New work rhythms

I've been working from home 1 day a week probably for just over a year now.

This only happens if there is a day with no meetings, so during busy periods there just are meetings every day, which kind-of sucks :)

After one of the holiday weeks, I think it might have been the week after the Easter weekend, we had meetings daily and it about killed me. I was exhausted on the Friday.

It's fascinating to me how quickly I got used to that extra day out of the office. Because whether that day is a Tues, Wed or Thurs, it does mean that I never have to go to the office for more than 3 days in a row.

Before you all think I'm extremely spoiled, let me remind you that a good day in traffic is 45 minutes one way.

Yes, it's long but it's good podcasting or audio book time.



So let's talk about my work rhythms when I'm at home.

1. I take it super slow in the morning. What I should do and only do about 20% of the time is read. Mostly I scroll Instagram.
2. I shower, dress, etc. at my leisure (while listening to a podcast) and eat breakfast while reading.
3. Then I get to work and I make sure I do all my good work until 2.25 til I have to leave to fetch the kids. One of my delights in life is doing the mom thing. 
4. I walk to fetch them and we chat while walking back. It's very sweet to see their little friends and hear them calling to me as C's mom or K's mom.
5. I then quickly make our lunch (my love language is acts of service, so I love doing this kind of thing) , take my food back to the computer and eat while I continue working.
6. I usually end a bit early - around 4. But sometimes it's like a full day and I end at 6ish. I'm task-oriented so I know what I want to get done and I work til it's done.

Today was a work from home day and I went on a quick photo hunt for autumn photos at lunch, and when I finished work, I went to the shops for (more) long-sleeved school shirts. On other days, I might run an errand or two, or meet a friend for lunch or tea. Next week, I need to go get two small things sorted on my car.

It's actually the absolute best of both worlds.

I love being at home because of all the above... and I love being in the office because... people! and stuff going on! and sorting stuff out with internal departments. And if the people there annoy me a bit, I tell myself, only a day or two til I get a break and get to work from home :)

I'm writing this mostly to remind me of how much my current role suits my skill set and my lifestyle, especially as this is the start of Busy Season.

So what do you like about your current job? Does it work with your introvert/ extrovert self?

Just another Manic Monday

Today I was all raring to go in true Monday style.

Traffic was so awful I have no words. On the bright side, D drove. Because of said bad traffic, we detoured through parts of Jhb we don't normally drive and I got to take some pics of beautiful doors, driveways and streets.

And then.... I got to work and walked to my desk, and...

My laptop wasn't on my desk.

You know how your brain doesn't quite catch up?

I looked under my desk, all around... I even opened my drawers to check, knowing full well there is no space there for a laptop.

And then.

Oh my word, my laptop's been stolen.

Yes, it was locked. I have a longstanding habit of walking to my desk, putting down my laptop and the first thing is I insert the lock and twist the combination away so my code no longer shows.

My code is not that difficult to figure out though. It's since been changed.

So that's today's drama.

Amazing how everything you have to do to sort such a situation out all involve a computer!

"Log a call"
"Fill in this online form and no we can't print it for you to fill in the old-fashioned way" (audit trails and such)
"Send an email to your manager to approve capex for new laptop"

ALL involve a computer!

Now here's the thing:

I left at 3.45 on Friday, my colleague went back to the office at 7 pm and it was still there. She returned at about lunch time on Saturday and it was gone. She said she thought I'd come to work on Sat morning (as if!).

At the moment I'm using a loan laptop which I received after lunch, have to go to the police-station tomorrow to lodge a case (is that what they call it?) and then I can move forward with the new laptop application.

The security are busy pulling access card stats.....because of course, there's no security cameras at my desk (we know this from the pencil bag scenario).

So that was my Monday!

Tell me something GOOD about your Monday :)

Quick update on the work situation

Last week I wrote a little about the stuff currently happening at work.

Even though I was not the one with the tears and drama.... I am most definitely affected.

(Using affected/ effected incorrectly is one of my pet language peeves)

Matter of fact, the type of work I do is the section most affected by the change.



