RedJen's Rearview Mirror

I sacrificed too much in the month of April, I can’t do that in May.

…picture pages…

So something is up with the server and it isn’t playing nice with my photo album. I’m just going to leave it alone today, I’m tired and since I’m not going to add anything to it tonight, it can wait another day.

I find myself in an odd place lately. I’ve tried to find ways to make things work, but nothing seems to help.

I feel invisible. Invisible at work, where even though I’ve been practically living in my office, I’ve been told to check out other opportunities. I‘m invisible at home, with friends or alone. I feel like I’m fading.

I’ve spent the last seven and a half years putting effort into what I thought was an investment into my future and it looks like I was wrong. Maybe not completely wrong, but I was never bothered by the idea of working at one place for the rest of my career. Before I felt like I had value and that made all the difference. Now I feel like a nuisance and unwanted by the one who represents the company to me and me to the company. I can sense his frustration when he is forced to call on me for some information. He doesn’t want to, but sometimes I’m the only one with the answer.

Work-Life balance is supposedly still an important issue for the company. It says so on the Human Resources web pages, but it seems to be a practice that is repeated frowned upon in the day-to-day work culture. In place of actually respect and support, I’m seeing malice and conflicting direction. If I were worse with recollecting specific dates, I’m willing to bet that my counselor would have said I was being paranoid. Heck I worry that I’m being overly paranoid and I’m living this BS right now.

I’m looking at different job postings inside the company, but I’m finding it hard to get excited about making an internal change. I’m hoping to hear from a company I made contact with early last week. I’m scared of making the wrong choice, I’m concerned about who I’ll turn into if I don’t make a change. I’m scared of growing callous and I don’t want to go there. When my mind wanders, more often than not, it isn’t going to a pleasant place. The biting sarcasm is barely kept in check under the surface and I’m tired.

I’m tired of being in a situation where regardless of my action or the results, I am wrong. If I do what needs to be done, I am wrong for enabling the poor planning of another group. If I try to push back and make people use the process, I’m not being a team player. I’m asked to put aside things in my life to get things done at work and then I’m criticized for not being shiny and happy. I try to limit my contact with people who cannot deal with me when I’m stressed and that makes me unavailable. If I make myself available, I don’t have time to get the things they want done.

I have a person in my friend group who seems more interested in finding reasons why people should not interact with me than otherwise. And yet I can’t help but think of her when I see things I think she would enjoy. She and I are very different people and I want to be happy to see her in the lives of my friends, but I have a hard time being happy when I feel malice aimed in my direction. I really just want her to have a good life, with good people in it. She has some of my favorite people in her life, is it too much for her to want what is best for them as well? Is it too much to ask that she extend the courtesy she is given? Is it too much for her to act genuinely grateful to others when there is no audience? There are people who have given her their time, because she is dating their friend and living with another of their friends. These people don’t need to help her, but do so because it helps her and because she is important to people who are important to us, she becomes important to us by extension.

I’m tired and going back to sleep.

P.S. The photo album is back up.

People are not possessions. Relationships with people are not static. If you don’t respect the people you have relationships with, you will eventually find yourself without the relationship.

Getting caught in a lie does more damage than telling a truth that paints you in a poor light.

When you are not in the room, the room is still there and life goes on for the people you can’t see. You can’t call dibs on someone and effectively ban everyone else from interacting with that person. When you attempt to force everyone other than yourself out of someone’s life, that’s a form of abuse. By the way, Single White Female isn’t just shorthand used in personal ads, it’s a movie everyone should see. Get control of your own life before you start trying to run anyone else’s.

In the USA, at the age of 18 you don’t get to blame your parents for your actions. You are responsible for your own actions, get used to it.

Once you get out of high school, the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing. If you want something, get off you ass and do something about it.

We’re having an audit right now. Thanks to the actions of my worthless, unmotivated, unwanted person, the area will be able to show compliance with one of their major audit challenges. Yeah, I’m finding this week interesting. It’s funny be told on one hand to get lost and other the other to be pulled in to explain how we’ve complied with our audit requirements.

