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Wasp Thoughts
Nov. 2nd, 2020 09:21 am
Woke up a little bit late, so I'm also late with journaling for today.
Work took off like a rocket this morning with three meetings that piled so many things on the to-do list. Basically, our contact metrics (first response time and full resolution time) and customer satisfaction rating took a dip, so we're going to have to be a bit faster with resolving these tickets. This is...frustrating for a Tier 2 guy like me, because most of my tickets involve waiting for some cross-functional team to start working.
This directly ties into the biggest project I'm working on right now, the operational level agreement. :P There seems to be feature creep during every meeting, and it's frustrating to be told "you're not even close to done" when we report that we're pretty much done. On top of THAT, because I'm the only person handling tickets last week a second project has gone unchanged. Now that the person in charge of the project (and handling my batch of tickets with me) is back, there's pressure to get that done too. Boo.
The ticking clock and the workload seems to necessitate some serious overtime, which I will be sure to charge work heavily for. But the day job is not going to keep me from writing, so I'm going to have to establish a pretty strong boundary there.
Lurking in the background is the residual panic regarding the election, which no doubt is making everyone a little nervy. Trump is already laying the groundwork for trying to steal the election or at least casting serious doubt on the results if they don't favor him. Republican operators are suing to prevent votes from being counted in the battleground states of Florida and Pennsylvania, which are must-wins for both candidates. And the GOP has stacked the courts -- including the Supreme Court -- to favor them for any legal rulings.
The best case scenario is that Biden receives enough votes that it doesn't matter and he wins clean. But considering that in many states mail-in or absentee ballots can't be counted until all votes are received, it might be a pretty long time before we know anything. And because there has been so much confusion and last-minute changes in so many states, it's really hard to have any confidence in this being a fair and free election. It's terrifying to know how much the deck is stacked against Biden/Harris, and how a good 35% of the country could just override the will of the rest of us through legal fuckery.
I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, but chances are things are going to get a lot more heated this week and I...won't be able to control any of it. I'm trying to brace for that stress, that feeling of frustration and helplessness, by focusing on the things I *can* do something about. At the very least I can keep my spaces tidier, stick to my writing plans, and be there for other folks who are also nervous about what's happening. Still, the day job providing one more stressor on top of everything else is...not great.
I'm doing my best to keep myself organized so I can power through my workload as efficiently as possible, but...it's tricky. I'll definitely need to plan out my day so that I at least have devoted time to everything I need to do. I think that's what I'll be doing over lunch, along with my monthly budget.
I really wish I had an easier time with focus and follow-through. I've realized, maybe a couple months late, that I am 40 years old and not...nearly as settled as I wanted to be at this age. Part of me wants to push myself closer to that person, and that's what all of this is about. But I'm also trying hard to recognize where and who I am. I've had these kinds of issues my entire life, and it's not going to be an easy thing to just snap out of. That being said, I really want to make sure I'm putting in the work to make these changes.
So much of it is a simple matter of perspective, I think. The pressure to get things done dredges up a lot of anxiety for me and the self-talk around my inability to remain consistent and organized really flares up during these times. I think, instead of thinking that I need to do this at this time in this way, it'd be a lot better to be accepting of the fact that something needed to be done and shift my focus on how to enjoy doing it, finding the hook that pulls me through the activity. It's something that appeals to me, when I remember to do it, but when deadlines and quality assurance become factors the anxiety-brain takes over and devotes so much attention to that.
Learning how to be present and content with my situation is not easy, simply because it feels like my brain is wired for the exact opposite. I was built to race and worry, but that's not how shit gets done. Accepting things as they are and also accepting things as they change is...difficult, but that's life, right? Nothing stays the same. The only thing we can do is embrace the constant change as it comes, constantly, to shift the ground under our feet.
More and more I realize that it's necessary to take a step back, look at everything you have to do, and find a 'home' for the activity. Being organized is more than just...writing everything down. It's also important to review the systems you've built, see how effective they are, and make changes when needed. Hopefully, as I work towards this level of organization more aggressively, I can make time to adapt on the fly.
