Thinking more about my job

I've been thinking more about my job situation. That and how stable or unstable my mood is are pretty much the only things on my mind. And the more I think about my job situation, the more I think I am going to have to wait to cut hours down, unfortunately. I know it's only January, but my colleague is going on maternity leave from mid-July through mid-October. I have to take over her entire work load. Now given how slow it is now that would probably give me enough work to be busy a decent amount of time, but the last time, I was swamped. If we get busy again, and who knows when we will, her entire work load plus mine is difficult to manage. It was difficult the last time.

So what am I supposed to do? I don't know. There is simply no way they are going to be agreeable to me going down to 1600 hours when I have to do the work of 2 people for 3 months. 1600 hours won't cut it. The other problem I keep thinking about is the problem of enforceability. When we get busy again, how am I supposed to enforce it? They heap work and more work on me and there are deadlines to be met. I can't leave at 4 and get it all done. I don't know what to do really. Supposedly when you are on reduced hours, and you exceed your requirement, they compensate you in your bonus - but I have found, based on what I have heard, that this isn't the case. You may not get compensated for it.

So I am back where I started with the same dilemma. Do I stay at 2000 hours and simply bill 1850 for my full pay, fore go any bonus and hope for a raise, or do I cut down to 1600, get paid less and end up billing 1850 anyway and not be compensated for it. At this point, and until her leave is over, I think I am stuck with option 1 because I won't be able to enforce the reduced hours. I think I am stuck with simply trying to work less and maintain better balance and not feel guilty about it when I walk out the door. Good luck with that.

On the job front

I haven't been feeling great about my job, as I mentioned. In fact, I haven't felt very good about it since I returned from my leave of absence. Though I do feel a bit better today about my options. My firm lets people cut hours (which I sorta forgot about until someone reminded me), so, for example, I can go down to 1600 billable hours a year for 80% of my pay. 1600 hours is sounding really good right now. I am thinking seriously of doing this. I never really thought I would, but I am. I am a little worried that the partners that I work for aren't going to like it, but I feel like it is necessary for my mental health. I am sure someone has to approve it. I am sure I need their blessing to do it, so I'm not sure what to do really. I just feel like I want to do it. Even though yeah, things are better than they were, I feel like I am barely hanging on some days and for some reason all this extra responsibility is being heaped on me at work. I don't mind some extra responsibility but this is getting to be too much at once. I feel like for health reasons I need to cut my hours down and lower my stress level. Is that unreasonable?

Someone yell at me, please

No, I was not experimenting by not taking medication again.

I checked my work email this morning. Just like I always do, on my blackberry, after I get out of bed and pray. Shit people, this checking out of work is harder than I thought. And if I am going to check email and feel compelled to handle something, I might as well be at the office. It's just that Spanish counsel sent the document that I was waiting for last week and even though I already told the staff attorney what to do with it, step by step, it would just be faster if I did it. And I like this client a lot. This is a good client development opportunity. What I am really worried about is the French document - I just know the French document is going to get messed up if I don't do it myself.

Seriously folks, HELLO. What is my problem? Leave of absence = not working, duh that was the point. It's a good thing I am going to Michigan on Wednesday cause I need a distraction, obviously. This being at home is going to cause me to go stir crazy. I mean, what am I supposed to do all day? Yeah I have a headologist appointment, yeah I have a dentist appointment, yeah I have to go to the cat sitting place, yeah I have few phone calls to make, yeah I need to call and/or meet with my sponsor, yeah I could go to a meeting. But I don't want to do any of that.

I feel anxious and nervous. I don't like this one bit. I need to turn this around somehow.

The unstress of it

My job has taken a turn for the unstressful - or I've had a dramatic shift in perspective. I think it's the former. All last week I left early every day, mainly because I was sick, and took a day off. This week, it's just not that busy. I mean, I have work, but it's not piling up in front of me. I'm not complaining about being less busy - I'm rather enjoying it actually. And I wouldn't even mind if it lasted all through the summer, right through my leave. The only problem is that when things slow down, I lose all motivation. I become bored instantly. If I'm not drowning under work and feeling the pressure of multiple deadlines, I am a lot less efficient. It's just the way I am. In fact, I am sometimes known to really slack off when things slow down just to create some artificial time pressure.

So my last post I thought I was slipping into depression. And then the past couple of days I thought I wasn't. I actually felt really pretty good - almost too good actually - so good that something maybe wasn't right about it. I was going to post about it. But my mood changes so quickly that I can't keep up with posting about it. It's like I blink and it's not the same. Anyway, I didn't sink as low as I expected to. The only thing I can attribute this too is an all day (literally all day) instant message conversation with another blogger which a) kept me occupied, b) laid all my problems/issues out in front of me almost painfully clearly, c) made me think it isn't as hopeless as I sometimes think it is, d) made me realize that I have made more progress on some things than I think I have and less on others, e) made clear that I am suffering more than I should be, definitely, and causing myself a lot of pain, and f) made me think maybe it's time to, you know, try something different. It's now people. I need to do something now. And I felt really good for a couple of days. Really good. But it didn't last.

Today, I just feel blah again. Maybe not hopeless about my life. Not quite.

Anyway, I am unstressed, kind of blah, unmotivated, slightly bored. Sinking maybe again.

I had a really weird experience today. I went to the dentist and she had to numb me to do some stuff. Well, typically I refuse to go that route at the dentist and I tolerate the pain. I have let my teeth be drilled into before without being numb. I kind of think I have like an out of body experience when I've done this. It's like I'm not really present or something, I mean, it's weird, but you sort of have to maybe enter another state of being to tolerate the pain. Anyway, I went the other route this time. It made me sick. I was dizzy, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I'm not allergic to it. It was weird. When I got up, I almost passed out. I was walking to my car and I had to sit down, that's how close to passing out I was. I was driving home and I could barely stay awake. I got home, sat down and fell asleep almost instantly. Weird.

