how's your summer?

[mzdiagnosed]

So far?
Mine's good. I am going to Hawaii next month- never been there so I am excited. Am going to see friends that moved there.

[webmistress]

mine is o.k.

I enjoy working less hours, but this is my busiest time of year so I just end up doing work at home for hours and on the weekend.

[IDBUG]

Mine is kinda crazy. My coworkers and I are all on edge about going to another company there are so many unknowns (but strangely I feel a little bit closer to them, because we're all in this together... weird, huh?). So, we're all basically consumed by the questions related to that, but still trying to get actual work done....

Then again, I'm still constantly hearing rumors about how if this or that happens we'll be gone in a year or so. I have to say, I'm ***king tired of this crap, of constantly worrying that we're going to lose our livelihoods/stability in the near future. I'm not sure if it's worth the bucks. I guess it is, but the stress is driving me nuts.



I'm also worried about where my daughter will go to school next year.

She's got special needs (not too heavy, but even a little is enough), which make school choice a much tougher decision than I ever thought it would be, and which also limit school choices: contrary to anti-discrimination laws, apparently public schools are much less likely (like 99% less) to allow a boundary exception to kids with IEPs, thank you very much.

So we're either stuck with the school in our home boundary--which looks pretty good resource/class-wise, but I've heard less than wonderful things about it; or the charter school she's been going to--which has less class options, less resources, etc, but it also has a smaller population, so kids get more positive attention from the staff than at a large public school. I'd really like to see her get into band or drama or computers, or something the charter school really doesn't have, but I don't want to expose her to the huge population (read: drugs, gangs) and uncaring adult environment of the local junior high, just yet.

On a happier note, I start a Judo class this evening. I have no idea how this is going to be. Hopefully it will be fun, but I wonder if I'm going to end up wishing I had hit the chiropractor and gone to coffee instead of taking this thing.... I'll letcha know. ;D

[Kata6]

Hot. Thats how my summer's been. Is it November yet?

Other than that, my summer's been pretty good so far. Work is really hectic. We had really intense training for the first 2 months we were there, which was basically just to get us all to be able to pass this test and then after that, our trainer basically said...see ya! And now I'm sort of just winging it. THe thing is our training was to learn all about the insurance policies front and back and learn about construction, which is great, I know that stuff, but now I need to know how to actually do my job and it seems I'm on my own with that. It's been a little bit frustrating, I want to start working, but I don't know how to do anything. Nobody's really in charge of training me, so randomly every day I just go up to people I work with and say, "can I sit with you today" and then I sit with them for a few hours and try to learn what to do. I had no idea how much there was to know until I got into it, and now I'm starting to feel like I'll never get it. THe worst part about it is they're expecting me to be up & running next week, with a full work load and phones...and there's honestly no way that's going to happen....unless they just don't care if I screw everything up really bad.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has been going on. I haven't been going out too much, I've been spending a lot of time at the gym...and the results have been a little less than I'd hoped for, but I guess it's good for me or something. I'm having kind of a blah day, so if the tone of this is shitty, that's why.

[IDBUG]

Hey Kata,

I hope I'm not sticking my nose in where it's not wanted, but I wanted to let you know I completely understand how you feel, about not feeling like you have a clue about what's going on, what to do, etc. Here's something that happened recently that kinda helped me:

I just joined a different team at work, and I'm supposed to be driving a change with this team (to the way I've been doing things), learning a new way of doing things, and putting it all together into a hybrid way of doing things, all at the same time. If that makes any sense. Basically I'm "in charge" of making something happen and I'm not sure what the end result is going to be, or how much of an @ss I'm going to make of myself.

I have to emphasize here that this team includes people who intimidate the crap outta me, because of their experience and their general personalities.

So, I get together in a meeting with the team and start going over the basics of converting to my methodology. I am nervous as hell (I HATE giving presentations anyway), and as I am going over it I notice one of the others going more and more pale. This is one of the newest people on the team, and the most intimidating to me (I was in on her interview, so I know what work she's done before... let me tell you, intimidating). She's a really nice person, but I figure she knows it all, has done it all, can and will kick our @sses tech-wise, and could easily make us all look stupid.

After the meeting, she told me that she felt like she was going to be worthless as a member of the team, like she had no clue what was going on. I cannot tell you how often I feel this way. I tried to reassure her that she was going to do great, because of all the experience she had, etc. And I meant it.

But, personally, it was kind of a relief to me, made me realize that I wasn't the only one who felt like this. Here was someone who I knew had it together pretty well, who also felt like she was going to screw up somehow. So maybe I'm not such an idiot or a fraud after all, even though I feel like one most days.

My point in all of that was, we all feel clueless most of the time, even (or especially) those of us who are "supposed to know." Somehow we just wing it through and learn as we go. I think that part of being a professional is acting like you know what you're doing, even if you don't feel like you do. ;D

LOL, I guess it's the old "fake it 'till you make it" coming back to haunt us.... ugggh.

Kata, I think you'll get it, and you know more than you think you do, and you'll do great.

[Kata6]

Thanks, T, I appreciate it. I'm probably not as much of an idiot as I feel like sometimes.

It's just been hard, I go to do 1 little thing and I have to ask the person next to me 4 questions just to get through it. I hate asking questions, not because of pride or anything like that, but mostly because I know all the people around me have plenty of their own work to do, and it's not their job to help me learn mine, so I feel like I'm bothering them to ask. I've tried to just jump right in and start working items that I think I can handle...and so far I've done Ok (with the exception of forgetting a few things), I just feel like there is so much more I need to know.

Its just an adjustment, I've gone from a job where I know everything about the job to one where I don't know jack, and it's a really uncomfortable feeling. I wanted this, a change, and now I got it!!