They hate me! Moving on....

I am very lonely at the new job. I don't really have a lot of help from anyone, and the employees don't like me. I have received nasty (boarder-line threatening) messages that have hurt my feelings a lot more than they should. My boss says, "It happens". I am very sad at work lately.

In other news, I am thinking of running the half-marathon in Boston in October. I started the training yesterday and it went well. We'll see if I can keep it up.

I am also hoping to get involved in the theater community once again. It has been many years since I was last a part of a show and while I will not immediately be returning to the stage, I am going to try and get my foot in the door. To those of you who didn't know me in my younger years, I grew up on stage from the age of 5 and have missed it since I stopped in 1999.

I am back to eating healthy and I feel good about it. I went to the Taste of Buffalo this weekend, enjoyed lots of food (none of which was "healthy option") and still lost 2 pounds. I hope to soon be able to fit back into my clothes. Also, I haven't been smoking.

While it is true that I am not yet enjoying the new job, it has given me more time to myself which has made me a happier person outside of work (as long as I am not thinking about it).

This is where I work

My new gig

The new job has its good and bad points. I'll start with the bad so that I can end this on a positive note.

Bad:
-I don't have a purpose. I don't do anything but try to look busy. There is no reason for this position to exist.
-My boss is a pussy. I don't really have much respect for people who won't stand up for themselves.
-The building that I work in is falling apart and has rats all over.
-I feel guilty leaving when the night manager comes in because he never gets to leave on time.
-The sexual harassment sucks.

Good:
-I spend so much time looking busy that people don't want to interrupt me which means I have to deal with many fewer problems.
-My boss is a pussy. I will be pushing him around in no time.
-Since the city has given us 90 days to figure out what we are going to do with the building, things in that area will be turning around soon.
-Although I feel guilty leaving the night manager, I have made it clear to everyone that I will not be staying longer than absolutely necessary. I get little to no argument here since they believe that I took a pay cut.
-I did not take a pay cut.
-While the sexual harassment was shocking and unsettling, it has given some of my former co-workers a good laugh. Also, it has made me appreciate the professional experience that I have and allowed me to find a starting point for when I begin to turn this place around.
-I have been getting home on average 2 hours earlier than I was at my last job. That 2 hours has made all of the difference in the world. One day I got home from work, watched tv, attended a festival where I ate dinner, and went to a friends house when I glanced at a clock and saw that I would have just been getting out of work had I still been at the last job. Joy!

All in all, I am satisfied with the move. There are many things that I have to adjust to and many people that I will have to fire before I will be completely happy, but I am confident that I will get there. If not, nobody should notice if I just leave for a few hours at a time to come home and nap.

A break!

Ah! How nice this week has been! I have enjoyed a week of me time. No work and no real responsibility. I have been running, doing pilates, catching up with friends, cleaning, and relaxing. No need to worry about me any longer, friends. I have a new job.

I don't really know what I will be doing. All I know is that I will be working with customers much less. That is really the only thing I care about. The last day on my old job, I got into a fight with an 85 year old man about $20. I should not be allowed to work with the public.

I will be closer to home, I will be wearing a uniform so I don't have to pick out clothes to wear every awful morning, and I think I will be working less hours but there may be some nights and weekends in there as well. Blegh. I believe that I will be doing much more employee development and management type work rather than direct customer service. Yea!

All of this time to myself has given me time to visit my friends with babies and shop for the shower gifts for my friends who are getting married. Spending so much time doing this stuff inevitably led to thinking. This is why I shouldn't have time to think. I am a planner. I gave up my "life plan" a few years ago. That was the one where I was going to be married by 23 and have kids at 26, 28, and 30 while working my ass off putting myself in a position to retire by the age of 45 so that I can enjoy my retirement without kids and with plenty of money. It didn't work out. I don't want to put myself back on a time line (although the babies and wedding gifts made this all but impossible). I have found that when I do that, I spend too much time planning and not enough time enjoying my time now.

While I am stressing out a bit (not wanting to go back to work, and trying to manage finances) I want to make an effort to try relaxing and enjoying life as it comes a bit more. I will try to enjoy the rest of my vacation without worrying about Monday morning. I don't see this working out well for me, but it is worth an effort. I'll let you know how it goes.

So angry!

Upon taking a quick glance over the beginnings of my blog, I have noticed that I post something that I am really feeling or thinking about, then I post something lighter so as not to bring the whole thing down. Heres the thing, I want to be much lighter and happier than I am, but I won't let myself. I am so hung up on how much I hate my job, I cannot allow myself to be happy. I let it dominate my life. I don't really like the person that I am now. I am feeling angry all of the time and I am acting much meaner than I really am.

