caution, teal deer ahead. :P
up at ass AM once more after crashing early, waking up, and getting sick of tossing and turning.
felt grumbly and out of sorts for a lot of today, even tho it was really nice out and felt good to be out of the house. i've spent the last few days since the show ended in bed feeling like crap. sinus crap led me to believe i was on the edge of a cold, but not so. just felt like my body hit a wall and i ached everywhere, totally lost all energy & ability/motivation to do much other than lay around and sleep A LOT.
i've been trying to figure out what the deal is with that and i'm pretty sure it's a combination of things: inconsistency in my diet + putting A LOT of energy into the show + more energy used by stress of recent decision-making + missing my meds 2 days last week cause of forgetting to go to CVS (REALLY need to stop doing that nearly every month) + drinking more beer than usual... all at the same time, that stuff'll throw ya. definitely need to start eating better and having more actual MEALS instead of whatever i can scrounge up to snack upon and work food. most of it is pretty healthy; i eat very little processed food, but i am not getting enough calcium or iron, my diet is actually probly too LOW in fat and salt, and there's too much sugar & caffeine and not enough vegetables.
i'm tired of making decisions. yay for trains of thought that take sharp unexpected turns. :P
it seriously sucked to go over all my thoughts and feelings and everything that's happened (or hasn't) recently and come to one resounding conclusion... i SERIOUSLY need to stop holding on to things that are not good for me, as much as they may seem like the are, or as much as they might be tempting. i'm seeing now that a lot of things in life simply have an expiration date, and i'm glad that i am now able to see them.
letting judah go was a lot harder, yet a lot easier than i ever could have imagined. we had such amazingly good times last fall/winter, but nothing like that was ever going to be able to take place this spring. he just doesn't get it and he never will, not until he feels about someone the way i did about him... not until he reaches a point where he would do anything for someone or even for something, and it falls apart before his eyes. i honestly do not mean that in a vindictive sense; i just know that the only way to really understand things like that is to live them, and i just hope he doesn't break too many hearts before he finally figures out what that's like.
at this point, i am glad to have put my time with him behind me. i can't realistically have spent the last several years bitching at or about people who've been determined to hold on to the past while running from the future, and then try to hold on to something that doesn't even exist anymore, and may never have existed in the first place, much less do so at the cost of my own immediate future. that was definitely an awkward couple of sentences, but i think it gets the point across.
in other n00z, i've been thinking a lot about work and life and my ability to do the things i want and the same shit, basically, that i've been going over in my mind for months now and which has not really changed. i keep thinking about job satisfaction & the community and principles i care about vs. the fact that i am REALLY not able to live off of what i make at my job. I keep on thinking certain things are going to change if i just work harder and give it time, but the fact is i am the only person on staff who has not been promoted or offered more opportunity/responsibility in some way, and half the people have not even been there as long as i have. my boss and i get along better these days, but she is just not going to change her perceptions of me as someone she cannot relate to and therefore does not feel comfortable trusting with any more responsibility in her store.
If actual performance were to be taken into account first & foremost (like it ought to be) then it would be a completely different story. I got an "Outstanding" rating on my annual review, with 5 stars in customer service and four in all other areas but one (which was 3). There was some room for improvement, as there always is, but 95% of what i was doing was spot-on, even by the boss's admission. Yet ever since the odd way that the new shift mgrs got hired/announced a few weeks back, it's really hit home that *nothing* i do, nor how well i do it, is really going to change the situation in the ways i want and need it to change. As a result, i have no longer been putting $15+/hr's worth of work into an $8/hr job. I'm putting $10 or 11/hr's worth of work in, because that's pretty much the minimum you can put and still do get the job done in any passable way. There's just too much to have to worry about for what we are paid and the space in which we are expected to accomplish things. It'd be really nice if they would realize that.
