Scatterbrain

It feels weird. For the first time in ages my work week has not been full on busy. I have actually had time to feel…

wait for it…

… a bit BORED!

Wow. As in really?

Today I actually caught myself procrastinating – well mainly because I have this one thing I need to get done that is immensely tedious and now that I actually have the time… So before I actually made myself start this tedious task,  I cleaned my desk, organized the drawers, had numerous important “meetings” with colleagues over coffee (hey, social/professional networking IS important you know!) and gone through old behavioral/social/personality tests that I have taken throughout the last 2 years in work ( I just LOVE those!!). I have a thing for those tests.

So yeah, have been a bit of a scatterbrain today. But hey, it is not like I normally have time for it so I actually did cherish it.

Just one day left of the work week and then it is weekend. I am tremendously looking forward to relaxing this weekend. Am going away to the northwest of Ireland with a friend. Looking forward to just being outside in rugged and beautiful scenery. Hoping to be able to take some pictures as well as getting some decent walks in … so please, please dear weather-gods, do not make it rain buckets! I don’t think I have looked forward to a weekend away this much in ages. Yes it will most likely be freezing (it is February after all) but I really do not care.

Am hoping that I will have a few more moment over in the future so that I can post here a bit more often. In the mean time, please feel free to drop into Living 3703 as a new picture is posted there by Christy and myself every day this month!

Oh dear… I am a sales person

It is funny how my work experience has coloured how I react to new situations and new roles. In the last 10 years I have worked in IT sales, in different places. Been responsible for forecasting, reaching targets on a quarterly or yearly basis. Chasing customers, closing deals, pulling my hair in frustration… feeling the high when a deal closed. Ranted over the injustice of sales. Raved over commissions hitting my account.

After 10 years I hit a slump. It just was not fun anymore. The job that is. The people I worked with… well what can I say. I’ve met some of the coolest, nicest and funniest people while in sales. The last team I was in for 5 years…it was a blast. Best people I have ever worked with. Made some good friends and we are still in touch and meet up.

I have now for the last 8 months worked in the backend of things. Still in IT but this time in the back office. Great sales figures means more work for me so technically I should be more happy about less work. But you know what… I still get excited when it all rolls in. Happy for the guys in the field. I understand their talks about forecasting, get their frustrations in terms of pipelines, can sympathise when it doesn’t work out and smile when THAT deal closes.

Many of my colleagues now have not been in sales and it a very different mind-set. Not worse or better, just different. I am happy where I am. I work with great people. I just never realized that what I have done would be so beneficial for me now. It was not wasted when I left. It complements me. It makes my interactions more valued. It is also great when approached by really annoying, pushy sales men/women – been there, done that… doesn’t work on me.

Damn… I am a sales person still. Haha!

Hysteria

How to survive this Monday…

Blasting this at full volume. Only way to drone out office noise and to focus. What would I do without music…

Sunday thoughts

What a week it has been. Month end at work which means very high stress levels increasing with every deadline, programs not playing along and expectation to meet. I sat in work with shaking hands due to the adrenaline coursing through my system as I needed to get all sorted in time. Bad adrenalin rush caused by stress. Once the final meeting was done I felt wrecked, spent even.

To off-set this I made sure to go down to the club on Tuesday and Thursday evening and finishing up with a class on Saturday morning. Those two-hour classes were exhausting, physical demanding and just what I needed. The passive stress from work got funneled into physical exercises and was let out.

Yesterday I spent the rest of the day in the armchair reading a book. I was exhausted and tired but still I felt pretty good. I could sleep again without dreaming about spreadsheets and entering my life experiences into our work programs (yes, that was a pretty messed up dream).

I know now that from next week onwards I will get offloaded a bit in work. A colleague will take over some of my workload. Thank god for that. I will have some bandwidth again. I will be able to breathe.

So it was very busy, slightly mad, week. It was also a week with good news and good self realizations (see previous post). That is what I will try to remember from this week, the good things. Those that made me smile.

Men in white coats…

Right people…I am losing the plot! Focusing abilities are out of the window. I am supposed to sit and work very hard in front of my work laptop right this minute… instead I am writing this. My excuse is that as I believe that I am losing the plot I might just as well document this before the men in white coats take me away.

I have spent the morning literally staring blankly at my screen while the minutes, nay make that hours, tick by. I receive an email with an important query and I cannot scramble enough brain power together to actually figure out what I need to do. Arrgghh! Is this lack of caffeine (still no espresso in the house), lack of sleep (should really hibernate as it is a bloody blizzard outside) or is it time to check into the nearest “health farm”? (Please note I said health farm and not loony bin).

OK, will try to harness enough mental capabilities (no smart remarks now please…) in order to at least not totally eff up my work. Thank god my manager doesn’t read this blog…oh…and if she does…I am working very focused and this was all just a rambling joke written during my short lunch break…

Work rant

Am waiting for a report to finish running in the background so I actually have 5 minutes over for a short rant… need to rant right now as I am working from home today and I cannot rant at anyone else…my cats couldn’t care less. Sitting here with 2 laptops trying to get a ridiculous amount done with systems that crash on me all the time or give me stupid error messages… and the worst thing…I have run out of espresso coffee and am almost running out of tea bags!!!!

How, by all things holy, am I going to last the day without becoming homicidal? I also know that next month will be worse…when everyone else will have a nice few days off, I will be stuck with even more work…I think I will just go and hide under my duvet now…