I actually got mad at a co-worker today for getting flustered for having to stop at 2 red lights in a row. Why would that anger me? Why would I allow something like that, at 7:20 a.m. ruin the first few hours of my day? When I think about it now, it was kind of funny. He was just too uncomfortable to be in the car with me for much longer so he felt the need to say something and it was "AH! Gaw....damn....wha the.....gaw...." It made me mad because I was annoyed that I was going to have to be around him all day.

Another customer got my personal cell phone number last weekend and I yelled at her. She was broken down in Florida and I told her not to call me back on that number. (I later felt compelled to call and apologize to her which also made me mad). I got into a tiff with a customer in front of my boss. One of my employees was very rude to a customer and came in to tell me what she had done and all I could do was smile, laugh, and tell her that I wanted to hug her for it.

The customer service I do is more difficult than waiting tables. People have blamed me for ruining their vacations, their finances, their relationships, their jobs, and their day/week/life. I have let people be so mean to me and I have smiled and apologized for so long that I have stopped caring. Please, someone find me a job.

Showers

I have a love/hate relationship with showering. I love to stand in the shower. I don't like to do anything but stand there under the warm water. Once in a while I will turn to ensure that I do not catch a chill on one side of my body. That is all that I like about it.

I hate that I am always under some sort of time crunch. Either the water will turn cold or I have to get somewhere. Usually the latter as I try to shower before work whenever I am able to drag my miserable ass out of bed on time. The worst thing about the shower is that it ends and I have to get ready. As much as I would like to say "I don't care how I look", I do. I like looking good but not "high maintenance" and that probably takes more time than it would if I were able to just cake the makeup on my face. I hate drying my hair because I know how bad it is for it but how much worse it will look and feel if I don't dry it right away. I hate picking out something to wear. I hate getting dressed. I hate leaving the sauna that my bathroom becomes by the time I am done in the shower. These issues are not listed in any particular order.

I enjoy bathing. I like to lay in the tub and read a good book. I would like to get a bathtub that is a little smaller than the standard size. In the movies, women are always able to lay in the bathtub with bent knees and lounge comfortably. I am too short for this. I get into the bathtub and lock my knees with my toes bracing me against the other side so that I can keep my head up high enough to read a book. I can stand this position for about 5 minutes before I have to put the book down and sink into the water to give my legs a break. I think the appropriate solution to this problem is a hot tub because I think they have seats. Will anybody buy me a hot tub?

So, what have I been up to lately? Trying to resolve the discontent in my life (mainly, my job). I have been looking into different possibilities. The most immediate solution is a job within my company that will pay me as much as I was making before my "promotion". Other perks of this position include a company car which I do not have to pay for, about 10 hours a week less than I currently work, and (perhaps most importantly) LITTLE TO NO CUSTOMER INTERACTION. I am actually disappointed in how much I have come to hate the general public. I used to be excited to meet new and interesting people and now I hold all strangers in contempt until they can prove to me that they are worth my respect. While I assume this damage is permanent, it would be nice to wake up in the morning and be optimistic that I may not have to interact with any customers.

Solution number two is law school. This is something that I have wanted to do since I was in high school. After going to college and majoring in political science, I learned that my passion is for constitutional law. I love to argue the constitutionality of laws because, more often than not, both sides have valid points. I grew up in a family that loves to argue facts. We would routinely reach for the encyclopedias and various other reference books to back up our points at family gatherings. Winning an argument like this really gets down to who has done their research and who can be more persuasive. You argue for the pure satisfaction of winning. It is a competition and I am a competitive person. The problem here is that there is not a whole lot of opportunity in this field and it is not as lucrative as other areas of law. I would probably end up doing something like tax law that would bore me to death.

My third solution involves teaching. I was told at 12 years old that I was not allowed to help my sister with her homework anymore because my frustration with her made her cry. I feel that I have grown a lot since this time. My favorite part of my current job is training and developing my employees and they all still like me. I just don't know what subject to teach. I liked pretty much everything in school. I don't want to be an English teacher, there are too many of them in my circle so I assume there is enough of them in the area. I was good at all types of math in school and enjoyed it very much. I don't think I should be a math teacher because my math brain does not work the same as most people and I get frustrated. Social studies would be easiest for me to get into. As a poli-sci major I have all of the prerequisites for the subject and only need to be certified. However, I love science and understand it. I loved all of my science teachers in school and always had fun in class. Also, I think there is less competition here because it requires more specific education.

The key here is that I enjoy being the center of attention. I really believe that it comes down to either arguing a case or teaching. Both will require about the same amount of additional schooling. I am leaning toward the teacher thing right now. If I have learned anything from my current job, it is the importance of keeping a work-life balance. I currently have none. I think it is important to keep work at work and to be able to relax at home and forget about the pressures of the office. While my personality doesn't lend itself to this behavior, I think it will be easier if my cell phone isn't ringing at 10 p.m. because a customer cannot figure out how to unlock the steering wheel of a car. I am leaning toward the teaching. Less money but lots of time for being home with myself, husband, pets, kids, etc.