The basic facts are these: I am still just as behind on bills, actually worse, to be truthful, than i was when i was stressing out hardcore about that over the holidaze. My hands are at least 3x as wrecked from eczema + dishwashing & coffee oils. I STILL keep asking for more hours and being told things are super flexible, yet there seems to be this arbitrary cap of 20 hrs/week on me every time the new schedule gets posted, unless someone else is away or requests off. The main person I cover for/yoink more hours from was just promoted, and i can no longer take their shifts anymore cause i'm not allowed to count the drawer, etc. I continually volunteer to do/help with various things that *obviously* need attention, and make suggestions about how we can cut costs and improve the customer experience. half the time these things get ignored or forgotten, and the other half of the time the responsibility/task/job title/raise ends up going to someone else. I am well aware of the fact that personality dynamics and politics are going to factor into any type of work environment that exists. i've been in plenty of far more stupid and far more shitty situations. What gets to me about this one, though, is that there is no rhyme or reason to an awful lot of what goes on... It all comes down to what the owner thinks is a good idea at any given moment, and it changes day to day a lot of the time. I can be that way just as badly in my personal life, but I would NEVER run a business in that fashion. And then of course, I get criticism for random inconsistencies when my bosses are the most inconsistent people i have ever worked for, except for my dad.
So, as we used to say when I lived in Glassboro, and something happened that we couldn't make any sense of: "Where does the bread fit in?" At this point, it feels like the goddamn bread has left the fuckin building entirely.
Everybody knows that I love InFusion. (Everybody knowing this has also gotten me taken advantage of more than I would like to really think about.) It has meant an awful lot for me to be there, and it has helped me feel more a part of this area and this community than i have ever felt anywhere else. But in all honesty, that happened because of things that have little to nothing to do with actually *working* there. If i had the time to come in there and hang out even half as often as i work there, i would most likely feel the same way by now. There are people who spend more time in the damn place than I do when I'm on the clock. There's no reason i can't continue to hang out and talk to my peeps and enjoy the atmosphere from the other side of the counter when I have the time... and the more i think about it, the more i think i would be a lot happier and better off by doing so.
Tomorrow (well, today) is going to be another beautiful day that i will unfortunately not quite have the energy to enjoy in an outdoorsy kind of sense... I've been wanting to hike around Wissahickon Park, but need to let myself recharge for a little while longer before doing so. What I *will* do, however, is soak up some sunshine on InFusion's back patio, snazz up my resume, and use the free wifi there to search for a better job. I have a bunch of great references, a degree that I earned on an accelerated timeline which shows a lot of discipline and dedication, stellar people/customer skillz, and plenty of experience working in various fields over the last 10 years. There's no reason why I can't find something that pays better and doesn't wreck my hands, at least... even in this economy. It seems like a good 75% of life -- and not just work or business or shopping, but ALL of modern life -- is marketing. I just need to get a little more creative and market myself in a more desirable light.
I need to stop agonizing over the thought of leaving InFusion. It isn't some top secret military lab that i can't ever return to... I can stop in whenever i want, and it sure would be a nice freaking feeling to be able to AFFORD aloha protein shakes rather than having to live off them and leftover bagels because i don't have actual money for real groceries. it's time to get the hell down from the cross and start living again... start having the means to do all the things i've been dreaming of. i needed to wise up and realize that it's stupid to wait for something that is never going to happen. Hell, speaking of things that seem like they are never going to happen, what about my Etsy store? What about the trip to Wales I've been dying to take, and everything else I've been missing out on? A big part of the reason why i haven't been crafting as much is because my hands hurt ALL the time and are cracked to smithereens, and if nothing else, i sure am sick of THAT. speaking of being wrecked, you don't even want to KNOW what my credit is like at this point after being behind on *everything* for so long.
No sacrifices i make for InFusion, nor anything i have learned or improved upon since last July has ever resulted in the place doing me any favours in the ways that have fundamentally mattered the most. there have been some very meaningful and rewarding aspects on several levels, but the reason you work a job is to make a living, meaning to be able make a LIFE for yourself... and i am tired of feeling like i can only exist within the status quo.
After talking (or rather, typing) these things out, which have been swirling around in my head for the last however many days, it feels good to have a clearer idea of where i stand. I'm still tired of making decisions, though. i'm always the one who ends up having to in *so* many different kinds of situations, because i wait and wait cause i'm not thinking enough about my own best interests, and then feel taken advantage of, or no one else will decide on something and i get frustrated and it falls on me, which people then blame me for, because i "didn't take their ideas/feelings into consideration" when they voiced no ideas/opinions/feelings/etc to consider, unless there are far more subtle nuances to shrugging and saying "i don't care" than i will ever be able to pick up on.
