Had an interview with a real company today. Basically doing a lot of what I do now for an investment banker dealing with mergers and acquisitions.

It was very little interview and a lot a test. They gave me a test on Word, Excel, PowerPoint and told me it can take 2 hrs, 4 hrs or longer depending on your work speed. I did it I think in just under 2. And I futzed a lot on the first charts to make them look “just right”. I even found an error in their instructions and pointed out that I followed instruction A for this part and instruction B for that part. In other words, I KICKED ASS!!!

I want more of a real interview because I want to find out more about the environment. They are in Embarcadero 4, nice view. I saw someone wearing jeans. I would be in a half cube and the only graphic person on the 9-5 shift. There is a person on swing shift and graveyard shift. When someone is on vacation, there might be overtime and you can say no if you want to. This is a satellite office for the New York firm with other offices in other countries, so work gets passed around. The guy that is leaving is moving to the smaller LA office.

It could be cool, or I could be really lonely. I wouldn’t be able to lean on my co-workers. There wouldn’t be an editor review which I so depend on. At least I wouldn’t be stuck in an office by myself.

If nothing else, this was good practice and good energy to put into the system of getting another job. It did give me outside validation that my MicroSoft skills are as good as I claim.

Arggg.
Just had a meeting with the boss to try and get some ideas into him before I leave. A legacy for those I leave behind.

He has been nice today. We don’t have any work for me to do so he isn’t stressing about me and can be decent. We had a good meeting and have cleared up some stuff. And it seems so reasonable and nice and workable. I am feeling like I can stay and can be useful again. He is even talking about giving me the excel sheet to work on that has been a problem with us in the past.

ARGGGGG. I have to keep reminding myself that the next time it gets rough, he will become a shit again. We talked about that and I pointed out that he has problems with me when he is overloaded. He explained that his expectations change when we are busy and something he will work on is being clearer with his expectations. Also, we worked out how to approach him when he is busy to not cause waves. He has a tendency to drop whatever he is doing when someone addresses him no matter how important what he is working on or how unimportant what you are telling him. He is working on saying, “not now,” “wait a minute,” “can I help you,” “send me an email,” instead of getting aggarvated at the interruption. Since I am his #2 person, I have to interrupt him many times just to do my job.

I can do all this. It is reasonable and workable. I can work with the James of today. I don’t think I can work with the James of Stress. When I brought up the explosion of me taking a 5 min break before doing an update and him coming to find me, he seems to honestly think he was just trying to get work passed along and that he only had trouble with me because I didn’t have something done. He can’t/won’t admit that he was angry with me all day, felt that I hadn’t been working and was ready to believe the worst about everything about me. I don’t know if he is just in that much denial or if he can’t admit it. If he can’t admit it, then it can never be worked out. No matter what I do, things that we discuss when he is not in stress-ville, I will screw up according to him when he is King of Stress. I can’t take all this hitting walls to learn how to “behave properly” for when he is in the land of the Stressed. And I shouldn’t have to. I don’t know what he needs to do differently and you know, it isn’t my problem.

My problem is figuring out when to turn in my resignation and what should go with it. I have a follow-up interview Friday morning. I feel bad because I am pulling out the dr appt card for it. That is a me thing. I care about my job and doing right by it, even if it isn’t doing right by me.

Had another dr appointment for the eye shakes/dizzys today. I like this one. He might have a clue. If he is right, there isn’t anything to be done about it but we will know what it is and the parameters of the problem.

He is very thorough. I gave 9 tubes of blood today, have another MRI scheduled for Thursday, and am waiting to hear about when Kaiser will schedule the EKG and Otology tests.

Things have gotten better. The world does not shake all the time and it seems to have been reduced back down to the normal 3-9 second dizzys. My chiropractor and I have decided that while the work she was doing on me was good, it wasn’t actually addressing the dizzys.

Just as a general service announcement: I have been a hermit for the last few weeks if not months. I just haven’t had the bandwidth to handle much people interaction. So, if you haven’t heard from me or seen me, it isn’t because I don’t like you, it is because I have been hiding out at home. Most days, when I get home from work, all I can do it watch TiVo and find something to eat. I am sort of cooking again so that is a good thing.

There have been a couple of events (dancing, parties) that I had been planning on going to and ended up bailing on because it was just wasn’t going to work for me.