Looking up

I've had two bad weeks - but things are finally looking better. This past week I was extremely sick. The week before I was in Michigan and extremely stressed out and busy at work.

This past week I went to work sick three days in a row with a fever, etc., and then finally, on Thursday decided to stay home. I went to the doctor and she thought I had a bacterial infection that could cause pneumonia, so she gave me an anti-biotic which I started last night. And poof - I actually feel better today. I mean, not all the way better - but noticeably.

I went to work today when I probably should have stayed home - I could have had a 5 days weekend!! But there was a conversation that I needed to have. I left early, at 3. I left early almost every day this week that I went in.

I even felt better enough to clean up the disaster that was my kitchen - it was really disgusting after being sick since Sunday and not rinsing a single dish or putting anything in the dishwasher. I had to restrain myself from an all out assault type cleaning of my condo. I feel good, but not that good.

Anyway, I went to a meeting tonight - much needed. I hadn't been to a meeting for a week because of being out of town and then sick. I don't normally do that (go that long without going to a meeting) and I have to say, I'm actually surprised that I didn't feel more screwed up in the head. Seriously, normally after a week, I could have gone crazy in my head.

Maybe my freaking out over the "leave situation" at work is some evidence of the fact that I hadn't gone to a meeting. Though again I have to say, I handled that much better than I would have ever in years past. I mean really, I did maybe go off a bit in that post, but I needed to vent and I did manage to maintain some perspective about it.

I did have a good talk with the head of my group - about the leave, about the future, about all kinds of things. And although the details aren't pinned down and may not be for a while and maybe I will go August 1st or maybe I will go August 15th - in any case, it sounds like it is going to work and every one is okay and supportive.

Things are really good at work actually. In fact, things have slowed down a bit, which is fine by me cause up until this week I've been pretty much super super busy since February and drowning. And instead of getting worried like I normally do when things slow down - worrying about hours, etc., I am stress free this time. Because remember, this is the new me this billable year. I just don't give a shit how many hours I bill. And let me tell you, it feels great not to be stressed about it.

Posting a retraction

Everything is all good on the work/leave front. Seriously, everything is all good.

See, I tend to freak out before freaking out is warranted and overreact before it is necessary. All it took is another conversation and a little more explanation. I have this problem where my head gets away from me. That's why I have a little piece of paper taped to the shelf above my monitor at work that says, "IT WILL NOT HAPPEN THAT WAY." Cause I need to be constantly reminded of that fact.

Everything is all good. I really do work with very nice, caring people.

More later.

Mad at myself

Now that I am over having a minor tantrum about it - the only thing I can really say about my week is that I am really mad at myself. That's the problem with having done inventories and such - you know what your part in things is automatically, without even having to think about it. And wouldn't it be great if I could just blame it on everyone else. It's everyone else's fault that I had a bad week, that my week wasn't what I wanted it to be.

But it wasn't. It was my own fault - for having expectations. For wanting it to be a certain way and to feel a certain way and not feel a certain way. And I completely know that expectations are dangerous. It's such a commonly talked about thing in AA meetings. Expectations breed resentments or are resentments waiting to happen. You are just asking to be disappointed. I have spent enough time on resentments and expectations to recognize immediately what happened here.

I let things get to me this week, more than I should have. I just had this inability to go with the flow of what was happening with my job this week as I was trying to work from outside the office - which was more difficult than I wanted it to be - and the impact work was having on what I wanted to do here. I've never been a go with the flow kind of person. I don't like it when the plan gets changed, I am not naturally flexible or spontaneous. It has taken practice to ever be able to roll with anything. I'm normally fairly good at it now, but it requires certain things to be able to do it. Like perspective for one, which I suffered a fairly significant loss of around Tuesday. And after all, everything does come down to perspective.

So what went wrong exactly? I agreed to work this week. I wasn't on vacation - I didn't want to be on vacation (correction, I felt too guilty to take vacation this week), I was just working from outside the office. I had no reason to believe that this week would be slower for me when the past 4 months have been extremely busy. I wanted it to be, I thought it would be, but I had no real basis for believing that. Why would the partner leave me alone this week when I was working. I said I was going to work this week, I just didn't want to work like this. So, I should have said that. Besides that, I went almost a week without a meeting because of work.

I knew this week would be hard given that yesterday was the anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer, tomorrow is my 31st birthday, and today is the dreaded day in between, which used to be known as the dreaded night before my birthday. I knew it would have some effect on me, I just didn't know what the effect would be. I had no idea whether I could avoid the feelings or not or what the emotion would even be. All fear? Sadness? And I didn't know that it would come out sideways - that the fear and the pain around these days would come out in the form of intense anger and extreme resentment.

I should have known that because anger has always been my default emotion. When I was crying about the cat earlier, I'm not sure it was about the cat.

I'm mad at myself because despite what was going on at work - despite the stress of it - it didn't have to ruin my entire week. I know better - I know how to keep this type of thing from happening. Sometimes I'm even really good at keeping this kind of thing from happening. This week was really important to me and I allowed it to b e ruined. And now I get to go home upset with myself for allowing that to happen and sad that my time with my nephew, which is valuable to me, was kind of wrecked by my being angry all week about work. Or angry about something anyway, work or otherwise. Or scared maybe. I really think the problem is fear that I can't figure out how to deal with.

How many more weeks will I have? I can't get this one back. How many more chances will I have to come to Michigan for a week to stay, instead of just the weekend, and to play with my nephew and to be woken up way earlier than I want to be by the sound of my nephew's voice exclaiming "innie in der" when he pushes open my bedroom door? You let moments be ruined and they are moments you can't get back.

All this time I have been waiting to see what my nephew would call me. He'd never tried to say my name, at least I've never heard him. I have a hard name for little kids to say because it starts with an L. Most little kids say the first letter of my name as a Y because the L is just hard for them to say. And maybe because it's more than one syllable - that makes it even harder. Anyway, he called me "innie" the other morning when he came looking for me. "Innie in der!?" He's so cute. He can say "loader" pretty well though - he can get the L sound out so maybe it won't take him long to get my name.