I am really not too bothered by the change itself (I'm hoping our useless assistant moves to a different area than I end up in!), except by the reporting line.

We have a very loose change management plan but basically all will be revealed over the next 2 months because implementation date is 1 July.

The really good thing is that since I've had a really bad work situation before (and that's an understatement), left and survived, I know I have the fortitude to do the same, if need be. And I will be just fine, both emotionally and financially.



So I'm not worried.

I also don't have the same attachment to this company that I did to the last one, which is maybe a good thing...

And that's it.

But how are you doing?

How was your February? Despite the extra day, mine went way too quickly!

I have 3 different grey walls at my house. With all the painting that went on last year, I'm a bit obsessed by the Perfect Grey.

Behold, Cape Town knows how to do grey.

 Which colour are you currently obsessed by?

Glass ceilings and corner offices

So I've been feeling a little strange, career-wise, for a number of reasons:

1. I always used to think I was more ambitious and now it seems I'm not really. The ambition or lack of it doesn't really worry me in my heart, but in my head I feel like I should (!) be more concerned. I'm 14 years away from my early retirement date (55 - I'm working towards this - I can't bear the thought of working til 62 or whatever the normal retirement age is) which is terrifying because I was at previous company for 9 years and those years just flew past.

I don't plan to properly retire - sit at home watching TV and travelling - or whatever it is retired people do. I do have some skills and to be honest, despite me closing my business for now, I still have that vision of me going round speaking to large groups of people from the stage. But retire from formal employment at a company, is what I mean.

can you spot the mistake in the picture?

A guy resigned and left the division in the middle of the year. I asked him how long he'd been working there. Exactly two years, he said, because that was the plan. And so I thought, "gosh, do all these people have a plan?"

One in my team is doing her MBA next year and the next. I have zero interest in this kind of thing. Zero.

So I thought about it and I realise I don't have a plan.

I've been at this company 16 months now and at first, my goal was to just see if it was for me, and then to survive the traffic, and now 2 years will be the next milestone.

What's next after that?

I don't know.

I'm good at almost every aspect of this job (cold-calling for New Bus is never going to be my thing, but organically growing existing business, yes. Analysing new business, yes) and yet, how long can you take clients' nonsense?! I'm becoming stroppier as I age!

2. I feel like the young 'uns are nipping at my heels. In my dept there are 6 of us plus the boss. I am the oldest. The boss is 10 years younger than I am. The youngest is 28, then we have 29, 30, 38, 38 and me, 41.

I'm trying not to moan but two of the young ones irritate me so much it's unreal. I really sound old when I say this but a lot of young people these days have zero work ethic. I want to slap them down in their chairs and tell them to work.

We are all called the same thing but I'm apparently a Snr so and so. I have more leave days and such.... 

I usually have no ageist issues but then again at previous company, we were 11 at one point and I was the 4th youngest. However, in that horrible position, I was again the oldest. One was 1 year younger, and there were some as young as 27 when I was 39.

So these two things combined means I'm starting to feel my age at work.

This year my prayer is that first of all, I rope in those 2 big deals I've been working on, and then that we sell tons!!! And then that God shows me the next direction (s) for me. And gives me big increases and bonuses :)

What are you hoping for, work-wise, in 2016?
If you know me, please tell me what you think of my situation. 

What a week!

Sheesh - this has been a hard week.


Also a very long week.

• family stuff
• applying for Grade 1 stuff
• work stuff
• friendship stuff

I worked very late tonight (til nearly 8). My first time at the office that late (on the bright side, it only took me 26 minutes to get home!) - I rather like the fact that today is the anniversary of the day I worked at the old job for the last time. I remember skipping out of there :)

Even though I'm working like a dog at the moment, I still love my job, so there's that. I do wish everything wouldn't happen all at once though.



I had big plans to do the actual journalling on my Project Life but I actually don't even want to think and put two thoughts together!!

So I'm off to bed with my book and tea, always tea :)

What's up with you? How's work going? What are you reading? 

PS I'm reading a book called How to bake a man or similar and I'm thinking of abandoning it because I don't even CARE about the protagonist and I'm already 25% in!

