I know that title seems almost... egotistical. Really, though, it'll make sense if you keep reading.
Without "tooting my own horn," so to speak, I am pretty "awesome" at my job. I don't just idly say this. I work hard to be "awesome." Two weeks ago I put in a 77 hour week - 41-ish hours of it was straight. Yes, you read that correctly; no sleep or real breaks to speak of for 41 hours. I met my deadline, though, and really I didn't complain (well, too much LOL). I tend to be the "go to" person for a variety of projects and ultimately I like the feeling it brings. The problem comes in that, once you show that kind of work ethic, it becomes expected.
I do have a very strong work ethic - I pretty much always have. Sure, I'll slack off occasionally, but if there's a deadline to be met, I meet it with a hard-faced tenacity. It's just how I am and who I am. I don't mind putting in these kinds of hours every now and then and, really, in the job I have, these kinds of deadlines only come around maybe twice a year. I can deal with that, ya know? I think the husband might be a bit annoyed, but he'll get over it, right? LOL
I love my boss, and her boss, as well. I adore my team - even though so many of them are new to the company. We all just "click" really well with each other. It's an incredible feeling to be a part of a team that really feels like a "family" - since I spend more time at work than I do at home, it's nice to have a "family" and a "home away from home."
So, this is a boring post, but figured I'd at least bring it up. It's a boring evening.
Oh, but one other thing completely unrelated - I'm working my way to a goal of all 5 stars on Guitar Hero 3 at the Hard level. I can't seem to get past the Slayer song nor the Metallica song on Hard so I've decided to work on getting 5 stars on everything up to Tier 8. Maybe with that practice it'll make those two songs a bit easier. Yes, I'm lame. LOL!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
A New Year, A New You!
I swear this is the tagline for practically every weight loss or work-out company from about December 15th through February 1st of every year. Do I really need a "new me" every year? What's wrong with the "old me?" Or are we purely talking the "physical me?" Sure, I'd love to dump the old "physical me" and trade up for a newer model. Oh, if only that were even possible.
New Year's Resolutions. Isn't it strange how so many people make NYRs yet it is a very small percentage of people who actually follow through? If these NYRs were what we truly wanted so badly, why would we let ourselves sabotage us so easily? Subconsciously there must be something that's preventing or stopping us from actually meeting our supposed goals. Let's take a look at my NYR from last year.
2007's NYR was to join Weight Watchers and lose all of this weight that was gained originally from steroids (gotta love prednisone - uh, NOT!) and compounded by the fact that I have a two hour one-way commute to work in which I sit on my ass most of the day at a desk and then have the same commute home in the evening where, if I want my children to get to bed at a decent hour, we end up eating out (and so often fast food because, really, who can afford to eat at a nice sit-down restaurant five days a week?) on our way home. Add to that the fact that I can't be outside in the sun for more than about 10-15 minutes at a time without getting invariably sick and... well, you get the point.
So last year I made my NYR to lose the weight using the WW program. It's a great program and I've seen plenty of people lose an amazing amount of weight on it. I thought, "Hey, I can do this!" And you know what? I did! I did a great job of following my points, registering them using WW Online, etc. I actually made it through mid-March. I didn't attend meetings because, well, none were convenient or available with my lovely schedule, but I did participate in online discussions at the WW forums and belong to a couple of other weight loss forums. Still, by mid-March, despite following the program religiously, I had not lost a lot of weight. The Points system is great, but really, it isn't designed for a person who is somewhat forced to eat fast food and the like as regularly as I do. (And no, I'm not trying to make excuses... these are just the facts.) And I also realized that, while dieting is great and all, not much is going to happen without adding exercise in on top of it.
Ah, yes, exercise. The downfall of almost every dieter. We all want that quick fix. We don't want to actually have to work at weight loss! I mean, it's not like we exactly worked to put the weight ON, why should we work to take it off?! Right? At one time I owned a membership to a gym. Of course, that was when I worked 20 minutes from home and the gym was about 10 minutes from work. I used to walk, do some mild weight training, vigorous swimming and yoga. I can't tell you how much I miss it. But now? Yeah, I couldn't afford a gym membership even if I were able to use it. So I did the next best thing (well, the next best thing that I could think of, at least) and bought a treadmill. Expensive as hell but we used part of our tax return money for it (though, in retrospect, we really shouldn't have done that and really should have put the money into some of our bills instead, but I digress...). I used it religiously - for about 6 weeks. Why only 6 weeks, you ask? The main answer is that I got a new job. Same company, but new job.
