer will things go on before our society (department) breaks down and resembles the boys from the Lord of the Flies? Shall we stalk our prey and fall into a primitive society among the cubicles? Only time will tell.

Time to go make a sharp stick...

As of Monday, we are short at least three people for the work we are currently required to produce. As of Tuesday, I’ve been asked to size a new tool that they needed in May, but they didn’t identify until Monday. Not to mention that the development of this tool is supposed to be complete within 4 weeks. Well, it turns out, I can have this tool in 4 weeks, but I need an additional 4 resources to meet that date and there are two other people who we are forced to rely upon meeting their dates in order to meet ours. If they don’t meet their dates, our dates are immediately false and will be pushed out by an equal amount of time.

I am tired! I am tired of fighting! I need someone to be a champion for my team. We can’t push out any more work. We are all tired! We are now working well beyond 10% overtime consistently. We don’t have any room to push things around, we don’t have any leverage, and we are stretched so thin that we are only reacting to things. We don’t have anyone who is doing the job to look at the big picture and make sure people are getting their necessary downtime. There is no one to stem the influx of additional work. People say sure, they’ll do it…

If this doesn’t change, our aisle will be empty because we will all be rooming in the local mental ward.

Now I need a vacation for real. So I put together an accelerated schedule for the new project (due 6 weeks before it was mentioned) that gives them the function they need within the timeframe they need it. What do they decide to complain about? They complain about the fact that two of us, who have yet to take vacation this year, are planning vacation during the development cycle. Guess what, it doesn’t matter, in fact it is actually to their advantage because things have to be done in a certain order and the vacations fall at points where there wouldn’t be full time work for all the people. The thing is, there is NO way that they could get the full function tool they propose in four weeks. It wouldn’t be possible if we cancelled our vacations (which isn’t going to happen), there are too many variables that cannot be accounted for or controlled. That schedule would pretty much be guaranteed to fail before it began based on the past performance of the group we would have to rely on to meet specific dates. I’m not turning in a schedule that is impossible to meet. Of course the schedule I turned in has nice little caveats like: if a, b, c or d happen, then the schedule will be invalid.

Since I’m taking Thursday and Friday off this week to pick up my little sister, I guess I’ll have to see what falls out on Monday when I get back.

I AM NOT GOING TO WORK THIS WEEKEND!

I walked, laughed, skipped and played in a thunderstorm today. My heart was light and the breeze was energizing. I didn’t run from the rain, I purposely stayed out where I could feel it. I went outside after the rain had started to jump a brook and climb the hill on the other side.

I didn’t jump in any puddles. Maybe next time…

... but I’m not…

Later today I’m meeting my parents and sister halfway between my home and theirs to bring my sister back to stay with me for a month. I guess if I were to sleep time would pass by more quickly.

Off to bed with me…

I started writing with the intention of posting yesterday afternoon. I got as far as “Tired” and fell asleep with my hands on the keyboard. It didn’t really hit me how tired I was until Sunday, when I was talking to my dad on the phone. In my own defense, there’s little wonder why I was tired and for once, it didn’t have anything to do with work.

Thursday night - A friend got me a ticket to see Pilobolus, a modern dance troupe, perform during the American Dance Festival at Duke. It was a great show, but it ran late and we ended up talking a while afterwards, which led to me not getting to sleep until about 1:00 AM.

Friday - I got up and went to the gym as usual from 7:30 – 8:30. A quick trip through the shower, a quick packing of stuff for overnight, one last stop for gas and I was on my way to West Virginia. Yucky driving weather, some fog, some rain, luckily no really snarled traffic, but when I stopped at McD’s for a caffeine jolt of Coke (no ice please, I need my caffeine straight), I ended up with half a glass of ice. Okay, so I had to go through another McD’s later for more caffeine, but I managed to make the entire trip within 5 minutes of what I had planned, which isn’t bad by any stretch. Meet up with my parents and sister in the hotel’s parking garage, sort out the rooms and then go walk in the mall to get some kinks out of our legs. Dinner at the hotel restaurant, a quick swim, that mostly ended up being a soak in the hot tub, followed by watching VH1 with my sister. Deep sleep.

