Goal 1? Accomplished!

Soooo I wrote last Saturday about my goals for the new year. One of the big ones was figuring out what I was going to do about work and just doing it instead of letting the inertia of time carry me along and complaining about it.

I finally made my decision yesterday. I had a plan of exactly what I wanted to do and knew why. In fact, I even wrote the resignation letter, prepared to present it to my boss.

After making my decision, I felt such a sense of peace. I could feel the worry sliding away. There's a book I'm reading where a character's partner describes his attitude towards work as, "I just don't care." It serves him well -- he does his job and does a good job at it, but all the icky things around the job that regularly drive us nuts? He just doesn't care anymore. I wish I could get to that point, but the fact is that I do care. I care way too much, which is why work/life balance is such a challenge for me.

But after making my decision? Calm. And I didn't care about the outcome. I knew I had backup, and I was fine with it. I had nothing to lose.

So today when I had my one on one meeting with my boss, I asked for a leave of absence to spend some time with the wee ones.

Surprisingly, my boss completely understood. When I said it would be at least two months, I could see him blanch a little bit, but he was game. I have an approved leave of absence, and I'm thrilled.

To be honest, I was surprised that it was as easy as it was. In fact, I had a trip to the chiropractor this afternoon because the right side of my neck tensed up so much that I currently (this is after the chiro) can't bend my head forward or to the right. I was expecting it to be more painful, and I detest creating scenes.

I'm not starting the leave immediately, and my boss is grateful that I'm staying to finish up a few critical projects. We still need to figure out the details of it - how do benefits work, what paperwork do we need to fill out, when will I be coming back, and the like.

That is actually going to be the biggest challenge.

My company has moved to a new model of HR where it's all online. Have a question? Search the HR FAQs. FAQs don't answer your question? Open up a case and tell them about it... so they can point you to the FAQs you already read.

But me? I don't care. I have my leave. I have my time, and I haven't made a commitment one way or the other.

For the next two to three months, I'll be able to practice being a stay at home mom, knowing that I have my job waiting in the wings if it doesn't work out. If I'm wrong and need the mental stimulation of the job, it's still there. If I discover that we can't survive only on my husband's salary, I can still regain mine. If I find that the wee ones do better when I'm not around, I can go back.

But right now, I'm not focused on that. I'm thinking about the time I can spend with the wee ones and the energy I can focus on Mister Man for the next couple of months.

Pass the bon-bons, would you?

I Should Be Working

It's 9:12am as I start this post. It's a Thursday, which is one of my work days. I work twenty-four hours a week. This was my agreement when I went back to work, and i's what I'm comfortable with.

It's not that way lately. My boss at my annual review in March made the comment that three days a week is now the equivalent of 30-35 hours a week. I'm not ok with that, and his boss and his boss are with me on the twenty-four hours thing.

So far this week, I worked my eight hours on Monday, nine and three quarters on Tuesday, and I had three hours of conference calls on my day off. They were spread throughout the day, which meant that it was exceedingly hard to run the errands and get the things done that I need to, let alone spend time with the wee ones. I had no Fourth of July holiday last week but worked as normal instead. Per my log, I've already worked enough hours as of yesterday to cover this week and next week, with a couple to spare.

And yet, I have this feeling eating at me that people think I'm not doing enough. That they might "catch" me during this seventeen minues that I "should" be working. Logically, I know I won't get in trouble if I don't answer my phone or email because I'm not logged in. Logically, I know I have and I am going above and beyond the time and effort that is required of me -- down to not taking lunch breaks because I'm busy working and often in meetings.

But I'm still paranoid that it's not enough. I still feel like I'm trying to get away with something because I'm not logged in ninteen minutes into the official workday.

I'll ignore the fact that my boss frequently doesn't make it in until 9:30. Who cares that the people in the office will spend an hour or more a day gossiping and doing their own personal things instead of working. Who cares that the entire office checks out on Friday afternoons. Who cares that there is a strong contingent of people who come in at nine on the dot, take an hour or more for lunch, and then leave at five on the dot -- putting in seven hour days.

I'm paranoid that I'm not seen as doing exactly what I need to do. And this means that everything at home suffers, from the dinners that I don't have time to always prepare to the gym workouts I miss to the playdates I have to cancel.

Needless to say, this paranoia -- which my boss feeds -- is driving me close to the edge. I have a deal with myself right now that I'll quit working once the school year starts, just to get me through the next two months. After that (if I don't quit), I'll tell myself that I'll stay until the end of the year to make sure I use up my vacation, which I haven't done in the three years since I started back part time.

It's not healthy, and I know I'm not happy. How do you justify quitting your job in this economy though?

9:25am. I really need to go log in and start work now.