Anyway, I stayed home and watched him tonight while my brother and sister-in-law went out. We played in the bath and sat in the front window for a long time eating bananas and talking about the moon. We played silly games like high five/low five and other goofy things he made up. He learned two new words I think - idea and hidden. Not that he knows what idea means - in fact, I think he might associate it with sticking the little bath basketball hoop on the window. He's getting good at words though. I taught him relax a few days ago when were were playing a game which included stuffing everything in sight down in the cracks between the couch cushions. I taught him the word not the concept - which I obviously barely even understand. We talked about coons and bunnas, we read about 8 books. It was the best time I had all week.

That was what I wanted to do this week - be in the moment, love every second of it, be happy, relax, have perspective, get out from under the fear that has been crushing me. It was a complete and total failure and I'm really mad at myself for it. And the fear, it is still suffocating me.

Would you not trust your lawyer if he or she misplaced a comma?

I don't claim to be all about proper punctuation - particularly here on my blog. I just don't really care. However, a strange thing happened today. I realized what a freak I actually am (well, jeez, it's about time isn't it?).

No, the project didn't get done on time. And yes that bothers me, but we have been missing deadlines left and right because we are all drowning. Anyway, the deadline isn't that big of a deal. I sent the work product to the client at noon today - and the fact is - it was only 1/4 of the complete product - the rest is due to be delivered next Monday through Wednesday.

And thank God for the junior associate because it took us both all day to pull the advice together. And, she sat there with me until 7:45 p.m. which was when I finally decided that it wasn't going out last night. And she listened to me stress about the phrasing of every other sentence and wondering whether my use of the words anticipate, expect, should, may, could, possibly - were sufficient - whether my advice was properly hedged in the event of an incorrect factual assumption.... She really did a great job helping me and I couldn't have gotten this out today without her.

Here's the thing - when I don't have a partner to sign off on something, I can edit it ad infinitum. I prefer it of course when I have partner approval - it always makes me nervous when he says send it and I don't want to read it. That's good though right - I mean, he trusts me, he thinks I know what I'm doing, he must think I write well. It's just that with this I was responsible for analyzing it, preparing it and delivering it without approval. And I realized how hard it was to cut myself off from the editing process and how stressful it is to be in the position of taking responsibility for the advice. I mean - I never have anyone looking over my shoulder and telling me how to do something - and I generally take a project from beginning to end myself - but I always have the partner to answer questions and give me final sign-off on something. It just seems like lately more and more responsibility is falling on me. More and more clients call me directly instead of the partner (because I am easier to get a hold of) - I just feel like the responsibility has doubled in the past few weeks. It's noticeable and sudden.

And with this particular project I didn't even have anyone to answer questions - it was like I was ultimately really responsible for the analysis and advice, and it really made me nervous even though I know what I am doing.

In the end though I was actually really happy with the work product and really comfortable with it. And then in a moment of panic, before I sent it - I had to re-assess my use of the comma and semi-colon through out - because, you know, wouldn't it concern you if your lawyer misplaced a comma (actually, would you know if your lawyer misplaced a comma)? Never mind the advice, it's the comma that matters. Like I said, when I write my blog or anything else, who the hell has time to care about commas etc. (sorry Nina, by the way, you should read Nina). But when it comes to my work, I am meticulous about every last little detail.

So what I learned from this particular project is that my job is becoming stressful in new ways that it didn't used be (gee, making partner looks less interesting after the week I've had), and that I may not be the easiest person to work for - my standards are pretty damn high when it comes to putting my name on something.

(I'm not really going to mention that I have to work this weekend and that I'm bitter about it. I also won't go into detail on how I screwed myself over by not working after noon today so that you can at least feel a little sorry for me that I am going to work on Easter.)

I can't keep eating cereal for dinner

There really isn't anything nutritious about it. And I don't even have fruit to put on it. But the thing is, when I get home at 8, when I work 12 hours and then get home late, I don't feel like cooking. Cereal is quick, easy, it doesn't make a mess. It's basically just filler - just something to put in my stomach. For the most part, I don't miss being in a relationship - I'm really quite fine with not having to accommodate someone else all the time. BUT - it would be nice if I had someone to procure food for me. I would love it if someone stuck a plate of food in front of me when I got home, and then they left and took their snoring, annoying habits, etc. elsewhere. But I don't have a boyfriend, or a cook. So, cereal it was, again. Actually, last night, I had cereal and chips and salsa. Yeah. It's too bad that I really like cooking - because it's hard to find the time. And I really like to cook for other people more than for myself, but I have no one to cook for.

And I'm not complaining about the working - no, not me. But the thing is, I really don't like working this much. But I'm not complaining because one minute I'm too slow then I'm too busy, then too slow, then I'm drowning with no end in sight. That's just how it goes. And I need the hours. But there is one thing I don't like about it - when I work like this, I lose touch with everything. I just get in a zone and I just numb out. I can't even tell you how I feel right now, or how I've felt this week - am I happy, anxious, depressed, content, I don't have the faintest idea. I can't even access it.

It used to be that I loved it when I got this busy. I work well under pressure. I used to like it - it was like a drug. I could use my job to numb out for a while. I don't like it anymore. I like a little more down time. I like to be in touch with what's going on with me. I like to at least have an awareness of how I feel and where I'm at mentally. Because you know what will happen, I'll be so busy that a few weeks go by unnoticed and just when I feel in the groove of what I'm doing, and I'm so busy that I've basically forgotten that I'm not feeling anything - I'll be impaled by an emotion. It's happened before, many times. And the problem with those kinds of emotions - those that hit right when you don't feel anything - they feel like they can kill you.

Anyway, things are good - just busy. I'll try to keep up on posting, it's just that sitting in front of a computer when I get home isn't what I feel like doing. But I'll try.

