Work

It was one of those days today where I spent much of the first half of the day enjoying that phenomenon where, though I have been steadily doing better at work than I was a couple of months back, EVERY dadgum error I happen to make is visible to my upper boss.  He and I spent a nice long time having one of those forbearing instant message conversations, and segued into a call with him, me, and our other executive, batting around process improvements for my job.  It actually wasn't a bad day, but very much a matter of chagrin when everything goes well but the details that matter to them.

Truth be told, though the top boss on our team is keenly able to spot mistakes, he's not one who takes unseemly pleasure in finding fault.  His expectations are high, but nothing like unreasonable, and it makes you mad not to live up to them.  When I first started this job, one of the people on my team who had the most to do with training me said, "If you do your job, you will like him."  I hadn't met him yet, but that assessment made clear to me the expectations, and seemed to me actually a pretty high compliment to pay a manager.

Anyway.

The entire rest of today was exhausted by the constant, unrelenting balancing act of taking care of all the things proceeding from my talk(s) with them, finalizing all the to-do's for multiple large meetings in three cities, trying on travel plans for two people for all these trips, setting acres of additional meetings, fielding needs for my team, taking notes and closing them all out ...  Sitting at my desk and not even getting up enough for my little calesthenics or to, ah, take a proper break.

It's tiring and stressful, but I look back at year-end and the build up to that, and am still grateful to have moved forward.  On top of trying to stay on top of the runaway horse that is my job lately, I've also been consciously trying for the past week or two to Project a Positive Attitude (rah rah whee).  It's a facile fake it till you make it strategy, but the damnable thing is it has a way of working, even if by "work" you define terms strictly on the practicals of relationship management with the people you don't love working with the most.  Heh.

At the end of this long day, I asked a friend/coworker for an objective view, whether the better attitude was apparent.  Being a friend, she said to me she was biased and that my attitude had never appeared to her to go downhill.  She then couched that in terms of the way I deal with those who need me, saying I haven't faltered in that customer service context.

But the fact is, I've let sarcastic humor step in where actual attempts at pleasantness used to be SOP, and it makes even me roll my eyes listening to myself sometimes.

It also makes me realize, when it comes to criticism or assessment, I've really trained myself out of any ability to tolerate niceties in their place.  Even in the worst years of my vanity issues, I used to have debates with my ex on the nature of beauty (the symposium I once tried to give him, explaining that "classical beauty" is actually a term with measurable traits I decidedly do not possess).  Mr. X and I have MANY times clinically discussed the objective merits of my appeals, and this usually ends in his smilingly pronouncing, "I am a man and when it comes down to what a man might find attractive about you, I have the last word - not you."  Again:  heh.

The same is true of my writing, of course, and it chafes and frustrates me *badly* to get non-feedback such as "it's really good" with zero thoughtful content.  This is why Mr. X and the Sarcastic Broads are about the only people I feel comfortable sharing work in progress with.  I know my writing is *good* - I don't always know how to make it its BEST.  Good is for macaroni and cheese.  And I love macaroni and cheese.  But going to the trouble of writing something?  Deserves better than comfort food.


***


Anyway, work at an office, not My Work.  It's hard, and it's painful these days as things ramp up toward unknowable conclusions.  It's demanding, and I come home less than motivated with the house, the beasties four days out of five (and, for a while there, seven out of seven ...).  Even still, I am grateful I have one boss - some years younger than I, it may be said - who says to me, "I said you weren't old, not that you're not senile" and another with whom I can chat and laugh about old BBC historical dramas and the way they affect your diction, even as I reach Penelope-like heights of wiggy frustration with myself in my eagerness to please.

And, again: heh.

I'm re-remembering how lucky I am, and the gratitude is infusing me with the energy it takes to work ... at my best.

Or, at least, to work back toward it.