Set Me Up In Vegas

Apparently I'm a good liar. I don't try to be, and in general, I don't lie. Often. And not about important things.

This week, my work had a getting to know you activity among a few different functions (I know, I know -- we really should all know each other by now but whatever). Before we had lunch, we were all to write down two truths and one lie on a sticky note and then place this on our nametags.

We then walked around and tried to figure out who was telling the truth about what and who was lying. Almost no one guessed which were my truths, but I was over ninety percent accurate in pegging other people. If only I knew how to play poker....

I'm not sure what this says about me, but I'm interested to see if you do any better. Below are several statements. Some are true, and some are not. Can you pick out which are the lies?

My first plane flight was when I was four years old.

I used to own a retired racehorse.

I don't eat mushrooms.

I'm allergic to grass.

I've never been in a car accident.

I was admitted to medical school but never attended.

I never had a drop of alcohol until I was in college.

I still bite my fingernails.

I can sing the alphabet backwards.

I can't remember my daughter's birthweight.

I don't know how to swim the breast stroke.

What do you think? I'll give you a clue. Of these items, five are not true. Can you figure them out?

Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm...

I'm exhausted, we have a blizzard forecast and I stupidly went out to a yoga class tonight in the snow. You get a really short one from me today!

Every week when I go to work (because I'm only in the office one day a week, after all!), I park in nearly the same spot. I suppose we all have our spots where we park. We have the same marker we use to remember, we walk past the same cars day after day, and we start to notice things that stand out.

Like one of the senior executives at my company. His car is parked just a few cars away from mine every morning. It's easy to tell whose car it is because he has a ... quite distinctive license plate.

Every morning, I walk past this red Cadillac with the distinctive license plate. Most mornings, I think nothing of it beyond noticing that it's there.

Then there are the days when it's snowed.

On those days, it's even easier to pick out than normal. It's the only car in the vicinity that is covered in snow.

Two things about that strike me as odd.

First, he's an executive. He makes wayyyyyyy more money than I do. He's also way older than I am, which means that he's been making way more money than me for way longer. So I just don't get it. Why does the man not have a garage to park his car in?

Second, the car is literally covered in snow. You can see just a little of the rear windshield and sometimes some of the side windows. The trunk is piled high with snow. The roof seems like it could cave in for all the thick white stuff piled atop it. Even that distinctive license plate isn't visible. How does he manage to drive all the way to work without the snow falling off his car? And (personal pet peeve) why doesn't he just quickly scrape the snow off?

Today, his car was piled high with snow. Because, you know, it snowed on Saturday. Two days ago. I'm still wrapping my mind around this one.

Green Is A Popular ... Color

So my company is going green. It’s quite proud of the fact that its new building is carbon neutral. In fact, there was an article in the paper about it recently.

Going green is a good thing, and I’m all in favor of it. But some of it seems a bit hypocritical.

For example, apparently our clean desk policy is green. Yep, the fact that we can have no paper on our desk at the end of the day or if we are leaving our workspace for more than 2 hours apparently makes us green.

I finally decided it’s because the paper collects dust if it sits on the desk, which necessitates the use of cleaning products which aren’t green. Forget the people who throw things away only to reprint them the next day.

And I learned tonight when a friend of mine was over that apparently the building gets power from appropriate sources, which means that there is a lack of power. So for the multiple thousand of people who work there, we have six microwaves. They’re all in the cafeteria, and when I was there for the first time today I saw the long long LONG line. But apparently we have enough power to have flat screen tvs throughout the building everywhere brainwashing us about how great the company is.

Surprisingly, the cleaning materials tend to be more harsh chemicals, too. I know this simply from the smell, let alone the containers that I can see them using. The interesting part of this to me is that Illinois recently began requiring that all school use environmentally friendly cleaners, so you know they’re out there.

But there are good things that they’ve done, too. Although the office is further from home for just about everyone I know (meaning more miles driven in traffic), they’re also incorporating working from home for many more people, which somewhat offsets that.

The cleaning staff also cleans during the day vs at night, which is a bit odd to see people polishing and vacuuming (and somewhat distracting when on a call but that’s ok) as you’re working, but no lights are needed for them to see at night to clean.

And in the cafeteria, there are no disposable plates or cutlery. It’s all white china – and sadly, I like it and am tempted to ask where they got it for when my current dish set needs replacing – and regular silverware. Less in the landfill, yay! They actually separate out the china from the paper (napkins, wrappers, etc) from the food waste. The food waste is recycled and utilized for something – sorry, I forget if it’s compost or animal food or what – and the paper products are also recycled.
But I still go back to the clean desk policy being green. It’s an audit requirement, people. There’s spin, and then there’s flat out silly. But hey, if someone can come up with a good way that no paper is green, I want to hear it!