Now that I've perfected my drug cocktail

Hopefully I will start feeling better - a little Mucinex, a little Advil Cold & Sinus. Maybe I'll throw in a little Sudafed cold and Alkaseltzer cold, you know, to catch every symptom - cause I have 6 products on the counter. Just kidding. If I'm not better by Friday morning, I'll go to the doctor I suppose. The Mucinex is working already I think. The thing is, I don't feel terrible, I just don't feel good. I feel pretty bad, but how bad is bad enough to not go to work? That's always the question and my meter for that is not calibrated correctly. Today I had a deadline that had to be met - so both the partner and I came in sick. Deadline trumps illness. I am one of those people that will work no matter what basically (obviously, as I worked full-time through cancer treatment). In fact, I've actually said, "I would have to be at least half-dead to not go to work." I probably shouldn't stay stuff like that.

Anyway, I left work at 4:15. My new thing, these days, is not feeling guilty anymore. I'm no longer going to feel guilty about leaving work when I'm sick, or even about leaving when I'm not sick - but can leave just because it's slow and I don't have a deadline. It's important to take advantage of those days because, well, they aren't that common (I'm rarely slow) and there are lots of days when I stay late. No more guilt.

My other new thing is not feeling anxious - about anything - about my job, my hours, my bank account and my health. These are the things that cause me the most anxiety. Well, I'll let you know how this goes. Not feeling guilty and and not feeling anxious are always on my agenda and I'm rarely consistently successful at it.

There are a lot of reasons why I feel guilty about not working "enough." Mostly though it is because they paid a hefty fee to my headhunter to hire me and three weeks later I was diagnosed with cancer. But the thing is, anyone will tell you that I've more than made up for this. I know, I say it a lot, but I really did work 50 hours a week through cancer treatment. And I only billed 50 hours under the requirement that year. And I was the most profitable associate in the group. And on and on. In fact, I worked so much during all of that, that the people I work with sort of thought I was crazy. So for how many years am I going to feel bad about this and feel like I have to continually and repeatedly prove myself? I mean, I think I have actually. It's actually a combo of guilt about having had cancer and feelings of unworthiness. I have such a great job and I don't deserve it. I'm working on not feeling that way too.

I thought I had gotten over it, feelings of guilt and unworthiness, but then two weeks ago, when the ordeal happened (the breast cancer scare I just had is now referred to as the "ordeal"), all of the guilt came back and I thought, oh no, they are going to regret hiring me. It isn't true. It's all unfounded fear on my part.

So I left early, ran a couple of errands, promptly put my pajamas on and here I am. Happy to be blogging and next I'll post some photos!

The heat is not on

I was thinking more in terms of work - meaning the pressure - the pressure is not on at work. But now that I mention it, the heat actually isn't on - meaning the heat in my condo. For those of you who were following the story last year - you know that I never turned the heat on last year. Well, it seems I won't need it this year either. It's just this weird thing about my condo - it's always 70-72 degrees no matter what. If it's 50 out like today - then it's 72 in here. If it's 0 out - like last week - then it's 70 in here. I'm not sure why actually - maybe it is well insulated or something. The condos are concrete - the walls, the ceilings (you can't hear anything either between units). I have a condo above and below me and on either side of me - but one whole wall is floor to ceiling windows. I wonder if the neighbors have their heat on? It just seems like I would need the heat, a little. But, nope. I am sure that I won't. My gas bill, it's only $11 a month. When I don't cook (and I only microwave food) - it's about $3.50.

On the work front - no heat their either. I'm one of those people that works well (better?) under pressure - and there just hasn't been any since October. So - given that - I've made the decisions I need to make about the rest of the year (billable year) - I've decided to coast my way to the minimum hour requirement. I was actually on track for 150 hours over, but I lost the cushion over the holidays. Now, if I just bill an easy 160 per month - I'll hit the minimum and that's totally acceptable. It's really just a question of what your time is worth - and given that I can only get up to an extra 5% per every 100 hours over the minimum - I have deemed it not worth the effort. Why work extra hard for something unknown when I could coast for the next 4 months? If I knew I got 5%, I might do it, but what if I only get 2% - in that case I will wish I had gone home. Of course if the work is there, I'll do it, but if it isn't - or if I have to take projects I don't really want that I can decline - I might as well go home and have my free time.

Plus, I need to write an article to be published in some upcoming publications on a recent project that I did/am doing, there is a conference that I want to go to in April, and I fully intend to take some days off to go to Boston (soon I hope) to see my brother - and I might take another short trip or two. So, while I feel guilty, as I noted in my earlier post - I'm just going to get over it and enjoy not being as busy (watch - now something will happen and I'll end up swamped).

I have noticed that when the pressure goes down, my motivation goes with it and suddenly I'm half as efficient and have a hard time concentrating - so hopefully it will pick up just a little.

Then I burned the toast, twice actually

I realized this morning that there is definite value in having to be at work by a certain time, even if it is only to get cheaper parking. The value - it requires you to get there. See, I don't have a job that requires me to be there at a certain time. We all just do our own thing and set our own schedules and get our work done and it's a non-issue. I am a come in earlier and leave earlier type (in theory - the leaving earlier part), while the partner I work for is a come in a little later and leave a little later type (which is why me leaving earlier is more of a theory). The head of my group is a come in extremely early and leave... (uh, does he leave?). The guy down the hall is a come in really late, if at all, and then disappear behind a door not to be seen for what seems like days. So basically, I have nothing but myself to motivate myself to get there (except the occasional obscenely early morning phone call, and I used to have the prospect of reasonably priced parking).

I could have guessed the whole thing would go wrong when I hit that snooze button this morning...