Work, holidays and the Easter weekend

I am so incredibly busy at work it's crazy. I also put up my hand for a project and.............. people had done nothing for about 8 months so I'm working my butt off to still meet deliverables by June.

Isn't that charming?

We should be 5... and we're 3 so every time emails come around with "can someone take this?" we all just ignore the email til I eventually cave. Flip. Anyway, things are looking up - another person starts in May :)

I keep chanting to myself, "what's the worse that can happen if I drop a few balls? They can fire me". And so what? So amazing to have perspective :)

In the midst of all this crazy, schools broke up and a very strange thing happened: I found myself taking out the bread and lunch boxes that evening before I realised it was SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

Sadly, I don't have to make lunch anymore.

Even more sad, the kids seem to have left their ears at school.

(they received excellent reports, by the way)

At some point in the work crazy, I got a bee in my bonnet (I saw a blog post somewhere where they used the phrase "wild hair") that we needed to go on holiday. You know, easing stress by cramming work meant for 12 days into 8 days. Sane things like that.

Anyway, the woman's email came through one night when I was answering emails on the ipad, D was there, we had a quick chat and boom, boom, a holiday was booked.

Flip!

I take months (years!) to decide on a paint colour and a holiday is decided upon in minutes.

Fortunately the boss approved this sudden leave and it was sorted.

We had a lovely 5 days away last week - pics to follow - I've just finished the set before we left.

I think we need to book the next one pronto so I can have something to look forward to.

Interesting/ scary aside - I overheard the kids talking and they seem to think "holiday" means "vacation". Connor was telling Kendra that maybe we will take them to England for the next holiday. HA! Never :)

They were so moany/ whiny about walking down ONE street in Pilgrim's Rest and I stopped all of us to say, "THIS means we will NEVER be able to go to a city because you need to WALK".

Right...

And now we're back! Two loads of laundry done; many more to go (waiting for Nanny S).

We waited til we got back to buy Easter eggs and there was literally nothing in the shops except a few boxes of marshmallow eggs. CNA had a few chocolate bunnies which I bought. D says this was a bad plan; I can't think of a better one for avoiding the chocolate for me, and keeping the excess with the kids at bay. (No offence to any of you who went wild; if I wasn't on Weigh-Less, I may have done the same)

And now, back to work. Let's Do This.

But first, how have you been doing? Did you/ are you going away on holidays?
How was the Easter weekend?

A year ago...

 

I res.igned from my job.

Absolute best decision ever - I highly recommend it!

I'm feeling some of those feelings because last year this stuff all happened around Easter, and this weekend is the Easter weekend.

8 days

the farewell

4 days

One day left

The last day

All I can say in reading all those posts again is this - life is way too short to take that kind of thing again.

Life is not meant to be peachy all the time but there are different degrees of stress, and I'm sorry but work situations like that are not something I'm ever going to put up with again. Ever.

I now know I can live off less than a third of my current salary and, not that I want to put that to the test, it's really nice to know that. Non-desperation is a wonderful thing and brings an amazing feeling of freedom.

How have you guys been doing?

And how is this year comparing to last year the same time? Cat had a shoulder op a year ago, a lot of you had newborns, etc.

Let's chat in the comments.

PS all pics from my last photowalk on the old work campus

Photos on your work desk?

That sliver of red peeking out on the left is the only photoframe I currently have on my desk.

At the old desk I had about 4 - 5 photo frames plus about 10 - 15 photos stuck up on my cork board.

I heard from two people recently that having pics of your kids, etc. on your work desk is not a great idea, career-wise.

The one lady was being interviewed on a podcast and said something like she wants to be an equal to her male colleagues........... and the other lady is a colleague of mine who has a kid but we never hear about him nor see him. I asked about a photo and she said no way would she have a photo on her desk.....

You all know how I feel. This is who I am - take me or leave me. I like that I care about the other parts of my life enough to display them - I don't necessarily think it takes away from my professionalism.

But what do you think?
Do you have pics of your kids/ family up at work?

The reading at work drama

My wifi was acting up last night so I took it as a sign and wrapped Christmas gifts. I’m totally serious about getting this all done THIS month.