(Stolen Cross-posted from ShaeSin, the Ranting Virgo.)

Get tattooed to celebrate Annie's escape Party
RedJen's house
This Saturday
2pm until ...

Bring cash if you want in on the artwork.
Bring music if you want to chill.
Bring food if you want to eat.
Bring booze if you want to drink.

Call, email or post to me or RedJen if you think you're coming so we can do that thing we do best --- PLAN.

I've got pretty cool sisters.

By the time I left work, I literally couldn't remember my own phone number.

(I'm being serious here, I had to call the pest control people to reschedule my appointment from tomorrow morning to the afternoon and I couldn't remember my home phone number.)

I found a card in my mail from my sister that made me laugh. It was perfect!

The escape was successful. Annie is safely in Raleigh. Brands were created, no one slept on the lawn, although I did sleep in my contacts on the couch. Annie has proven capable of using the alarm system (both turning it on and disabling it).

After all the insanity, I have to wonder what people are thinking at work. I’m running into some serious déjà vu. In January, my biggest complaint was that no matter how urgent people needed tools built, they never got used. Now, five months later, it is imperative that everyone use the new tools to make sure that they are able to prove compliance with corporate requirements. I swear, I’ve been talking to walls.

I was told today that I should expect a lot of focus on one of the tools I worked on earlier in the year as soon as the audit is over. That makes me wonder if my boss has mentioned to his boss that I may not be around too much longer. If I find a new position, this could be an interesting transition. Now there are two tools that need major attention that I’ll be leaving behind…

I’m in a pretty good place right now. Once I get through three more days, I’m taking some time off for me. I think I’ll sleep a bunch. Maybe I’ll go get a massage, wash my car or finish a refurb on Annie’s computer.

As an aside, I really hate the way Compaq desktops are put together. You have to be a contortionist to get at the motherboard. I’m about ready to introduce her computer to my hammer. (Don’t panic Annie, I won’t kill it, although I may maim it.)

Look out world, I’ve had sleep, I’ve taken charge of changing my work environment and I’m getting ready to take some time off for myself as well. I’ve even managed to schedule time for my car to go into the shop for it’s yearly physical. I’m climbing back on top of things.

The audit at work is wrapping up. I got to play coder-monkey-in-the-corner for three different audits this afternoon. (This is where I sit in the corner and don’t say anything unless asked a specific question.) This week has almost gotten to the two down and two to go point. Once today finished up, I’ll only have two more days in the office this week and then I’ll be sleeping in.

I think I’m getting old. I had a softball game last night and today my shoulder is a bit sore. Let’s not get into the fact that I have a bum hamstring that likes to be a literal pain in the ass from time to time.

Part of my job is that every year, everyone has to go to something related to diversity. It can be about how men and women communicate. (In general men like to identify a problem, kill it and move on. Women want to understand why it happened, the feelings it caused and the impact of those feelings on the world at large.) It can be on racial stereotypes and how when dealing with multicultural groups things you see as safe can be perceived otherwise. (I’d always heard the giant easels that hold big tablets of paper in the front of a room referred to as Flip Charts, because to turn the page, you flipped the piece of paper over the top of the easel. Imagine my surprise to learn that the term Phlip is a derogatory name for a person of Philippine descent.)

So this year, I went to a presentation on Generational Communication. Guess what, those of us lucky enough to be members of Generation X are not only a short span of years, but we are also pessimists surrounded by a bunch of optimists. So here we are, we have the Baby Boomers on one side and Gen UPG on the other side. Both of these groups like to be shiny happy people in general.

Generation X has been loosely defined as those of us born between 1968 and 1978. So my group is comprised of about a ten-year span where birth control (the pill) became available and our parents stood a decent chance of being Hippies, shiny happy people. What did we see growing up? In 1986, I got to see the space shuttle blow up while eating lunch at school. We saw the markets crash and economy fall in the early 80’s. While our parents and grandparents put their time in at a single company and in the end, the company paid them a pension and took care of their people. We saw companies making major cuts to their labor forces and cutting benefits to their loyal workers as they retired. The idea of blind loyalty to your employer went up in smoke before our eyes. It didn’t matter how long you had been loyal to the company. If you were expendable, then you were cut. Bu-Bye.