I'm not a snoozer and in fact, I didn't even snooze. I just laid there, for 8 pointless minutes. Then I skipped praying, because I thought - oh, I'm "late" getting in the shower - I'll pray when I get out, which I forgot to do. See - I have this down to a science - getting ready for work. I do the exact same things in the exact same order every single day and it takes the exact same amount of time. Seriously. It takes me X number of minutes to get up, do what I need to do, get out the door and get into the parking garage by 8 a.m. - give or take about 3 minutes. It is precise.

But a funny thing happens when you don't "have" to be there for the cheaper parking rate (because you are, ahem, a monthly parker). Suddenly every aspect of "getting ready" takes significantly longer. Huh. That's surprising. I used to be able to do this in X number of minutes. I also seemed to have a bit of a snag with my breakfast. Normally I can pull breakfast off without a hitch (cause how hard can it be really?). But here I am doing things all out of order, neglecting to pray, reading a blog, wandering around aimlessly apparently, putting makeup on before eating, and then wait a second, I burned my toast. Crap, I hate burnt toast, let me make it again while I finish putting make up on. Crap, I burned it again. Seriously. I burned the toast twice this morning in just a few minutes.

Then I'm all ready to go - finally. I thought - shit I completely forgot to pray, and damn it now I have black pants on and I don't want to re-lint roll the cat hair off. This praying out of order thing doesn't work for me. I have to roll out of bed and onto the floor and pray immediately, or I won't remember. I know - I'll pray in the car, no wait - I'll pray in my office when I get to work, I'll just pray in my chair. No, no, that won't work. Go stand in front of the book shelf and pray (further delay in leaving). I did - I stood in front of the book shelf that I normally kneel in front of, coat, purse and all, and prayed. It sounds odd probably that I kneel in front of a book shelf - but - the books I read are right there - I do two daily readings and then pray - and I like to kneel in front of this painting that I painted that is on the book shelf (it's a painting of a lake and a tree and a sunset).

Anyway, it turns out this was all about parking all along. Going to work early I mean. I had this perfectly artificial reason to go to work. It was not that I love my job and that I just can't wait to get there to the piles and piles on my desk of projects that need to be done for clients that want to "achieve compliance" and I just can't wait to help them do this so I get there early every day (and, uh, stay late). No, it was about the parking. It's more like this - if I have to go there, well, I would like it to be as convenient as possible while at the same time being reasonably priced. But if I had the option, I would probably rather just stay home, at least lately I think. Now, don't get me wrong, I do really like my job a lot - I might even go so far as to say I love my job, but it was definitely the parking motivating me. I think I need a vacation. So now what am I going to do? I am going to have to invent another reason to go to work.

The balance I can't strike

There is a fine line between having just the right amount of work and being way too busy. And then of course there is also being way too slow. In a matter of a couple of hours I can go from just right to overloaded. Last month I was way too busy (241 hours billed - this is way too much), my present goal is to have just enough work (which means I want to keep my cushion so I need 170 billable), however, I am currently falling way below the line (uh, not sure where yet). Rarely do I find that I have just the right amount of work - it's just impossible to nail this balance perfectly because it isn't really within my control. I knew this would happen - that there would be a lull when this recent project ended. I wasn't sure how much of a lull, but I knew there would be one.

You might think I would enjoy it. Why not enjoy the downtime, right? You never know how much you are going to get and it's very possible that you will have multiple months over 200 in a row. So enjoy it, leave early, blog, shop online, take a walk, appreciate that you can leave at 5 p.m. and not work on weekends. Love every second of it. I am trying to bite my tongue and not go into the partner's office and tell him I'm worried about the work load (cause I, uh, did that on Monday). He just laughs at me anyway and then when I am drowning again, he likes to remind me that I was once worried that there wouldn't be enough. He told me on Monday that I should be worried about having too much in the near future. The problem with right now - is that it's unscheduled downtime. That's why I don't enjoy it.

I like to schedule my downtime - you know, take a vacation or something or take a day off. I like to plan my downtime in and choose when it happens and unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. It's just slow when it's slow and rarely when I want it to be slow. Then of course the day that I want to be off, to go home to Michigan for example, I'll be drowning and unable to go. Or the vacation that I do plan way off in the future will coincide with some really big deadline and I'll end up working during my vacation anyway. There really is no such thing as vacation time for us. All time that isn't billable time is just lost time, like now, blogging. Time I have to make up for later in the grand scheme of billing hours. My time never feels like my own.

It is almost inevitable that I will screw around here on the Internet for several hours today and then at 5:05 something will happen and the next thing I know it will be 8 and I will still be here. I don't mean to complain though - I was thinking earlier today how fortunate I am to have a job that I actually really truly like a lot. Most people with my kind of job can't even say that. They might do the job for various reasons but will admit to not liking it at all. I really do like it. Now, if only had some actual work to do.

Coming down off the stress of it

This time the project is actually over - the last time I said it was over, on Tuesday, it wasn't actually over. We still had to get the hard copies out and then we decided we needed to supplement something, then we had to travel to the client - and now it is over. Coming down off the stress of it was instant this time. The second we walked out of there, I felt better. Normally it takes a few days - I freak out a little about having nothing to do, I can't figure out what to do with my time, I start to stress about the billable hours - this time - I'm glad to have the 70 hours back, I'm looking forward to a slower month, and I'd be fine just sitting on my couch for a few days watching bad t.v. in my pajamas. I felt the tension go out of my body immediately, and it felt great, and now I'm just tired. I almost went to bed at 7:30 - but that would have been bad - considering the time change - I would have been up in the middle of the night.

In reflecting on this whole experience - this project - I have to say, I actually handled the whole thing really well. I don't normally work that many hours and I maintained a really good balance of working and going to a lot of meetings. I was stressed - but never really freaked out about it. These are the types of situations where I really see the differences in myself between the way I am now and the way I used to be - in my ability to handle things and to maintain my serenity and meetings in the midst of stress. I see the program at work in other parts of my life when it comes to handling things. With respect to the project - it is probably the biggest project I've ever done - not in terms of fees or anything - because I worked on a really big deal last year - but considering I did the bulk of this project alone - it really is an accomplishment. The client was really happy with the whole thing, as were the partners and it is definitely something that is highly marketable and may generate work.

