I was writing up a response to a “At least you have a job” comment to my last bitch about my job post and it got long and evolved enough, I figured it deserved it’s own post.

You know, that little fact that I have a relatively good job just makes it all the harder to deal. I know I “should” be grateful that I have a job. I “should” appreciate that it is a good company (comparatively speaking) and it has good benefits. I “should” be grateful that I have an income that fits how I live. I am Very Aware of all of this. These are a whole lot of “shoulds” that get in the way of dealing with the issues of the fact that I am not happy. Years ago, a list of “shoulds” kept me in a profession that ended up eating away at my soul enough that I felt broken enough to request to be institutionalized and have that on my record for the rest of my life. I was told I would have to live my life and work on getting better in baby steps. When I broke, I was had great potential. I was designing Access databases and playing with computers and I was an assistant to a residential lighting designer. There was even the possibility that I would be able to take over most of the lighting design firm so that she could spend more time with her new baby and still keep a hand in the industry. It was a fabulous opportunity. I had a large number of great friends and a very active social life. On the surface, things looked golden. But my soul was rotting from the inside out. I broke. After therapy, my first step was getting to a point of actually being able to show up at a receptionist temp job. At one job, they actually asked me if I could alphabetize for filing (I have a BA and a masters in civil engineering). It took me a year to become functional again and four years to reclaim a portion of the social life I once held.

If I was in the position of not having any work, yes, where I am now would be a step up. But to have searched for a job situation that meets my needs, found it and then have those very things removed from me, it is a step down. It is really hard to have to face being afraid that the fear of losing what I “should” be grateful for is going to keep me in a place that is actually harmful to me. It makes trying to figure out what to do that much more complex. And it doesn’t help to have those around me pointing out what I “should” be grateful for on top of my own beatings of my inner psyche.

Tally to date:
Just got official notice (complaint from big wig to assistant to our big boss to my boss to me) of four things we have done wrong, three are mine, one isn’t.
We are losing someone (he is moving away) and he wont be replaced to we have to suck up his work load.

Not having a job would be worse for me but that doesn’t mean having this job is good for me.

When last we left our hero, she was being kicked off her computer so it could be moved to a new floor.

Well, I managed to get to the morning of the third day after the move to the image floor until I got into trouble. Go me! Two full days of not being noticed. ARgggg, I really don’t like this move.

We are trying to clean up some filing, getting old stuff into off-site storage, organize current files, toss things that should be tossed. A co-worker and I started to pull the files out of the cabinets and sort them. On the floor of course. We were out of walk path and sitting on the floor, sorting through files. The assistant of the big boss (the one who’s office I sit near) came over to us to explain that we have high level interviews happening all through the day and one of the interviewees is the CEO of one of our clients and we can’t sit on the floor. When we tried to find out what our option are about doing the work (can we sit on the floor down on floor 33, is there a conference room we can take over, an office) she just got stuck on the “can’t do what you are doing and don’t disagree with me” mode. Poor woman, she was really feeling bad needing to tell us that we can’t do what we were doing. We really appreciated her letting us know because we don’t know where the line of “appropriate” lies on this floor. The only reason we wouldn’t have done it on our old floor is that the area right in front of the cabinets is the primary walkway and we would be in people’s way. We finally transfered everything into an empty office nearby and locked ourselves in to do the sorting and boxing. Can’t have anyone see us do grunt work, that would be a bad image for the company. There are other floors for grunt work to be done on and it should be seen on this floor where the clients visit. For some reason, the TVs on the floor tuned to the Olympics are ok. I have a feeling I will be asking about this before a month goes by.