At the end of April '07 I accepted a position as a Flash developer/graphics designer. Now, other than some freelance web design, I've never done anything in the graphics world nor have I done any Flash design since before Actionscripting was even created. Quite honestly I was a bit surprised that I got the job, but I was very, very pleased (and still am). My boss, and her boss above her, are so bloody awesome it's hard to put into words. They both have faith in me to learn (and thankfully I learn very quickly) the things I need to learn and apply them as best I can. Right away I was thrown into the fray for our annual national conference. Nearly one week away from home, working 6am to midnight every day, and that sapped all of the energy I had. Then, when I returned to the office after the conference, I was bombarded both by my new job and by my old job.
See, my previous manager had had a bad run of things right around the time I was hired for my new position. There were three of us on his team - one gave notice to move to Utah, I got this new job and the third got himself fired due to continued sexual harassment. There was no way my former boss (whom I consider a friend as well as a coworker) could manage to do the work of his team by himself, so I was, in a way, commissioned to continue to help him out as much as possible. I trained the first new guy, got him up to speed as best as is possible, and partially trained the second new gal who, thankfully, was already a part of the company and new the system so it was more a matter of training specifics rather than overall. While doing that I still had my other deadlines for my new job to take into consideration and, as it was a new job, I felt I needed to really impress with my capabilities. So I worked from home, worked from the van while DH drove, worked extra hours... all just to impress. Long story short, however, is that I was so bloody exhausted by all of it that the mere thought of getting on the treadmill sent me into a major paroxysm.
Once things started to slow down at work and I was weaned away from my old job (mid-August), I'd already gotten out of the habit of using the treadmill and there it sat, in my bedroom, collecting dust. I kept trying to tell myself I needed to use it more, blah blah blah, but yeah... I didn't. Talk about your waste of money, no?
So this leads me into this year's NYR. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with weight loss or exercise or anything of the like. Really, the aforementioned "story" is more of a way to force myself to not let what happened last year happen again. So here it is in writing. On the screen. Ha! Oh yeah, this year's NYR... is to write. Blogging, noveling, short story writing, poetry... whatever. This past November I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and it was, by far, one of the most awesome experiences of my life. Not only did I meet the goal of NaNoWriMo (to write 50,000 words in 30 days) but I doubled that goal AND completed my novel! IN THIRTY DAYS! *applause applause* Apparently there are some stories in me just waiting to get out and I never really realized it. Ha! So, here I am, my very first blog of the New Year, of 2008. Sure we're nearly two weeks in, but at least I'm doing it. My goal, written out here for the world to see, is to write at least once per week. If I write more than that, YAY! If I write less than that, well, really I have no excuse and I'm just a decrepit bit of human scum. Okay, maybe not that harsh. LOL! But really, I have no excuse for not writing at least once per week. Here goes... hey, world, I hope you're ready for me!
New Year's Resolutions. Isn't it strange how so many people make NYRs yet it is a very small percentage of people who actually follow through? If these NYRs were what we truly wanted so badly, why would we let ourselves sabotage us so easily? Subconsciously there must be something that's preventing or stopping us from actually meeting our supposed goals. Let's take a look at my NYR from last year.
2007's NYR was to join Weight Watchers and lose all of this weight that was gained originally from steroids (gotta love prednisone - uh, NOT!) and compounded by the fact that I have a two hour one-way commute to work in which I sit on my ass most of the day at a desk and then have the same commute home in the evening where, if I want my children to get to bed at a decent hour, we end up eating out (and so often fast food because, really, who can afford to eat at a nice sit-down restaurant five days a week?) on our way home. Add to that the fact that I can't be outside in the sun for more than about 10-15 minutes at a time without getting invariably sick and... well, you get the point.