On an unrelated note - I paid off my entire private student loan in one lump sum a few days ago. That had me a bit freaked out - I mean, it cut my savings account in half. But I had talked to multiple financial people and they all agreed that I should pay it if I could and just keep saving for my down payment. It's hard to part with money like that - I have this real (and unfounded) fear of financial insecurity. No matter how much I make, it never really seems to go away. Which only leads me to believe that something else underlies it - it isn't really about the fear of financial insecurity. In any event - I have a good budget and I am planning to rent for one extra year - so I think it was the right thing to do. Although can you tell that I'm still freaked out about it? I still have debt - only student loan debt - that by no means got rid of it - it's just that the rest is federal so it is locked at a low rate. I may up the payment on that one though also.

Anyway - more to follow as I unwind from the past month...

Traveling

Hello from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was really trying to stay off the Internet (for about, 3 minutes). I thought - why charge the client an extra $10 just so I can uh, check my email, which I've, well, which I'm on constantly. I mean, it's already 10:44, what could I possibly need to check my email for? And anyway - if I need to check it - like really really need to, well, there is always the blackberry. I've composed rather long emails and even posts on that thing.

I just needed to check in because my contact with people, that aren't work people, has been minimal today, and well, frankly, traveling takes a lot out of me. I don't really like it actually, though it is easier than when I first came into the program. I remember the first time I traveled in sobriety - it was for my previous job and I had been sober 2.5 months. It was really scary actually. Fortunately I got really sick and came home early. I used to really like to travel, now I just find it one giant temptation to contend with. I think it would be highly unusual to go out of town and not think about it and not be tempted. I actually am really noticing a difference though - the past few times. It used to really freak me out - it used to be terrifying. Now it's more like - well, there are things I would rather do, than go out of town with colleagues, but whatever, I'll be slightly emotionally hungover afterwards and glad to be home. That's about the extent of it.

Plus, when we travel for work, we only stay in really nice hotels - so that's a plus - though it's made me a bit of a hotel snob as my brother would call me. I don't like crappy hotels. I have to say - the Crowne Plaza in London was nice for $450 a night, and the Four Seasons in Houston actually was good too - I rather enjoyed eating my room service in the bathrobe and going to bed early while my colleagues got so drunk that half of them had to skip the meeting the next day. I like the bedspread to be white cotton and I prefer to walls to be painted rather than papered with some weird pastel old looking stuff. I feel a little guilty though - I could have stayed somewhere cheaper - but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else. So, I'm sitting here in the fluffy bathrobe, contemplating what to order to my room for breakfast. Do I just want cereal like I always eat at home, or this yummy looking breakfast flatbread thing?

I just hope I can sleep - cause sleeping in hotels is not my favorite thing. Though I do love this time zone - I definitely love the eastern time zone more than central. Anyway, guess what the first thing I did when I walked in the room was? Checked the mini bar - it was surprisingly locked. Usually it's not locked and I just peruse it - it's just one of those things - you just have to know what is in there. I would sit there and wonder - is it locked, what's in it? I just have to know, I can't explain it really. I think it actually makes it easier to just look. It takes the temptation away for some reason. The truth is, I don't even want any of what is in the mini-bar - it doesn't even sound good - but I just have to open it, or try, otherwise, I won't be able to stop thinking about it.

On to other things. My brother is moving back to the country which is exciting cause I can see my nephew more. We have a meeting tomorrow at the client here in Charlotte and then this project ends. I cannot wait - finally the stress relief I have been waiting for will be mine come Friday night at this time when I get home. Otherwise - a few things have happened lately that are on my mind and bothering me - but I can't blog about them - which means I have to send them in an email to a friend who is the dumping ground for all things in my head that cannot be posted on the Internet. So, I am going to move on to that and think about this time tomorrow.

During the pause

I am taking a second - to breathe, to asses how I feel, to asses my mental state, to check my connection to my higher power (which, oddly, is missing). When things get crazy at work and I lose myself in the midst of what feels like chaos, I really have to make a conscious effort to check in and see just exactly what is going on with me. It can be easy for me to go for weeks, or a month even with no real awareness of myself. I just go through the motions. I often find, in that moment when I pause - that things aren't what they seem - my reality and actual reality are not the same thing - and I also find that I am right in the middle of trying to ignore or avoid something. It doesn't take alcohol, or anything for that matter, for me to check out for a while. It's automatic and unconscious even. I don't realize until I come out of it, where I've been. I repeatedly have those moments where I think wow - I don't think I have felt anything in like a month.

My stress level is pretty high at the moment. I haven't had the greatest week - between the stress of my job, the fight I am in with Volkswagen, the aftermath of the situation with my mother (I'm still waiting for that to hit me, aren't I going to have an emotional reaction to this?), and last Friday when I almost drank...when I actually stop to think about how I feel, I don't feel great, which isn't surprising. I feel tremendously stressed and on edge. I guess if you look at the situation from a higher, broader level - everything is fine, great actually. But down here where I'm at, in the moment to moment, it feels sort of unbearable and like it's never going to end. My natural tendency is to look for immediate relief. My tendency is not to want to go through the feeling, it is to go around it or avoid it altogether if possible. I'll go through the experience - just so long as I don't have to associate any emotion with it. That is how I have always survived. There is a just a disconnect between what I experience and what I feel associated with my experiences. You might say the feeling part is lacking altogether.

