Work Related

I'm just noting stuff here for my records. You can move along if you'd like.

Today was one of my regular 90-day follow-up visits with the neurologist. I whined about how I'm a year out and it is so depressing that I go backward and forward because when I start going backward after feeling good, it seems like the mountain just keeps getting higher and I have less desire to climb it. I had a bad BAD week last week and I was truly down in the dumps and sometimes when I go to 'that place', it seems like I'm never going to see sunlight again.

No worries- I'm not saying that I don't have a desire to live... I'm just saying that every time I go backward I think about changing jobs or SOMETHING so the stress is eliminated. I told this to my neurologist and she confirmed that getting rid of stress and/or always getting enough rest is about the only way I'm going to alleviate the symptoms, however not having a job would be very bad too. I need to continue to do things to push myself- just not so much. She also confirmed that it's not the symptoms making me tired- it's being tired that makes my symptoms worse. This is something that I've been wondering because the two go hand-in-hand. I shall keep this in the back of my mind whenever I'm tempted to say yes to something when I really need to say no. I need to be more kind to myself. (And yes, I know that this is a lesson that keeps presenting itself to me.)

She has told me all along that one of the things about head injuries like mine is the inability to handle stress the way you're used to. This time she gave me a better mental image. She said to think of it like this; all my life I've walked on a balance beam about a foot wide. Now that balance beam is less than 6 inches wide and it takes much less to topple me over- physically and mentally.

Good visual.

I asked her about the pain in my head where I hit it in January and she said that it could be a couple of things; my nerves could be growing around the scar tissue and/or I might have a seroma (I had to look that one up.) She said either one of those things may or may not go away. Thankfully, it's not daily and it doesn't last for hours. It's more like someone is stabbing me in the head over and over again for several minutes and then it goes away for a while and comes back. No rhyme or reason that I can think of except it almost always happens if I bend my head over.

So, I've stopped doing that.

I told her about going cold turkey off the drugs for the 3 day weekend. She made me feel like a superhero for not calling her to get an emergency supply. She said that it must have been really rough. I told her that I just decided to deal with it, and if nothing else- it proved that the drugs really are doing something for me. She said to call her next time because the drugs I'm on are all bad to quit cold turkey and I shouldn't have to go through that.

I told her that the requip has helped, but I've found that it makes the jerking worse during the day. It's as if it keeps me from jerking and my body is storing up jerks or something and then lets loose once the requip wears off. She told me that in about 3 months, a long-acting version is coming out and we'll try that, rather than add more during the day. She said that I'm on enough sedatives as it is.

So, I see her in another 90 days.

I'm starting to re-think the training -vs- staying in the business possibility (the meeting is in 3 days...). I *think* moving over to training might be less stress- and right now, that needs to be my primary concern. I need to quit thinking about "what will be better for my after-retirement career" or "which department provides the most stability". None of it matters if I'm unable to enjoy my life.

Some day, I will get it into my thick skull that stress is not my friend. I hope that's sooner, rather than later.

I attended a teleconference a little while ago that has me stirred up a bit, and not in a good way. Now I'm being Mata Hari making calls and sending email all over the place to see if anyone knows what's up. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), it's a BEAUTIFUL day in rainy town and it's a Friday, so it's pretty much a ghost town at corporate.

Y'all know that I *LOVE* my job. LOVE LOVE LOVE. My being stressed and tired has nothing to do with my job or the people I work with. Being stressed is due to the head injury and my ability to not handle stress the way I used to. I can't even imagine how I would have handled my last job with this issue. I probably would be wearing one of those cute white jackets and rocking back and forth in a corner somewhere.

Anyhoo.... back to the conundrum...

Beside the fact that my last job had become hell on earth, another reason I left was because all people with a job title that had anything to do with training, would eventually be centralized and forced to either work for the vendor that took over training development, or quit. No layoff or severance. No way was I going to be in that situation.

My new (well, it's not new I guess, I've been here almost a year now) job, even though I do develop training, is not labeled as a trainer. I'm very slyly labeled as a risk manager. I just so happen to manage risk by developing training and communications to make our employee base more aware of their role in Information Security.

It is the best of ALL worlds. I get to dabble in training development, learn new stuff (I am in LOVE with the topic of Information Security), do a lot of writing, do web stuff, etc. Every little single thing I love to do, I get to do in my current job.

Part of my training role is to attend "Learning Leaders" meetings to keep up on what's going on and add my VERY IMPORTANT .02. (ha!). That was this afternoon. They announced this afternoon that the transition to centralization is starting now. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, thinking that I was well under that radar.

UNTIL.....

I received a meeting invite for 07/10 that included the new head of centralized training and five other people. I happen to have a long history with the new head and love him to pieces, so sent him a note saying that I was looking forward to seeing him, still being rather unaware of the potential outcome. He wrote back that he's really looking forward to seeing me and that we're going to have a lot of fun together.

SCREECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rather than ask him what he meant by that, I called one of the other people in this meeting (who is actually a manager of training for my division- but I do not report to him... I'm kind of a rogue trainer) to see if he knew what was going on. He said he had an inkling and asked me if I had a choice, would I rather move to training or stay in Information Security and not do any training development.

"I'm sorry", I said, "I don't want to choose. I don't want to give either one of those things up.".

He said that I might not have a choice.