I'm sick of always having to analyze things. I'm sick of weighing out options and figuring shit out, of making decisions and feeling constantly frustrated and put out because i spend all this time factoring in everything but what i really need and want into any given situation. To HELL with doing that anymore. Things are not that hard. I KNOW what i want, at least generally speaking, and in that sense I am much further ahead of the sadly high number of people i see that are just treading water and letting fear or bad habits or superfluous bullshit hold them back from even figuring *that* out. I'm glad that I haven't allowed myself to get caught in the trap of looking backwards and negative thinking that too many people i know have done or are doing... feeling like youth is now lost and chances to do a lot of things are gone, and just wanting to go back and recapture something i wonder if they ever even realistically had in the first place. Life is what you make it, and if you don't do the best you can to make *today* into what you want it to be as much as you can, then tomorrow is gonna look exactly the same as yesterday and you get stuck in a rut.
Lately i've been looking around and seeing people a lot more talented than i am just "ending up"... Weren't we going to be rock stars? :) Didn't we used to have all these big and wonderful dreams? Where did they go...? Obviously, we've grown up, reality's kicked in, and a lot of things are different now. We have a lot more responsibilities. But I often wonder how much of it is reality and how much of it is giving up, giving into fear, or just plain getting lazy.
In the words of Andrew Wood: "i don't wanna be like one of those SAD... motherfuckers!"
I've allowed myself to get way too comfortable with mediocrity... i needed a break, yes, but now it's time to get back into it. I've been challenging myself in all the wrong ways.
It's been over 2 years now since Jackie's been dead and gone. She haunts me far more often these days, reminding me that she used to have a lot of really wonderful dreams when she was alive. I feel like she's asking me not to forget her completely... to pick up the guitar again, to write music again, travel and go adventuring... to live the way she & I have always wanted me to. More than enough time has passed since she crashed and burned... I am done with regeneration. It's time for Gwyddon to light up the sky again. It's time for the phoenix to start flying.
*
felt grumbly and out of sorts for a lot of today, even tho it was really nice out and felt good to be out of the house. i've spent the last few days since the show ended in bed feeling like crap. sinus crap led me to believe i was on the edge of a cold, but not so. just felt like my body hit a wall and i ached everywhere, totally lost all energy & ability/motivation to do much other than lay around and sleep A LOT.
i've been trying to figure out what the deal is with that and i'm pretty sure it's a combination of things: inconsistency in my diet + putting A LOT of energy into the show + more energy used by stress of recent decision-making + missing my meds 2 days last week cause of forgetting to go to CVS (REALLY need to stop doing that nearly every month) + drinking more beer than usual... all at the same time, that stuff'll throw ya. definitely need to start eating better and having more actual MEALS instead of whatever i can scrounge up to snack upon and work food. most of it is pretty healthy; i eat very little processed food, but i am not getting enough calcium or iron, my diet is actually probly too LOW in fat and salt, and there's too much sugar & caffeine and not enough vegetables.
i'm tired of making decisions. yay for trains of thought that take sharp unexpected turns. :P
it seriously sucked to go over all my thoughts and feelings and everything that's happened (or hasn't) recently and come to one resounding conclusion... i SERIOUSLY need to stop holding on to things that are not good for me, as much as they may seem like the are, or as much as they might be tempting. i'm seeing now that a lot of things in life simply have an expiration date, and i'm glad that i am now able to see them.
letting judah go was a lot harder, yet a lot easier than i ever could have imagined. we had such amazingly good times last fall/winter, but nothing like that was ever going to be able to take place this spring. he just doesn't get it and he never will, not until he feels about someone the way i did about him... not until he reaches a point where he would do anything for someone or even for something, and it falls apart before his eyes. i honestly do not mean that in a vindictive sense; i just know that the only way to really understand things like that is to live them, and i just hope he doesn't break too many hearts before he finally figures out what that's like.