Work took off like a rocket this morning with three meetings that piled so many things on the to-do list. Basically, our contact metrics (first response time and full resolution time) and customer satisfaction rating took a dip, so we're going to have to be a bit faster with resolving these tickets. This is...frustrating for a Tier 2 guy like me, because most of my tickets involve waiting for some cross-functional team to start working.
This directly ties into the biggest project I'm working on right now, the operational level agreement. :P There seems to be feature creep during every meeting, and it's frustrating to be told "you're not even close to done" when we report that we're pretty much done. On top of THAT, because I'm the only person handling tickets last week a second project has gone unchanged. Now that the person in charge of the project (and handling my batch of tickets with me) is back, there's pressure to get that done too. Boo.
The ticking clock and the workload seems to necessitate some serious overtime, which I will be sure to charge work heavily for. But the day job is not going to keep me from writing, so I'm going to have to establish a pretty strong boundary there.
Lurking in the background is the residual panic regarding the election, which no doubt is making everyone a little nervy. Trump is already laying the groundwork for trying to steal the election or at least casting serious doubt on the results if they don't favor him. Republican operators are suing to prevent votes from being counted in the battleground states of Florida and Pennsylvania, which are must-wins for both candidates. And the GOP has stacked the courts -- including the Supreme Court -- to favor them for any legal rulings.
The best case scenario is that Biden receives enough votes that it doesn't matter and he wins clean. But considering that in many states mail-in or absentee ballots can't be counted until all votes are received, it might be a pretty long time before we know anything. And because there has been so much confusion and last-minute changes in so many states, it's really hard to have any confidence in this being a fair and free election. It's terrifying to know how much the deck is stacked against Biden/Harris, and how a good 35% of the country could just override the will of the rest of us through legal fuckery.
I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, but chances are things are going to get a lot more heated this week and I...won't be able to control any of it. I'm trying to brace for that stress, that feeling of frustration and helplessness, by focusing on the things I *can* do something about. At the very least I can keep my spaces tidier, stick to my writing plans, and be there for other folks who are also nervous about what's happening. Still, the day job providing one more stressor on top of everything else is...not great.
I'm doing my best to keep myself organized so I can power through my workload as efficiently as possible, but...it's tricky. I'll definitely need to plan out my day so that I at least have devoted time to everything I need to do. I think that's what I'll be doing over lunch, along with my monthly budget.
I really wish I had an easier time with focus and follow-through. I've realized, maybe a couple months late, that I am 40 years old and not...nearly as settled as I wanted to be at this age. Part of me wants to push myself closer to that person, and that's what all of this is about. But I'm also trying hard to recognize where and who I am. I've had these kinds of issues my entire life, and it's not going to be an easy thing to just snap out of. That being said, I really want to make sure I'm putting in the work to make these changes.
So much of it is a simple matter of perspective, I think. The pressure to get things done dredges up a lot of anxiety for me and the self-talk around my inability to remain consistent and organized really flares up during these times. I think, instead of thinking that I need to do this at this time in this way, it'd be a lot better to be accepting of the fact that something needed to be done and shift my focus on how to enjoy doing it, finding the hook that pulls me through the activity. It's something that appeals to me, when I remember to do it, but when deadlines and quality assurance become factors the anxiety-brain takes over and devotes so much attention to that.
Learning how to be present and content with my situation is not easy, simply because it feels like my brain is wired for the exact opposite. I was built to race and worry, but that's not how shit gets done. Accepting things as they are and also accepting things as they change is...difficult, but that's life, right? Nothing stays the same. The only thing we can do is embrace the constant change as it comes, constantly, to shift the ground under our feet.
More and more I realize that it's necessary to take a step back, look at everything you have to do, and find a 'home' for the activity. Being organized is more than just...writing everything down. It's also important to review the systems you've built, see how effective they are, and make changes when needed. Hopefully, as I work towards this level of organization more aggressively, I can make time to adapt on the fly.