We were the first generation born where a pill could prevent conception and the term latchkey kids was coined while we were growing up. With the cutbacks our fathers saw in their jobs, more of our moms had little choice but to enter the work force to make ends meet. Finding someone to watch the kids became more than a requirement for a Saturday night out without the kids. Childcare became a daily occurrence. Very few families were able to have one parent stay at home with the kids while the other went to work.

Do you wonder if you are a part of Generation X?

1. Are you an optimist or pessimist?
   
2. Who were your heroes growing up?
   
3. What is better working longer in the office or getting better results?
   
4. Would you rather have a day off (where you didn't have to catch up for the day later) or an extra 8 hours in your paycheck?
   
5. Is respect earned, gained over time (regardless of action) or expected?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/gollum.php

I have an interview on Friday with another group at work. I'm interested to see how that turns out. It is different from what I've been doing, but it should also draw on my strengths and what I've learned to this point.

Some went among women who were alone, teaching them to join together, for there is hope in two women, help in three women, strength in four, joy in five, power in six and against seven, no gate may stand.

~ Sherri Tepper, Gibbon's Decline & Fall ~

Sometimes they just don't lie...

Pro – I’m on vacation.
Pro – Annie’s computer is now functioning on the wireless network.
Con – My car needs about $3,000 worth of work, which is more than the car the worth.
Pro – I need to go car shopping.
Pro – Interviewed for a new position at work. The people seem really nice and it should leverage my strengths and allow me to learn new skills.
Pro – Got offered the position an hour and a half later.
Pro – Great workout at the gym.
Pro – New job starts as soon as the two managers can map out a schedule, some time between June 1st and June 15th.
Con - Still not able to launch City of Heroes, but I should be getting a email back from tech support to help with that.

My new car is fun. I had originally planned to keep my old car for my sister, but with the transmission failure, it isn’t worth the cost to repair it. Today I’ll finish up taking care of car stuff. I need to transport my car from the auto shop to the dealership and get the good news from my insurance guy.

I hope this isn't the new dress code of the Naked Justice Squad...

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Mine (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations) - "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."

As requested, I’ve updated the photo albums with the pictures that I’ve been lax in posting. You can find new pictures in Fun Pictures, Family, Painting Day 2 (new) and Tattoo Fun (new). No captions yet, those should be up before Christmas.

This year for my birthday, I’ve gotten a new job, a new car, a new tattoo, a new computer game that I haven’t been able to play yet and friends I wouldn’t trade for the world.

... and breaking land speed records.

Congrats to the happy couple.

I haven't gotten around to taking pictures myself, but here's a picture from the dealer's site of the car:

They finally released the ingredients in Viagra:

3% Vitamin E
2% Aspirin
2% Ibuprofen
1% Vitamin C
5% Spray Starch
87% Fix-A-Flat

And then there are times when life just seems upside down. I woke up this morning and actually debated between getting on the internet and reading a book. I absolutely LOVE to read. I can’t believe how much the need to be in constant contact with others has altered my habits. If I were not at home, I may be able to understand wanting to catch up on news, but I’m at home. Anyone who I care about can easily pick up the phone and get in touch with me.

The instant gratification of knowing someone is accessible is appealing and sterile at the same time. Being able to connect to someone with a quick double-click and a few keystrokes is very appealing. The fact that the person is online makes them interruptible by default. I remember driving an hour to visit relatives who didn’t know we were planning to visit, only to find them not home. Now I hope that people don’t think I’m stalking them if I show up unannounced or unplanned. If someone isn’t online and you call, does that mean you are chasing them down? Our modes of communication are changing. First we added cell phones, then caller-ID, next came Instant Messaging and now we have Instant messaging on our caller-ID mobile camera phones with GPS capabilities. We are in almost constant contact, but the contact is filtered though so many artificial buffers. Where is the human contact?