People tell me that I tell the story of surviving breast cancer as if I am reporting the story of someone else going through it - as if I have no emotional connection. I would say that is quite accurate. I really don't feel much of a connection to that experience. I have only bits and pieces of emotion here and there that I associate with certain things that happened during those 7 months. I have anger over some things, I have sadness, I have mostly fear, but, for the most part, like all things, I have compartmentalized the pieces and removed myself almost completely from the situation. I was there right, I must have been. Or was I just working 50 hours a week and pretending to be somewhere else? If it weren't for the fact that my hair is still shorter than it used to be, and if I didn't have a physical reminder every time I take my shirt off - I think I could seriously convince myself that it never happened. Much like my childhood actually - my brother and I will tell stories and there always seem to be a lot of things I don't remember. It's like I wasn't there - and in fact, in a lot of ways - I don't think I was.

That's how I feel right now - not here. I do this sometimes, where I let my job consume me. I just let it swallow me. It wasn't planned, it just happens that I have a major deadline on a major project and the whole thing is riding on me. And while I am not enjoying the stress of it or knowing that I will be working all month with little break, even on the weekends, part of me thought - ahhhhhh - here's a little relief. This is what it's like to escape from myself, to escape from the emotion - it is to be somewhere else completely while physically present in front of you. It's like a drug sort of. I've learned though to both love that and hate that about my job. It's like dreading the up-swing of my mood which can change pretty rapidly, because I know there can only be a down swing to follow. There is no easy way to come off of the high of working like I'm working and the stress that goes with it. The only way is to crash. I love it and I hate all at the same time.

It's different this time though - I don't usually realize that I've been in a period of total avoidance of myself and my emotions until I crash, somehow surprised every time that it's happening. It hits like a tidal wave and knocks me over. I'm more aware of it this time. I know there is something there and I'm stuffing it. So aware that I paused yesterday for a second - it was like flipping a switch - just to see what, if anything, I am not processing. And there it was - in that pause, all I could think was - but I'm still not happy. I had written all those posts about why I can't just be happy - what is wrong with me that I can't just be happy? And when you strip it all away, my job, the stress, the money, my car, my friends, my family, there is a very definite hole, a very definite emptiness. You take those things away from me, all those things that I am trying almost frantically to lose myself in the midst of - you take them away and there isn't anything left. Something is missing.

Later-day blogging

I forgot to mention earlier that Saturday is pedicure day. I love pedicure day.

Who here thinks it is unreasonable for a client to email me at 9 p.m. asking for a 9:30 a.m. conference call? I do. Who says I was even going to be there at 9:30 a.m. I had planned to not set my alarm, try to sleep in, take my time getting up, wander into work late whenever I feel like it, do nothing until 11:30, when I leave early for my lunch, return late, 1:30 or so, and start actual work at about 2 p.m.

Now granted it is my fault for checking email and forwarding it to the partner (who the client failed to copy so he never would have known) tonight which means I can't play dumb. I probably should have waited until the a.m. to forward the email - that way I could have claimed ignorance when I show up at 9:45. Frankly, I think the partner will agree with me, that we are not doing this call on a whim tomorrow morning, but just in case, I probably have to get there. Then again, nah. I am sticking to my original plan of moseying on in when I feel like it. The thing is - did the client really think I was going to set this up tonight? That's what I get for checking email - I like to know if I am in for anything in the morning, so I check it before I go to bed. And I check if first thing when I get up, cause I just have to know what came in during the night (I do mostly international work so I get a lot of stuff from other offices while I sleep).

What does all of this mean? It's time to 12 step the crackberry again. We admitted we were powerless over email, and that our lives had become unmanageable. What did people do before the Internet anyway?

The hurry up and wait phenomenon

The thing that irritates me the most about clients is the constant and false sense of urgency they all have. Everything is always an emergency - they needed the document yesterday, but they never call until the day after they think they needed it to tell you that. When they finally do call - it is after months of not hearing from them - just when you think the project is dead. This isn't one client, it is every single one of them and it never ceases to amaze me how they all call at once. This week was the perfect example of this hurry up and wait phenomenon. It's hard to take a client seriously when they say they really need something - but of course I do my best to meet whatever time lines they impose.

They story goes like this, every time: No word from the client for several months. Suddenly I get a meeting invite for a conference call on Monday. It's an emergency, things are moving fast and they need the documents as quickly as possible - by mid-week, can't I put aside whatever I'm working on to get this done? (This is impossible - this wasn't my project to begin with and I'm already busy full-time, I am not twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do here. I'm already billing 200 hours a month). The partner tells them they can have it Monday - maybe on Friday at close of business. This is my time that is being promised away - did I just lose my weekend to this? I shift things around, warn the partner I work for, don't do some stuff, stay late, draft the document - there is no way I am giving up my weekend to this. The partner sends it to the client on Friday at 5:30 p.m, (without reading it - I cringe every time my work product gets sent out without a partner reviewing it). The partner tells her he will read it over the weekend and provide additional comments and they can chat Monday.

The client emails back, "Thanks. I won't be able to look at until next Wednesday."

WHAT? Well, good thing I salvaged my weekend then, cause I would have been ticked if I spent the weekend on it only to find out that she couldn't have read it before next Wednesday anyway.

Then, just as I'm assessing how far behind I now am because this threw my whole week off track - I get an email from the partner I do work for asking me if I can do something by Monday. Of course!! Sure!! No problem, I say with a smile on my face. %$@%!^@%@, is what I say in my head.

Be careful what you teach your children

You influence your children in ways you don't realize. For example, my mother never really took care of herself - she never did nice things for herself. Overall I would say she has treated herself pretty poorly. It has taken me until now, 30 years old, to learn to do nice things for myself and take care of myself, and feel okay about it. Little things like getting a pedicure of a massage - I never used to do those things or think that I deserved to feel good in general.

Anyway, my brother wrote this interesting post about how he got where he is and why. It made me think about how I got to where I'm at and I always think it's interesting to compare the ways that our childhoods affected us, sometimes differently, even though we grew up in the same dysfunctional house. My mother is an alcoholic who has never been sober and my dad is emotionally unavailable for the most part and dysfunctional in other ways. I could write post after post about the chaos we grew up in, but I'll leave that for later. For now I will just say that there was an incredible amount of tension and pressure around school and success. I'm not really sure where this came from because neither of my parents are educated. I think it stemmed mostly from a desire that we would have more than they did.

