Oh boy, what a day.

I've taken Friday off as tomorrow is a public holiday here in South Africa (Youth Day) and I believe that when God gives you a middle of the week day as a public holiday, it's almost a sin not to take the day off adjoining the weekend :)

So I've had to squeeze all my work into 3 days instead of 5.

When I looked at my diary this morning I saw I had back to back meetings til 12, a lunch date with a friend at 12:30 and personal training at 3:45.

No way was all that and work going to happen.

So during meeting 2, I ran to my desk and quickly cancelled both the lunch date and the personal training. Because this is so last minute, I still have to pay but the cost is well worth my peace of mind the way I was feeling so stressed.

I apologised to my friend for being a flake and she replied back, "you are the least flakey person I know" LOL

And so I started working.

I also had my performance appraisal yesterday and TONS of things came out of that meeting - nothing bad, just lots of actions.

I followed up on something and received such a rude response back.

Basically I'd done a presentation two months ago and my boss wanted feedback from the person on how I'd done. Fair.

I'd asked for it before, heard nothing so this was the follow-up.

Well he said that he was not authorising his partner to give any feedback blah blah blah and as for the appraisal, I clearly lack discipline as I have not finished the follow-up work and everyone else has.

I saw red!

You can challenge me on many things and I'm happy to hear it but do not insult me on things I know I've done.

Once I'd calmed down a little, I tactfully responded and said I was not aware that the other guy was not allowed to give feedback and if they'd simply said so, I wouldn't have bothered them.

BUT his other point is unfounded and inaccurate as I have completed every assignment on time.

Then he wrote back with more rudeness. I won't bore you but so unprofessional and rude.

And then I cried.

I even called someone to my desk to read it to see if I was being overly sensitive (I'm usually not but I am pre-menstrual) and she also said he was very rude and was shocked at the things said about ME!

Lack of discipline indeed!

So then I emailed two of my colleagues who were on the same course (I'm fairly close to them) and asked them if they'd finished all the stuff.

Neither of them had done so either so he was lying ("everyone else has completed 10 modules; you have only done 4"). The one guy was out of the office but mailed back "call me".

And so I did.

Well, here's where it gets interesting.

He then tells me he heard via the grapevine (oh, don't you love the grapevine?) that this guy insulted a lot of the 3rd group of people doing presentations. And our company in general....

We are very proud to work where we do as it's a fantastic company so we don't take kindly to this nonsense.

They reported him to the training area and obviously they took it up with the place who we have the training contract with.

I can only assume he got into trouble and he's majorly TICKED off.

So my colleague said I was just conveniently in the line of fire when I innocently asked him for feedback and it is not personal.

I see that now but it hurt so much!

Then the lady from our training area contacted me (I'd been copying her on all this back and forth) and said to please not engage with him anymore as they are smack bang in the middle of a huge thing with him, and they will deal with any queries.

Golly!

So I am fine... but also not fine.

I hate rubbish like this.

And of course I worked like crazy til 5:10 but still didn't finish everything. Thankfully I have good boundaries and have forgotten what's on my to-do list and will only remember when I walk in there on Monday :)

I thought about all of this on my way home and I think that it affected me so much because my values were questioned. I always meet work deadlines and am highly self-motivated and disciplined so for him to say that I lacked discipline, well, GRRRRR.

Anyway, let's move on.

My goals for the next 4 days

1. finish my book
2. get caught up with my photos - editing (by that I mean delete the bad ones and rotate so they're all face up), putting on photo blog, put organising ones on organising blog and select 12 to print for party
3. go to movie with D
4. go to lunch with D
5. go to Weigh-Less
   
6. close my 3 accounts with the red bank - yeah baby!
7. take a pile of books & magazines to the local old aged home
8. prep talk and handout for Monday night
9. work on book for 2 hours
10. cook lots of yummy food but no baking!
    
11. repack bedside table
12. start making party favours
    
13. get my craft on :)
14. do business goals for the rest of June
15. update 36 things list - gosh, less than two months to go til I'm 37!
    

Now that I've written it all out, it looks a bit ambitious... then again, aim high and all that jazz :)

If you had 4 days, what would you do? Wait - some of you have 12 WEEKS of summer. What's on your summer list? South Africans, did you take Friday off?