An additional joy of working out of sight is that our boss, who normally trusts us to do our work was expressing that he has a hard time believing it took all morning and half the afternoon to go through the files for the level we sorted them (it took us too long and we didn’t sort them as much as he expected). We get the idea he thinks we were blowing off work and just socializing. We know that while we got socializing in, we did it while plowing through a mountain of files. It took a lot less time than we expected and we slacked off less than we normally do. Our boss is also doing a few other annoying things that are uncharacteristic and I am ready to take him to task. I realize he is probably doing it because he is feeling the stress as well but these are going to be issues. Because intellectually I realize it is probably due to the same stress I am under, I am waiting until I am not as angry to talk to him about it, but I want to march him into a room and let him have it with both barrels. I want to use my height and my seniority and the value I have to our work to pound into him that his attitude/behavior is unacceptable and he either will change it or I will adjust by reducing my support and not be as easy going. ARggggg. This is just an emotional response over something rather small brought on by stress. My stressed response to his stressed induced action. I realize this and I will act accordingly but ARggggg.

Over all, the new digs aren’t that bad. There are good things about it and I am trying to let go of my grip on being unhappy to appreciate them. Right now, I feel like I have to constantly watch myself. Over time, that should reduce if not go away. I hate waiting for stuff like this. One of the reasons I feel I can post this is because it is written in Notepad and will be transfered.

One of the things I am afraid of is that I will adjust. That by adjusting to this environment, I will become more my introverted self, that I will pull back into myself, shut down. Go back to Practicing to Be Plastic. I have done this before and I find it is not healthy for me. Those that have known me over the last 8 years or more will probably remember the last time I hit this not healthy state 6 years ago when I disappeared from the social scene. I thought it would be for a month and it turned out to be more like 4 years. (It brings a smile to my face that there actually are a few – more than one – people that read my journal that will remember this time period. That means that I am still friends with people even over such a long time and that I was able to reconnect to people after disappearing. This makes me happy.) Others can do this Practice to be Plastic thing and it is no big deal. I do it and I my soul starts to shrivel. I think that is the reason I am having such a strong reaction to all this. Intellectually, I know I have many points of opting out along the way if I am heading down a dark path but I am so afraid of the destination that I don’t even want to start down a possible path. If I accept the good, I might not notice the bad until I am already damaged. But if I don’t accept the good, then I am making myself suffer when I don’t have to. Once again, Argggg.

So, that is the update on the work situation.

Well, the light has come down (the big fluorescent torchier I brought in to supplement the sucky lighting in our area) because I had to pack the extension cord. All my equipment is tagged for the new cube and my stuff is in boxes (6, two others have match me in box number, no one has surpassed me).

It just shows me how much I can take. Hard times, bad luck, sometimes life sucks.

That’s all right, I’m ok, It ain’t nothing but another day

I am trying to have a positive attitude about the move. Worse case scenario is that my resume is ready and my head is in the sand.

They have arrived to pull the plug on my computer. Argggggg.

Something I found out about myself during the Enneagram Training week was how much of an Introvert I truly am. I have always figured I was about half Introvert, half Extrovert with leanings more toward Extrovert. But I never truly saw the part of me that was an Introvert, just acknowledge that it must be there and moved along.

mathematical theories of people interactions

I am a bit of a pessimist. I expect the bad. That way, if I right, I am prepared and if I am wrong, I can be pleasantly surprised. Most of the time, it isn’t a problem being right. I like being prepared. But there are times I wish I wasn’t right as often as I am. “I hate being right” was a refrain I use to have play in my head a lot back in the early 90s because of the guy I was dating.

Over the years, I have noticed that when I am upset with a loved one, I will predict the lowest expected behavior and damn, they prove me right again and again. This is when I really hate being right.

Lately, I have learned that my parents don’t follow the pattern. They use to fit it but now have their own warped pattern that we are still trying to map.

And my dear friends don’t follow the pattern anymore. In the past, I haven’t had friends that have been dear to me that have been willing to work on our issues. And lo, recently I was surprised by being wrong in my prediction. Hallelujah! This has lead to even more closeness and trust. I value being wrong.