Hopefully, when the situation at work gets resolved and my health gets better or at least settles down, there will be more energy to be an active member in my own social life. Until then, it is little bits and dribs when I can.

Well, did the whole HR thing and that turned into two weeks wasted. At least I know I have done what I can. My boss comes off as extremely reasonable and I am an uncompromising prima-donna. The main question is why can’t I just be more quiet and adjust to the corporate environment. It was commented that I have done well on the volume issue for the last two weeks. Yeah, I have been sitting with my shoulders hunched waiting to be dumped on, my friends is out of the office so I am not talking to anyone and I was out sick for three days last week. Not how I want to live my life.

I think my boss does have some valid issue, but how he handles them, the extremes he goes to and how he handles me are problems. I was told last night to stop making excuses for him and just accept his is an ass and get out of here.

I am moving forward to do that. Thanks to black_reaver, I had an interview today that might turn into another financial presentation specialist job in SF. Thanks to wynkat1313 and fresne, I have gotten past the biggest hurtle of cover letters and have set a few out. I figure I am turning in my resignation here by the end of the week if I have a job to go to or not. There is contract work out there and I think I would like that much more right now.

GUST
48% Water ~ 77% Wind ~ 48% Earth ~ 48% Fire ~

rest of the quiz results and picture are behind a tag to be nice

Earlier this month, I asked about archiving my LJ. britgeekgrrl suggested http://fawx.com/ljArchive/. There seemed to be a flurry of people that were interested in this link, so I thought I would post it so everyone that read the first post will get a chance at the recommendation.

devonapple also pointed out LJs tool for exporting your Journal:
http://www.livejournal.com/export.bml

I haven’t tried either, so I have no recommendation. I plan on giving the first one a try.

Shit is hitting the fan at work and it is including someone watching my computer screen to be sure I am actually working (it doesn’t matter how much finished work I produce or how fast I am, it is only matters that I am always doing “work”).

This means very limited to no LJ at work. No YM. No email unless I sneak it. I may be able to post to LJ but I am not going to be able to keep up on the reading at this time.

I have one more week to go to make my 5 years. It looked like I was the skin of my teeth away from getting fired yesterday. That is why there was no internet connections today until long after work. I managed to tap dance my way around it and show that the “problem” they had with me was a misunderstanding but because it happened, it just shows that my boss is watching for something to get on my case about. I can’t stand being around someone that has such basic issues with who I am and what I do. I am sorely tempted to quit so I can give my two weeks, thereby insuring that I am here over my 5 year anniversary.

The job search is actually kicking into gear. We will see how much I get done.

Since my main electronic connections are things I only access at work, don’t count on email getting to me in a timely manner. My home phone still works and it has voice mail. Oh yeah, not that it matters because I don’t give out my work phone unless I need to be contacted, but the personal phone calls are a problem as well. Just for me, no one else. No one else sits next to my boss and so they don’t disturb him.

Does anyone know a way to archive an LJ journal? I am getting a significant amount of stuff in my LJ that I want to backup in case something should happen to the LJ servers or the service.

All I am looking for is a way to download the entries and burn them to disk. I would love to have the memories links included if possible. That way, I can find relevant posts.

Once again I have been called on the carpet for being too loud plus other things.

Just had a meeting and my boss said that we can’t have a repeat of yesterday like that was all the info I needed. I had no idea what he was talking about and he seemed frustrated that he needed to spell it out.

Things had gotten better, he is trying, but man oh man, he just can’t deal with the extra that comes with The Gina. He values 70% of me and seems to really want the other 30% to be eliminated. And since he has told me what to stop, he is angry/frustrated that I am not doing it to his satisfaction. Quote: “I don’t care about better, I care about effective.” And he doesn’t feel he should have to tell me when I am only better but not completely to his satisfaction.

Admittedly, he has told I am too loud many times and I do what I can to keep it down, but other than never talking or only whispering, I don’t know what else I can do. And not talking or only whispering is not something I can survive.

There are worse bosses out there but I am not sure is this isn’t an area where it is extrememly bad for me because of who I am and what I need. In theory, I don’t have too much trouble with bosses other people can’t work for. I guess one of the hardest things is that he is a nice guy and it is right on the border of being workable. If he was truly and completely bad, I would already be out of here without any effort.

Guess that job hunt has gotten more important again. Damn.

Count down 11 days to go until I reach my 5 year mark and am fully vested. After that it is a toss.