at this point, i am glad to have put my time with him behind me. i can't realistically have spent the last several years bitching at or about people who've been determined to hold on to the past while running from the future, and then try to hold on to something that doesn't even exist anymore, and may never have existed in the first place, much less do so at the cost of my own immediate future. that was definitely an awkward couple of sentences, but i think it gets the point across.
in other n00z, i've been thinking a lot about work and life and my ability to do the things i want and the same shit, basically, that i've been going over in my mind for months now and which has not really changed. i keep thinking about job satisfaction & the community and principles i care about vs. the fact that i am REALLY not able to live off of what i make at my job. I keep on thinking certain things are going to change if i just work harder and give it time, but the fact is i am the only person on staff who has not been promoted or offered more opportunity/responsibility in some way, and half the people have not even been there as long as i have. my boss and i get along better these days, but she is just not going to change her perceptions of me as someone she cannot relate to and therefore does not feel comfortable trusting with any more responsibility in her store.
If actual performance were to be taken into account first & foremost (like it ought to be) then it would be a completely different story. I got an "Outstanding" rating on my annual review, with 5 stars in customer service and four in all other areas but one (which was 3). There was some room for improvement, as there always is, but 95% of what i was doing was spot-on, even by the boss's admission. Yet ever since the odd way that the new shift mgrs got hired/announced a few weeks back, it's really hit home that *nothing* i do, nor how well i do it, is really going to change the situation in the ways i want and need it to change. As a result, i have no longer been putting $15+/hr's worth of work into an $8/hr job. I'm putting $10 or 11/hr's worth of work in, because that's pretty much the minimum you can put and still do get the job done in any passable way. There's just too much to have to worry about for what we are paid and the space in which we are expected to accomplish things. It'd be really nice if they would realize that.
The basic facts are these: I am still just as behind on bills, actually worse, to be truthful, than i was when i was stressing out hardcore about that over the holidaze. My hands are at least 3x as wrecked from eczema + dishwashing & coffee oils. I STILL keep asking for more hours and being told things are super flexible, yet there seems to be this arbitrary cap of 20 hrs/week on me every time the new schedule gets posted, unless someone else is away or requests off. The main person I cover for/yoink more hours from was just promoted, and i can no longer take their shifts anymore cause i'm not allowed to count the drawer, etc. I continually volunteer to do/help with various things that *obviously* need attention, and make suggestions about how we can cut costs and improve the customer experience. half the time these things get ignored or forgotten, and the other half of the time the responsibility/task/job title/raise ends up going to someone else. I am well aware of the fact that personality dynamics and politics are going to factor into any type of work environment that exists. i've been in plenty of far more stupid and far more shitty situations. What gets to me about this one, though, is that there is no rhyme or reason to an awful lot of what goes on... It all comes down to what the owner thinks is a good idea at any given moment, and it changes day to day a lot of the time. I can be that way just as badly in my personal life, but I would NEVER run a business in that fashion. And then of course, I get criticism for random inconsistencies when my bosses are the most inconsistent people i have ever worked for, except for my dad.
So, as we used to say when I lived in Glassboro, and something happened that we couldn't make any sense of: "Where does the bread fit in?" At this point, it feels like the goddamn bread has left the fuckin building entirely.
Everybody knows that I love InFusion. (Everybody knowing this has also gotten me taken advantage of more than I would like to really think about.) It has meant an awful lot for me to be there, and it has helped me feel more a part of this area and this community than i have ever felt anywhere else. But in all honesty, that happened because of things that have little to nothing to do with actually *working* there. If i had the time to come in there and hang out even half as often as i work there, i would most likely feel the same way by now. There are people who spend more time in the damn place than I do when I'm on the clock. There's no reason i can't continue to hang out and talk to my peeps and enjoy the atmosphere from the other side of the counter when I have the time... and the more i think about it, the more i think i would be a lot happier and better off by doing so.
