I have not written a blog post in months. What have I been doing, you ask? Living in Crazy Town, that's what. In January, my role at work changes focus to include more data reporting. At that time, we started ramping up for a merger, then did a layoff, followed by the sale of a business unit. All of that requires my department to calculate costs a variety of ways, compile letters,and manage the process from start to end. My new role included doing various parts of that - and a daily ticket to Crazy Town.
Since January ended, there have been a string of very stressful things happening at work. In times of stress and chaos, it may be tempting to drive your focus to only that one thing. Eliminate everything else, ignore things at home, stop seeing people, and buckle down and work. Sometimes this is helpful (finals, rehearsing, giving birth, etc); other times this idea just amplifies the stress because you've eliminated everything fun and put yourself into a sensory deprivation tank. I tend to do this a lot and I have since I was in college.
January was such a crazy month. I worked 60-70 hours a week and worked evenings and weekends from home. I genuinely needed to work all that time because there were so many new things coming my way that is took me a long time to grasp it all. That kind of focus and intense energy is not sustainable, however. In my case, the hair around my temples started to fall out, which happens when I am under great stress. When that starts to grow out in three months, I am going to have baby wings coming off my head. FML.
I keep hearing at work that I don't understand The Bigger Picture. This makes me batshit crazy. Sometimes I hear this phrased as though I am ignoring The Bigger Picture. The problem with being at this point in my career is that I know enough to work with a large degree of autonomy but I don't know what I don't know- and I don't know that I didn't know it until I find out I should have known it. How do you know to ask a question if you don't know there is a question that needs asking in the first place. This is my plight lately. I don't know how to grasp The Bigger Picture when I can't see the picture itself- ya know? Is that too much imagery? Maybe...
This sort of piling stress makes me feel like all I do is work; thankfully, there have been some nice breaks here and there. My family came to visit, which is a chaotic kind of fun itself. I have one brother who is married with four kids. They came, along with my parents, for a week. We also went to a Yankee game and we have enjoyed some thoroughly lazy weekends while the trains in our neighborhood stopped running for four weekends in a row. There are few things as nice as just being home with my guy, being pig-lazy and in love.
I don't know exactly what the summer will hold as my company prepares for ths merger. Discussing matters of work on a blog is tricky because many companies have policies saying you can't do that, as mine does. I have been really stressed this whole year and I feel like I am going to buckle if one more thing comes along. I have a tendency to enjoy being The Girl Who Can Be Counted On until one day I have a freak out and become The Girl Who Doesn't Have Her Shit Together. This morning I decided that I'd rather just have my shit together and be helpful and add value here at work. I'd rather not be the freak out lady. For the record, I normally make this decision on a quarterly basis, usually after The Yankee and I discuss my personal appearance, which I have neglected because I am too stressed.
I hope all is well where you are and thank you for reading.
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