I think by and large most of the pressure fell on my brother who is two years older than me. My parents always treated us as if my brother was the smart one. My brother was good at math and science. My brother was the one that they expected to be successful, to excel, to stand out. I guess I don't really know what my parents thought I would become - I just knew that whatever it was, it would pale in comparison to my brother's achievements. My brother bore the brunt of my mother's pressure while I think I lingered in the background suffering in other ways as a result of her alcoholism.

On top of not being the smart one, there were no real role models in my family. My dad's family, who we were closer to than my mother's, are not supportive when it comes to education. In their family, you are not supposed to go to college, particularly if you are a woman. You are supposed to marry young and have babies and not work outside of the home if possible. You aren't supposed to travel outside of the state of Michigan, and if you do leave the state you have to drive, because flying is unsafe. God forbid you live in a city and make too much money. I always say that my dad's family's motto is, "why have more when you can settle for less?" I am like the black sheep of the family - educated, a lawyer, living in a city, making a lot of money, unmarried, no children. (Now granted I want to get married and have children, but I don't want to give up my career).

Anyway, basically I had no support from anyone. In my entire life, my mother has only ever told me that I am good at two things, even to this day - cleaning and arguing. I think she used to say I was good at cleaning just to get me to clean so she didn't have to. And she always used to say, "you would be a good lawyer, you like to argue." Almost from the time I can remember, I knew that I would be a lawyer. What were my options? Cleaning person or lawyer. Now if I had gone the cleaning route, I would probably own my own cleaning empire already! She told me I wasn't good at math and science, so I couldn't be an engineer, a doctor or a scientist. Besides, those were my brother's goals and I would always be overshadowed. I needed to do something different so I could stand out. The truth is, I don't know how good I am at math or science because I only ever tried half-heartedly, expecting that I would fail. I had no role models so I think I truthfully didn't know just how many options I might have had. I was also motivated by money because it was always a huge stress growing up - there was never enough and there was constant fighting over it. I just knew that whatever I did, I wanted financial security.

All my life, since I was 7, I wanted to be an architect. I really really wanted to be an architect. I think this would have been my passion in life. But my mother told me I wasn't good enough at math so I abandoned the idea in favor of the one thing she told me I might succeed at - that seemed like a sure bet. I know now that being a lawyer isn't a sure bet or necessarily your ticket to financial freedom - though for me it has been, this isn't always the case. I have been lucky in my career and am very fortunate to have gone to a top law school and to work at one of the top firms in the world. This isn't every one's experience and I am grateful for everything that I have worked for and earned. Even though I never pursued what I really wanted to do, I have always continued to think about it.

Even my father had no faith in me. When I got my first job out of law school, my dad congratulated me by saying, "I just didn't think you had what it would take to compete at a top law school." Thanks dad. My life, my education, my career, has been a series of steps to try to prove myself. To prove that I am smart enough, capable enough, as good as my brother, as successful as my brother. I've been trying all my life to prove to my parents that they were wrong about me, and even now, despite my success, my accomplishments still, and probably always will, pale in comparison to my brother's. My mother parades my brother around like he is an accomplishment of hers, while I continue to linger in the background. The thing is, I can't be any more successful. I have as great of a job as I ever could get with amazing opportunities in front of me. I have nothing left to prove. I just need to convince myself - this has been as much about proving it to myself as it was about proving it to my parents.

Being a lawyer may not be my passion, it's hard to say, because I've never been an architect - but I love my job and I am very happy where I'm at. Do I wish I had made a different choice? No. If I could do it over, would I make a different choice? No. So in the end, I guess I ended up where I would have wanted to be - it just wasn't because it was what I always thought I wanted - it was all I ever really thought I could succeed at.

Christmas in July

So my employer has given us another raise - they have bumped our salaries up again in accordance with the increase in New York salaries. I say again because they already did this once this year - effective January 1. Now they have done it again - which makes 4 pay increases for me since I started working there 14 months ago - and it isn't an insignificant amount.

Frankly, I think they might have lost their minds. As I said before in another post, most of us would gladly give part of the money back in exchange for some of our time. Then again, we have it really good as far as hours go. Of course I am not complaining about this, though I have some concern that it is going to mean we have to work harder and I already work extremely hard as those of you who know me are aware of.

Anyway, I am tremendously grateful and also excited about this happening - though I feel like I shouldn't admit that. It's okay to be excited about getting a raise right? I already feel like people judge me and make assumptions about me for being successful and in some ways I am almost ashamed to admit it. I should be proud of myself and not ashamed of it. I deserve it right? I don't think most people would be sitting here having this debate in his or her head. They would just say thank you and enjoy it.

People always say that money doesn't buy you happiness, and I can tell you that this is true - cause I've experienced this first hand. Trying to buy happiness or find it outside of myself, in people and things - always believing that some other thing that I just have to get my hands on will make me happy. It isn't true. But I would be lying if I didn't say that it makes life easier - that it buys you freedom and it buys you options and that I would be less happy under different circumstances. Surviving breast cancer though has really made me appreciate what matters in life - and it isn't anything that money can buy.

I feel like people think I am greedy or selfish because I am excited about this (or maybe that idea is planted in my brain because my mother started telling me that when I was 8 years old) but I do have an appreciation for everything I have - because everything I have I worked for and got all on my own, with no help from anyone, and in spite of a horrible childhood and an utter lack of support. People always tell me that it is amazing that my brother and I are both successful and functional given the way we grew up.

Anyway, like I said, I have earned everything I have and gotten it all on my own. With the exception of my sobriety that is - my sobriety I owe to more people than I can count, and AA and God. Of everything I have, and I have been blessed I think, my sobriety is the most important. My sobriety and my health. Everything else is icing on the cake.