Saturday – Everyone up dressed, repacked, and checked out, then over to the mall to grab some breakfast before heading back home. We’re on our way back to North Carolina. I realized once we got home that I drive faster when I’m awake and after getting a good nine hours sleep Friday night, I was awake. A quick change, get my sister to her sleepover, meet up with my pre-engagement dinner partners, dinner, run home to get something I forgot, run to meet up with everyone, pretend to be awake for multiple hours, sleep/crash.

Sunday – Fall out of bed, shower, go pick up Rugrat, call my parents back, go buy camp lunch supplies, fall asleep trying to type. Nap good…

Wow, completely worn out and it had nothing to do with work. I think I’m still in the recovery phase, but this one I’m sure will work itself out.

I miss writing for the sake of writing. This journal is a wonderful outlet for me, but it deals with much that is real. What I miss writing is more fanciful and lyrical. From my heart rather than my head. I feel drained and as a result, flights of fancy are not occurring of their own volition.

Well, time to sleep. I’ve found mild meditation before sleeping leads me to be able to retain some of the images from while I dream. Tonight, I hope they are restful.

My car is now MINE! Today marked the last payment to the bank and this is the first BIG thing that I have bought and paid for completely (I see furniture as big, not BIG). Granted, I needed help to get the loan, but I am the only one who made the payments. Wow, adulthood sneaks up on you occasionally. Car paid for, college credit cards paid off, I guess I’m running out of reasons to put off the search for a house…

I'm writing formal project plans and making people sign off on them before I let anyone start working on them. If I can't get management to protect us voluntarily, then I'm going to make it so that they have prior notice and if they decide at a later time to reallocate our people to other things, they will be doing so after signing off on something that says changing the assigned resources automatically makes the schedule invalid and puts the delivery date off the original schedule.

If they won't make decisions and stick with them, then I'm going to make them choose the consequences. I'm through playing nice.

Forward toward Nod
Bags packed, tickets ready
To slumber, to dream

So it evidently takes me getting fed up and frustrated to the point where I have an overwhelming need to wrestle control into place due to the lack of initiative by other people before I’ll get some respect. Great, I have to turn into a controlling bitch to get things done currently. That and evidently forcing people to sign off on plans before agreeing to take on new work isn’t anything new, but no one bothered to try and implement it, so the fact that I’ve taken it upon myself to make it get done isn’t that impressive, except that now I hold the key to making our upper management happy with the work I did on the side to protect myself. Hmm, guess who is not going to let someone else present my plan… That would be me. I don’t give a rats rear end that some other wonder boy was suddenly assigned to “bring order” to things, he has nothing to do with this and I’m not giving this up so he can look good. Heck, the last project he left while going along fine, had a HUGE mess in the code he was supposed to be developing himself. That code turned out to be the biggest mess of the entire project.

If they want to be in charge, fine, but I’m taking my toys and leaving. They can be in charge and fail at that point. I will not be giving them my work if that is what it takes. If they can go on for months without realizing they need the kind of planning that I saw within a week of being brought into this project, then they are lacking and I’m not going to prop them up without getting my share for fixing the problem.

I am woman, hear me roar!

Okay, I’m feeling better now. Still frustrated with the work situation, but as it has been pointed out, there is always a need for Math teachers. I’ve given some serious thought about going into teaching at some point, but so far that has been a future thing, not anything immediate. Call me materialistic, but I like the things that having a well paying job can provide. Once I get settled into a house where I won’t be moving every 12-24 months, I’m hoping to get the opportunity to volunteer tutor or teach in one of the schools around here.

I’ve redone the entry page to my photo album and added a page of pictures of some friends and myself posing as characters circa 1920. Now I want to rework some of the actual photo pages, but that will have to wait until later.

