Adventures in Unemployment

If I’m honest, I think one of the big reasons I stopped writing this as frequently as I had been when I was hired for my new job is because I’m fairly certain my new employers found this blog during the hiring process and it suddenly became real. Like, oh. Shit. The people I work with, work for,  maybe shouldn’t know my deepest, darkest thoughts. To be fair, I probably shouldn’t share them in general and take the worst of those to my therapist, but uh. Here we are. Anyway, in case they are reading this: I still love the job. I still hate my new phone. I still hope you think I’m doing a good job. I still panic that you’re going to fire me because of the corporate version of PTSD that I carry with me ever since I worked at Clemson, and have carried on through Independent Health, where I was actually fired, so this may never go away. And a new realization I had this week - I have no idea what the girl before me did for you because why is the Google Drive and Canva a mess? And why woul...

It has been a whole 15 days since you last heard from me, and honestly? You haven’t missed much. I mean, you really didn’t need another post of me saying “I swear, I think I almost have it together this week!” And then promptly not having anything together at any point during the week ever. For what it’s worth, though, I really do think I almost have my shit together this week. I still love the job. Don’t get me wrong - it is hard most days. My to-do list only goes in one direction, and it isn’t the one that makes me feel like I’m being productive. My head is swimming by the time I clock out for the night, and some of the real estate legal-ese might as well be another language, but man. It’s great. Every day is different. This is the hardest I’ve worked in years, and I think it’s because I see the work I’m doing having a direct impact on the work my bosses are doing. If I can learn something faster, or take on a task that they hate, or find an easier way to do something, then it frees ...

I am having the introvert's dream Super Bowl evening. We went to dinner last night with my sister and her boyfriend, and I found a hard root beer that I was not prepared to like as much as I do. But I do, so I bought 2 crowlers of it last night and brought it home with me. Now I'm sitting on the couch, eating my favorite frozen pizza from Wegmans, drinking a hard root beer, and with a sleeping dog on either side of me. What could be better? Truthfully, the only thing that could make it better is that I'm finally feeling an ounce of preparedness going into this week. I'm entering my 4th week of the new job, so honestly, it was about time I got my shit together. I have overnight oats in the fridge, ready for breakfast for every day this week. I've got leftover chili for lunch tomorrow and Tuesday, and a list of dinners on the fridge, ready for the week. I even worked out this morning, and might make it to the gym this week. Whew. She's back.

My brain is on two different wavelengths tonight on things I want to tell you. The first is - I don't know how my parent friends keep it together. You are superhuman. The second is - if you have the chance to work for a small company, you should do it. Parent friends, I am constantly in awe of you. My brain short-circuited tonight just trying to figure out dinner for this week, and it's just me and one other (albeit picky) adult to feed. And two dogs, who get the same thing at every meal. Would I like to make them gourmet meals like this woman ? Obviously. But I can't even do that for myself. Hence tonight's short-circuit. I'm going into my third week of work, and I suspect that has something to do with this feeling. When I started (roughly 13 days ago), I remember thinking to myself "great job, self. You're adjusting to this fantastically." What I think was happening was that I was delusional. Delulu, as the kids say. I wasn't cooking. I was buyin...