But now, onto the reading at work story.

I’ve mentioned before how everything in creation is blocked at work.

Everything.

I can get feedly but not put in my google or facebook password so that’s useless. Then I had an idea – I created a new feedly account for “work reading” (using Evernote – not blocked) and I put blogs there that I never comment on or click through to watch a video, listen to a podcast, etc. Because the minute you click the heading to go to the website, you get a lovely big Access Denied message. 

I’ve then slowly deleted those blogs from my ‘home reading”.

It’s totally not simple or effortless which is really what I require from my life (!) but it’s working for me.

Result – I get through about half the blogs at lunch and breakfast, and at home I have at most 58 posts every day instead of the 120 I used to have before The Big Delete.

When do you read blogs?

Are any blocked at your work?

The other two timesavers I want to share with you are apps on my phone. By the way, I’m not prepared to put Feedly on my phone because 1) I don’t want even more exorbitant data charges and 2) I actually can’t read my inspiration blogs (read lots of photos) on a small device.

 

Kindle app

I downloaded it because I saw that Modern Mrs Darcy mentioned something in a post. And it’s been really useful. If I have a few minutes waiting for something, in I go and read a bit. All those bits add up. Look – I’m 44% through and all of this was read in 5 – 10 minute chunks over about a month.

 

Holy Bible

Now this is a game changer. It gives you lots of bits and pieces which I haven’t used but I do look up a verse quickly AND there is an audio version in there. So when I drive by myself, I go to where I want to “read” and I let the man read the Bible to me while I drive to and from work. GAME CHANGER – I’m calm, I’m refreshed and encouraged by the Word and I’m saving time. I do find that I have to listen to everything twice just to make sure it sticks but still it’s a huge time saver.

Now tell me about any reading apps you use.

PS I’m not mentioning Goodreads because I’ve raved way too much about that app already.

PPS I’m posting this by typing an email to my blogger address, where I’ll add a screenshot taken with my iphone and post it via the Blogger app. These are the great lengths I go to for you, dear readers (Funso!)

Update on my word of the year - shine?

So guys, the last time I thought about my word of the year I remember emailing with Julia and said, "I don't know what God was doing giving me a word like SHINE unless He meant my shiny face from all the tears".

Seriously. I said that.

I just went back and read all my shine posts for the year. Here's the link. And here's the last one I wrote in May, nearly 6 months ago.

Oh my gosh, the thought of me taking those little white pills daily just to get through the day makes me so sad. I can't believe I actually went through all that. Last pill 17 April.

Okay, I want to share something with you.

A mom of C's classmate who I'm very friendly with chatted with me at a recent party. She said her sister worked somewhere for 21 years and then was retrenched. That devastated her but eventually she bounced back and got herself another job. 

A year into this new job, she got called into the office and there her manager and HR sat only to tell her that she was being retrenched again. She just laughed and laughed. They were (rightly) worried but she told them that it was totally fine; she'd made it through before so this was really no big deal. She'd be fine.

And that's how I feel.

That now that I've been through (what I think is) the worst job experience ever, definitely of my life thus far, I will be okay with anything.

I will certainly never ever put up with such abuse for so long again. Next time I will "just resign" because I know I'll be okay. I've learnt that I can live on very little money and that in the grand scheme of things, my sanity (and not depending on a little white pill to get me through the morning without crying) really is worth more than a paycheck. I need to write a post on God's amazing provision.

K asked me the other day if my new boss made me cry yet!!!!! And I said, "no, but Baby, that is never going to happen again".

I read a blog post by someone who reads this blog - I won't link in case she feels weird about it - who went through a very similar situation to me. But far shorter. And reading those blog posts was healing for me.

Why?

Because I am not alone. Here is someone just a step away (in the blog world) going through the same thing. So it's probably happening much more than I originally thought. Not just to me.

These horrible work situations that are absolutely unfair happen to good, hardworking people like us as well as to others.

I had a lot of the "why me?" going on. I mean, "seriously, why me, God?!!!" is something I cried probably a couple of times a week at one point. Maybe because I took pride in my work and it's like the worst thing in the world for my work not to work out, you know?