So, this appears to leave boyfriends/ex-boyfriends/lovers/romantic interests within the pattern. And another one proved me right again. If I was wrong, I would have been facing something scary, possibly painful and probably Good For Me(tm). Things might have gotten better between us (after getting worse). But no, he followed my expectation. He surprised me when he seemed to step out of line, but he quietly got back in.

Damn, sometimes I hate being Right.

I had a full weekend. Sat, I got some quality Crystal time. We saw The Cinderella story (a delightful piece of fluff), shopped for lighting ideas and in general got a chance to hang. Karen made it home in time to hook up with me and reduce the number of cars needed, so I got a little Karen time as we rushed off to get ready for a party.

The main event for the night was the Annual Parliament of the Rogues. I have been very excited about the costume for this party. It is something I have been working on collecting for about two years and managed to finish A WEEK before the party (I normally and doing final touches the day of so this is impressive). It is based on a character Jenna Elfman did for the movie Can’t Hardly Wait. She was a “dancer” that was dressed as an angle. The hardest component to get my hands on was a gold bikini. Once that was accomplished, the rest of it was easy since I started with an inflatable lute. There appeared to be a trend of rogue-ish innocence at this year’s event. I don’t know if I noticed it because I was part of it or if it really was a trend but we had a delightful Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), a Heidi (the little Dutch girl), and an Angel. There were some other really sweet costumes and a lot of very lovely people. I got some delightful attention and got to talk to cool people. Good party. (wow, I even got the pictures up on the site already) .

I got home very late and when I got up, I headed out again to help a friend rewire his house. He seems to think I have a clue and by rubbing our clues together, we should be able to figure out how to run new power and data lines. We managed to get something done. I got very tired and very frustrated. I can do it but not very well. It is like changing my car’s oil. I know how to do it and can do it and it is so worth paying someone else to do it for me.

I got home in time to go to bed again. This upcoming week is a tad packed as well. I will be fully enjoying what down time I have.

A friend asked me to post this survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=53689585124. She is collecting answers from scifi con geeks to create the database for a game of Family Feud Fan-style. We will be running/playing/presenting the game at SilliCon.

Sorry you poor LJ souls, this isn’t a meme. You will be answering questions but don’t get anything to put in your LJ.

I got another Google Wack. I am impressed with these because I only stumble over them, I don’t actually try to find them.

nerotia triangulum

I was looking up the name of a song or band and trying to see what nerotia meant. What I was researching was Sofia Run – Nerotia Hazarurim (Little Candles). Turns out that Sofia Run is the name of the band. I don’t know what Nerotia Hazarurim is for. The real funny bit is that Nerotia is misspelled. The song actually has it as Nerotia and there are hits all over the place for that.

And it leads to another Google Wack to a different page.

nerotia moccasin

Must…Stop…Now…

Can you tell it is a busy day at work? I am being driven so nuts that I go off on these tangents.

OK you computer geeks. I need some info. For months, I have been getting misc spam-like emails in my yahoo email inbox. Some simple line of text with an attachment. They started out as 30k and are now around 41k in size. They have different email addresses, while the name doesn’t look familiar, the domain does. I have just been deleting them since I know they are virus-waiting-to-happen types of things.

I have assumed that someone has managed to get infected with a virus and it has grabbed my email address from their contact list. The familiar domain names are from the fact that we share similar friends.

But, every now and then I get a mail undeliverable message that says I (my email address) sent out this thingy and it has a harmful attachment. I know I didn’t send anything out. And today, my hotmail account has been hit with this thing as well. It is getting ridiculous.

Anyone have an idea what this silly thing is, how to research a solution (what name to call it) and a way to check to be sure I am not the one infected? These are both browser based email addresses and I don’t download anything unless I know what it is and even then I am hesitant so my work machine shouldn’t be infected but it would be worth looking into. How in the world can I trace the email back to the real sender to find out where it might be coming from? Can my yahoo account be infected but not my actual machine?