And thus Harry Potter was released upon the world for a fifth time on the Summer Solstice of 2003. Whether that is coincidence or not it seems appropriate. I wonder if it was done on purpose. I almost hope it was.

Are we always searching to be a part of a perfect spiritual connection? Is that even possible for two people to achieve when we are all imperfect beings? Are the rising number of failed marriages and the disintegration of the family unit partially a result of people moving away for placing importance on strong relations with a higher power? Is the move away from putting faith in an outside power leading to dissatisfaction with our relationships?

Can we only find a perfect relationship when it includes the Divine?

A picture from Rugrat's weekend. Guess what she spent most of it doing...

Here's a hint:

Yeah! I figured out how to put pictures into my posts. I forgot that the journal is one more directory from my image directory. Duh! Oh well, it’s been a while since I’ve done any html, so I figure I’m doing okay.

So if you have a mid-year evaluation and they tell you that you’ve been doing your job for the last 6 months, are you supposed to feel like that is a negative critique? That’s what happened today. I had my mid-year evaluation with my former manager (we still don’t have one of our own) and I was basically told that I needed to step it up and really excel. Now I know that the reason I was told this is that I usually excel at things. Hi, my name is RedJen and I am a perfectionist.

I, RedJen, hereby promise to avoid the gratuitous use of pictures in my Musing entries and to contain the majority of my pictures to the pages of my photo album.

Posted this the twenty-fourth day of June, in the year two thousand and three of the Common Era.

Discover the role of left-brain/right-brain plays in your personality. The Brainworks program is an online application. Do you use your left or right hemisphere more?

Another rather accurate test. Someone may figure me out yet...

Rugrat finished reading Harry Potter this morning, so now I have that temptation hanging over my head. It would be worse, but as a result of the actions by a morning radio show (which I am now boycotting), I already know which character is killed. Before I start reading, I’d like to not be miffed as a result of the actions of one rude and boorish individual.

I can understand being spiteful, but to inflict it upon who knows how many people just because you think it is funny is ridiculous. So rather than worry about being told the endings to movies that I plan to see and books that get publicity, I will no longer listen to that morning show.

Thank you for your spite, please stay out of my life!

Look mom, no hair...

I’ve gotten a bit of a bug to modify the look of my site. I’m not sure exactly what it will mean, but most likely it will be minor. It will probably mean a change in color scheme and possibly a slight layout shift. I’m not sure when it will happen either, as I haven’t found a set of colors that I like yet.

I have never been one to make friends easily (mostly because I am highly reserved) and the ones whom I can honestly say I love beyond simple affection are relatively few. It has taken the return of one of these rare people in my life to highlight just how special these people are.

I have always related more easily to men. I grew up in an all male neighborhood. I played team sports from the time I was 10. I understand how you can push yourself physically to get the last bit of effort and that it is all worth it when you win. When competing, I know the only way I can be satisfied is to know that I gave my all regardless of the outcome. When you are on a sports team, you have a goal and the way to achieve that goal is for each person on the team to play their part according to the direction of the coach. One vision, each person has a part to play, the result being that the team wins. Excelling above each other is a way to win respect. Being outstanding in a given field or task is a good thing, so long as you don’t try and falsely equate your superiority in one skill with superiority in another. All claims of grandeur shall be challenged. Successful defense of any claims will result in an increase of stature. Claims being proven false will ensure that your place in the group is only that which you’ve earned. This is where the phrase “all talk and no action” is applied. To make claims that you are not willing to have challenged is to be all talk. It is only bragging when the claim is false.

So maybe saying I wanted to modify the look of my site was a bit of an over statement. I have however altered some of the colors, the font of the dates and altered the links in the sidebar to display as bold. This has turned out to be more of a tweaking than a modification.

I had been playing around with a scarlet, gray and white color scheme for a few days, but I couldn’t seem to get it to a point that I liked, so rather than completely give up, I decided to alter the part of my current configuration that I like the least. For now, this works for me.