Tomorrow (well, today) is going to be another beautiful day that i will unfortunately not quite have the energy to enjoy in an outdoorsy kind of sense... I've been wanting to hike around Wissahickon Park, but need to let myself recharge for a little while longer before doing so. What I *will* do, however, is soak up some sunshine on InFusion's back patio, snazz up my resume, and use the free wifi there to search for a better job. I have a bunch of great references, a degree that I earned on an accelerated timeline which shows a lot of discipline and dedication, stellar people/customer skillz, and plenty of experience working in various fields over the last 10 years. There's no reason why I can't find something that pays better and doesn't wreck my hands, at least... even in this economy. It seems like a good 75% of life -- and not just work or business or shopping, but ALL of modern life -- is marketing. I just need to get a little more creative and market myself in a more desirable light.
I need to stop agonizing over the thought of leaving InFusion. It isn't some top secret military lab that i can't ever return to... I can stop in whenever i want, and it sure would be a nice freaking feeling to be able to AFFORD aloha protein shakes rather than having to live off them and leftover bagels because i don't have actual money for real groceries. it's time to get the hell down from the cross and start living again... start having the means to do all the things i've been dreaming of. i needed to wise up and realize that it's stupid to wait for something that is never going to happen. Hell, speaking of things that seem like they are never going to happen, what about my Etsy store? What about the trip to Wales I've been dying to take, and everything else I've been missing out on? A big part of the reason why i haven't been crafting as much is because my hands hurt ALL the time and are cracked to smithereens, and if nothing else, i sure am sick of THAT. speaking of being wrecked, you don't even want to KNOW what my credit is like at this point after being behind on *everything* for so long.
No sacrifices i make for InFusion, nor anything i have learned or improved upon since last July has ever resulted in the place doing me any favours in the ways that have fundamentally mattered the most. there have been some very meaningful and rewarding aspects on several levels, but the reason you work a job is to make a living, meaning to be able make a LIFE for yourself... and i am tired of feeling like i can only exist within the status quo.
After talking (or rather, typing) these things out, which have been swirling around in my head for the last however many days, it feels good to have a clearer idea of where i stand. I'm still tired of making decisions, though. i'm always the one who ends up having to in *so* many different kinds of situations, because i wait and wait cause i'm not thinking enough about my own best interests, and then feel taken advantage of, or no one else will decide on something and i get frustrated and it falls on me, which people then blame me for, because i "didn't take their ideas/feelings into consideration" when they voiced no ideas/opinions/feelings/etc to consider, unless there are far more subtle nuances to shrugging and saying "i don't care" than i will ever be able to pick up on.
I'm sick of always having to analyze things. I'm sick of weighing out options and figuring shit out, of making decisions and feeling constantly frustrated and put out because i spend all this time factoring in everything but what i really need and want into any given situation. To HELL with doing that anymore. Things are not that hard. I KNOW what i want, at least generally speaking, and in that sense I am much further ahead of the sadly high number of people i see that are just treading water and letting fear or bad habits or superfluous bullshit hold them back from even figuring *that* out. I'm glad that I haven't allowed myself to get caught in the trap of looking backwards and negative thinking that too many people i know have done or are doing... feeling like youth is now lost and chances to do a lot of things are gone, and just wanting to go back and recapture something i wonder if they ever even realistically had in the first place. Life is what you make it, and if you don't do the best you can to make *today* into what you want it to be as much as you can, then tomorrow is gonna look exactly the same as yesterday and you get stuck in a rut.
Lately i've been looking around and seeing people a lot more talented than i am just "ending up"... Weren't we going to be rock stars? :) Didn't we used to have all these big and wonderful dreams? Where did they go...? Obviously, we've grown up, reality's kicked in, and a lot of things are different now. We have a lot more responsibilities. But I often wonder how much of it is reality and how much of it is giving up, giving into fear, or just plain getting lazy.
In the words of Andrew Wood: "i don't wanna be like one of those SAD... motherfuckers!"
I've allowed myself to get way too comfortable with mediocrity... i needed a break, yes, but now it's time to get back into it. I've been challenging myself in all the wrong ways.
It's been over 2 years now since Jackie's been dead and gone. She haunts me far more often these days, reminding me that she used to have a lot of really wonderful dreams when she was alive. I feel like she's asking me not to forget her completely... to pick up the guitar again, to write music again, travel and go adventuring... to live the way she & I have always wanted me to. More than enough time has passed since she crashed and burned... I am done with regeneration. It's time for Gwyddon to light up the sky again. It's time for the phoenix to start flying.
*