I have a call into my manager, but again- it's a nice sunny day in the land of rain and I'm sure she's gone. I'm sure I won't hear back from her until Monday.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about this. I'm like a kid that doesn't want to give up any of my toys. Each toy is my favorite, depending on the day.

....at the Grinch.

I'm awfully happy that we don't really cross paths too much anymore, but when we do- it's usually not a pleasant experience. He is so nasty and negative.

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the managers and there he was, doing his usual thing; texting my manager with what I'm sure were very snippy messages based on the look on his face.

It's so darned disrespectful. He does it in EVERY meeting, no matter who is presenting. The look on his face says it all.... "Oh SNAP! I'm so funny with the way I cut down other people". Seriously, the look on his face looks down-right evil. I am not exaggerating.

I don't understand why he hasn't been called out for this. It's obvious what he's doing. Maybe I should have called him out while I was giving my presentation.

"Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us, Grinch?"

Hindsight....

In other news, I'll be away from my blog (and yours) for a few days. One of my previous employees (and now friend) is coming into town and staying with me from tomorrow through Monday morning. I suspect we'll be having a few fun adventures. I plan to take her on the train to and from work on Friday. I just hope that we'll see some interesting people.

...speaking of interesting people. There's a guy that rides the 5:15 train (I'm usually on the 4:20) that gets on the train with his bike. He's REEKED of alcohol every single time I've seen him. He can be a few feet away and I still smell it. You can tell by looking at his face that he's been a friend to the bottle for a long time. Poor guy. I kinda feel sorry for him.

There's also this strange 'couple' that sits where I like to sit (good thing there are three seats, eh?). I sometimes listen into their conversations because they are clearly in that "I wonder if she/he likes me" phase and say all kinds of things to try to nudge some sort of "I like you" phrase out of the other. One of these days I'm going to say, "JUST SAY IT and quit wasting each other's time". Aside from that, the girl is clearly a little challenged in the social skills. Maybe I should give her a script or something. I don't think she's ever going to get this thing off the ground until she learns the fine art of conversation.

I think this post went all over the place. I'm clearly not very focused. I hope that improves as the day goes on, for my employer's sake.

Geez, I'm clever with the titles- eh?

I was leading a meeting of three (including me) earlier today. Since there were only three of us, I was sitting down while going over my stuff. All of the sudden everything started going black and I felt as if I was in a weird dream. I kept trying to make it stop (yeah, like I have any control over it), but I wasn't having any luck. I was seeing double and felt like any minute I would fall off my chair and bonk my head. I couldn't make any sense of what I was doing or saying for several minutes (it seemed that way, anyway- not sure how long I was foggy).

Fortunately, the other people in the room know me very well (one is my favorite project manager "FPM") and so although it was super embarassing, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. One of them asked if I wanted to have her call 911.

Ummmm NO! Are you kidding me? This was embarassing enough. I don't even want to think about the scene that would have caused. I felt like a complete drama queen already, I didn't need cute guys in uniform tending to my needs.

Oh wait- maybe that was a mistake.

After the meeting, I had to stop and sit every so often on my way to my desk because I could feel the walls closing in on me. I'm still sitting at my desk, wondering when it'll be safe to go to the bathroom, let alone walk to the train station.

As I was writing this, I got an email from FPM:

FPM: You OK?
Me:Yep, thanks for asking. I think I'm going to stay in my seat for a while because I still feel 'funny'. This is the sort of thing that gets my head cracked open and frankly I don't think my head could take any more dents.
FPM: Let me know if you need anything. I draw the line at adult care related things but if you want coffee or something sign me up.

Funny guy....

I hope this stuff goes away before I make the trek to the train station. I really don't want to be passed out cold on the sidewalks of downtown Seattle. I prefer passing out in the comfort of my own home, TYVM.

We have a bunch of consultants on our floor at work that kind of swooped in on Tuesday. Nothing to be concerned about, but it's always interesting to see new personalities in your surroundings.

When I'm in the office, I sit in a cube that's along the main 'drag'. This is a disadvantage for a couple of reasons:
1. It's easy for people to stop by to chit-chat
2. I can't goof off because people will notice (OK, I wouldn't goof off anyway, but it's fun to say).

Anyhoo- on Tuesday I noticed this guy 'gliding' by. Seems that he's working on something with someone a few rows over, so he goes back and forth several times a day. Each time, it was a smooth glide.

I was trying to imagine how he accomplished this. Was he on rollerskates? A skateboard? Or maybe he was using one of those Segways? I'll have to admit that I was awfully curious, but not curious enough to stand up to take a look.

It wasn't until today that I actually found out what he was scooting around on. Apparently the guy has a broken foot or leg or something and has a little scooter thing he's kneeling on; while scooting around with his other foot.

Today it has acquired a bit of a squeek and I've noticed that he's added a basket to the front. The basket makes him look a little silly.

On the otherhand... if I was forced to scoot around on one of those things, I'd certainly pimp it out a little. I'd put some pirate flags on the handle bars and probably put a little horn to make sure people don't get in my way.

I might even put some spinners on the wheels. Yeah.... that sounds FAB-u-LOUS.

Of course, I probably shouldn't have this in writing- because y'all know how clumsy I am. I know you guys are mean enough that if I DID break my leg and had to use one of those scooter thingees, you'd track down this post and make me stick to these plans.

I'm about to get some WD40 for the guy. The squeak... squeak... squeak is driving me nuts.