I don't know why this happened to me... still. Maybe I'll never know? Maybe it was random? Maybe because I was female? Maybe because I came from another background and not the same one the rest of the team came from? Maybe I was singled out because I dared to talk about what I was experiencing in an authentic manner and that rubbed someone the wrong way?

I don't know.

But I do know God brought me through it.

It's so awesome when the Word comes to life.

taken by D in the Drakensberg

 Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."
(read other translations here)

Did someone need to read that scripture today? (please let me know - it so encourages me!)

So that's a bit of where I am with shine, which is nowhere I thought I'd be.

Have you been through a hellish work situation and come through on the other side? Did it give you a new outlook?
And in other news, tell me, what was your word of the year again, and please give me a quick update.

OHMYGOSH, I just read this post and I think this is why I struggled so much. One of my highest values is fairness and I clearly suffer from the Just World Hypothesis. I couldn't understand (still can't) why all the horrible things were happening to me when I'd done nothing to deserve it. Oh dear!

Look for the light... and going back

I'm also getting a teensy bit obsessed by ugly electricity boxes (what are these things called?)

ooooh, I do love chipped paint!

The thing that most struck me when I was looking through these photos was the light.

We went for this walk a little earlier than we normally do because I didn't feel like walking in the cold later :) and I was amazed at how different everything looked - bright and vibrant, not faded and cold.

It's also interesting how, when you put on a different perspective, how your life can also look different.

I think I mentioned once how my ex-colleague who cried solid, every day for the first 5 months in that job, went back to our ex-team.

Well, I told her I think she's absolutely mad. Another ex-colleague of ours told her exactly the same thing.

Recently we had a conversation about it again now that she's back there, working, and nothing's changed (of course) but she said she's not as miserable because at least she's in the same city. At the other job she was working in other random places around the country. I think she said it was 4 months solid of M - F travel.

Which was interesting to me because her perspective of the job changed and it's more palatable to her this time around.

I want to make something quite clear just in case it wasn't clear before - I am most certainly not mad and I will never, ever go back to that kind of work. EVER :)


What would make you go back to an old job you hated?

12 awesome things about being self-employed

pink light from sunset!!!

Eek - my photo posts are piling up because I'm going on too many photo walks. Who would EVER have thought?!

These ones are called elevate the ordinary because yes, I am redoing the course I did in 2012.



So I'm paying attention to things that take my fancy and not feeling guilty about taking tons of pictures of the same things (leaves/ skies/ trees/ walls and interesting backgrounds, and of course, light!)



Meanwhile, let me tell you what is AWESOME about being self-employed.

1. Not having to get up and out of the house on these cold (to me!) winter mornings
2. Reading in bed til I feel like I want to sleep, instead of being responsible with the light off at 12 midnight
3. Fetching the kids from school daily. It doesn't get old - I LOVE IT.
4. Jeans and takkies every day.
5. Morning gym on Thursdays - I've only missed one week these two months, the week I was sick.
6. Having the freedom to run errands during the middle of the day. I've only gone in the mornings twice (all grocery shopping) because I don't want to waste my quiet hours when I could be working in a darn shopping centre.
7. Getting a bee in my bonnet and just going to cook or bake something.
8. Cooking at leisure and having it ready most days by 6 pm.
9. Not having to wait to take photos of my organising or photo projects. Normally all of it would have to wait for a Sat or Sun afternoon
10. Technically being able to go on photo walks daily. We go about 3 times a week - sometimes I just take my iphone. Once I just walked.
11. D says spending quality time with the kids (his love language is quality time :))
12. D says not being so grumpy from being at That Place.

(the kids started taking me for granted. As in, ignoring me and just brushing past me to jump in the car, so I gave them a talk and said if they can't behave, then Nanny S will walk them home and since then, MANNERS again)

This was a Thursday since I'm in my gym clothes

 

I love how moody the keys look

the kids painted this wall with their roller stamps one day when I was sleeping!

my bouquet was dying so I grabbed some of the flowers and tried to give them some life

Tell me what's awesome about being employed by The Man!

(I miss the people interaction)