I'm kinda stuck in a rut at the moment, or maybe I have been and am so far gone that I'm starting to pull out of it. It's mostly work, although I admit perhaps I just need a vacation and a good chunk of "me" time. Not the kind where I shut myself in my den and ask Dale to stay away, but the kind where he's at work and I'm not and I'm just home alone, no one here but the cats. I had a lot of that at one time and the past year, since I was put on first shift, has been taxing in some ways even though I'm glad to be home with Dale at night. Still, all that being said, work is the focus of this rant.
I know I hold my peers to higher standards than maybe I should, and therefore I'm always getting disappointed, but lately it's beyond that. There is this one person whom I feel nauseous even listening to now, and I want desperately for her to just disappear, or whatever it takes to avoid being anywhere near her. I was coping just fine (okay, barely) with her around, but the other day I just couldn't overlook a comment she made.
I have tried to make this work, I've adapted to the people I could adapt to. I've learned better ways to manage my time more effectively, I've become more streamlined, more knowledgeable, more organized. I enjoy taking on new things and on occasion have reluctantly said no to some people when I absolutely had no additional time or energy to give. I've found ways to adapt to some of the noise by pushing for headphones for my phone. It helped tremendously because at the highest volume, most of the noise can be drowned out, and thus I can actually hear my customers. I have tried to tune out the incessant chatter and cattiness that abounds in that dysfunctional team which I cannot, with any honesty, consider myself an integral part of right now. I've tried to teach and I've been blown off half the time. I've tried to explain. I've tried to document. The things I say and write are often overlooked, argued with, outright ignored or blatantly disrespected or laughed at.
When I have particular troubles with someone or something and I cannot figure out how to cope with it, my boss tells me to fix it myself, to talk to the person(s) I'm having the trouble with, or to go to a class. He seems to think he's being a good leader by simply telling us what we need to do, and sending all our complaints back to the origins. I think it makes him appear to be idealist bullshitter who has no control over his employees. Thus I respect his ideas and his brains but have no confidence in him as a leader so therefore I keep everything to myself and/or a select group of individuals which understand where I'm coming from. And then my boss seems to think that just because no one has vented to him in a while, everything must be fine and dandy.
Of course everything is fine and dandy. We've all figured out that you don't give a shit about us, so we stopped caring about each other and are just working for ourselves in one big room. We're still getting something done, but the vision to be great? That illusion disappeared the moment he chided me for being angry about having things thrown at me by a 19-year-old "employee."
So, I'm at the point now where I've been considering a few things. I could find another job, but truth be told I'm not just comfortable with what I do now, I happen to enjoy most of what I do. Not everyone can say that. So I don't really WANT to quit my job, even if it's entirely possible I'd be just as happy if not happier somewhere else, even if it meant commuting or a cut in pay. When it comes to what I want, money is only there because I need to survive. I grew up poor, I'm fine with struggle if it means I feel good about my work.
My second thought is to switch shifts. This would obviously require approval, but if I played it right and thought from a business perspective, I might be able to pull it off. The inherent problems there are that a) I'm really not good at staying up so late and b) I almost feel like I'd be running away from a problem.
My third thought is, "I want my own office." That, unfortunately, is not an option. I can't even get partitions to help block out some of the unnecessary personal conversations and arguments that go on.
I've been told in the past that if I have a big project to work on, I could request to work from home for a few hours or a day or whatever, so long as I could coordinate with my peers and make sure I'd not be doing such a thing when there wasn't enough help there. It was the most enjoyable experience! I sat here on Shady, completely immersed in code, working out problems I'd have absolutely no possibility of ever figuring out in the office. It would have been perfect if Darth (my work computer) was actually in such an environment, whether at home or not, but the fact is that without the constant interruptions and noise, I was at peak efficiency of mind and body. I could actually _think_. Imagine that.
In conclusion, I still have no definite answers right now. I'm still considering the schedule change as a possibility because I so desire silence, and second/third shift allows for that. What I do know in my head and in my heart is that no matter what the external force is, the internal one should be ruling over me now, and it isn't. I have, in the past, been able to simply stop caring what other people were doing, and just circumvent problems caused by them by slipping around things and correcting them myself to the best of my abilities. I guess my biggest problem right now is that I'm too damned _busy_ to be doing this. I have no time to think about how to keep outsmarting everyone so that things they'd like to screw up can still run smoothly. I'm sick of hearing about how wonderful I am and how deficient half my team is every day. I don't mind praise, but I want it only when it's deserved _only_ of my own accord, not out of some comparison to people that don't give a damn and reflect badly on the rest of us.
Why the actions of others are not corrected, I don't know. It's not my call, which has been painfully made clear to me. But I've GOT to figure out how to take corrective action on my feelings about the matter, because I don't want to come home every night in tears or anger and miss out on the love at home.
Rant done.
~nv
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