So last year I made my NYR to lose the weight using the WW program. It's a great program and I've seen plenty of people lose an amazing amount of weight on it. I thought, "Hey, I can do this!" And you know what? I did! I did a great job of following my points, registering them using WW Online, etc. I actually made it through mid-March. I didn't attend meetings because, well, none were convenient or available with my lovely schedule, but I did participate in online discussions at the WW forums and belong to a couple of other weight loss forums. Still, by mid-March, despite following the program religiously, I had not lost a lot of weight. The Points system is great, but really, it isn't designed for a person who is somewhat forced to eat fast food and the like as regularly as I do. (And no, I'm not trying to make excuses... these are just the facts.) And I also realized that, while dieting is great and all, not much is going to happen without adding exercise in on top of it.
Ah, yes, exercise. The downfall of almost every dieter. We all want that quick fix. We don't want to actually have to work at weight loss! I mean, it's not like we exactly worked to put the weight ON, why should we work to take it off?! Right? At one time I owned a membership to a gym. Of course, that was when I worked 20 minutes from home and the gym was about 10 minutes from work. I used to walk, do some mild weight training, vigorous swimming and yoga. I can't tell you how much I miss it. But now? Yeah, I couldn't afford a gym membership even if I were able to use it. So I did the next best thing (well, the next best thing that I could think of, at least) and bought a treadmill. Expensive as hell but we used part of our tax return money for it (though, in retrospect, we really shouldn't have done that and really should have put the money into some of our bills instead, but I digress...). I used it religiously - for about 6 weeks. Why only 6 weeks, you ask? The main answer is that I got a new job. Same company, but new job.
At the end of April '07 I accepted a position as a Flash developer/graphics designer. Now, other than some freelance web design, I've never done anything in the graphics world nor have I done any Flash design since before Actionscripting was even created. Quite honestly I was a bit surprised that I got the job, but I was very, very pleased (and still am). My boss, and her boss above her, are so bloody awesome it's hard to put into words. They both have faith in me to learn (and thankfully I learn very quickly) the things I need to learn and apply them as best I can. Right away I was thrown into the fray for our annual national conference. Nearly one week away from home, working 6am to midnight every day, and that sapped all of the energy I had. Then, when I returned to the office after the conference, I was bombarded both by my new job and by my old job.
See, my previous manager had had a bad run of things right around the time I was hired for my new position. There were three of us on his team - one gave notice to move to Utah, I got this new job and the third got himself fired due to continued sexual harassment. There was no way my former boss (whom I consider a friend as well as a coworker) could manage to do the work of his team by himself, so I was, in a way, commissioned to continue to help him out as much as possible. I trained the first new guy, got him up to speed as best as is possible, and partially trained the second new gal who, thankfully, was already a part of the company and new the system so it was more a matter of training specifics rather than overall. While doing that I still had my other deadlines for my new job to take into consideration and, as it was a new job, I felt I needed to really impress with my capabilities. So I worked from home, worked from the van while DH drove, worked extra hours... all just to impress. Long story short, however, is that I was so bloody exhausted by all of it that the mere thought of getting on the treadmill sent me into a major paroxysm.
Once things started to slow down at work and I was weaned away from my old job (mid-August), I'd already gotten out of the habit of using the treadmill and there it sat, in my bedroom, collecting dust. I kept trying to tell myself I needed to use it more, blah blah blah, but yeah... I didn't. Talk about your waste of money, no?
So this leads me into this year's NYR. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with weight loss or exercise or anything of the like. Really, the aforementioned "story" is more of a way to force myself to not let what happened last year happen again. So here it is in writing. On the screen. Ha! Oh yeah, this year's NYR... is to write. Blogging, noveling, short story writing, poetry... whatever. This past November I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and it was, by far, one of the most awesome experiences of my life. Not only did I meet the goal of NaNoWriMo (to write 50,000 words in 30 days) but I doubled that goal AND completed my novel! IN THIRTY DAYS! *applause applause* Apparently there are some stories in me just waiting to get out and I never really realized it. Ha! So, here I am, my very first blog of the New Year, of 2008. Sure we're nearly two weeks in, but at least I'm doing it. My goal, written out here for the world to see, is to write at least once per week. If I write more than that, YAY! If I write less than that, well, really I have no excuse and I'm just a decrepit bit of human scum. Okay, maybe not that harsh. LOL! But really, I have no excuse for not writing at least once per week. Here goes... hey, world, I hope you're ready for me!
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