Humans Are Mammals
Aug. 9th, 2023 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Yesterday was a fairly chill day. I worked on a ticket that...threw me for a really big loop and ended up taking up the whole day. It was only after I was nearing the end of it that I realized I had been reading a lot of this all wrong and would probably have to start over from scratch. That was frustrating, but also a pretty important learning moment for me. Ultimately I didn't mind it because I had a better understanding of what I'm actually doing.
Training so far has been...minimal. I've been pointed to the documentation available and my manager scheduled daily meetings with me last week, stepping that down to every other day this week. Each ticket is a maze of diagrams with sketchy legends, various IDs for one thing, references to standards and practices I can't find easily. It's been *really* confusing and there isn't a glossary helping you orient yourself with all of these acronyms, job-specific definitions, and arcane processes.
There is some frustration with that, but for the most part I understand it. I think the workload for the team is pretty damn high and the manager has other regular duties that stretches her time even thinner. And I have been slowly but steadily making progress with various reports. There's just enough progress week-over-week for me to feel like I'll be fairly comfortable with most reports in a couple months.
The problem is I may not have a couple months. Stanford may still make an offer, and Instacart is looking good that way too. And today, I start my interview process with UC Santa Cruz's Scout extension as a Customer Service Assistant. Looking over the job it feels like a weird hybrid position that mixes frontline support with specialized tickets and a lot of admin/strategic work overall. Honestly, it doesn't sound like a bad gig. But if their hiring process is this slow I have no idea when I can expect an offer. Instacart and/or Stanford will most likely make their move first.
So overall I'm in a holding pattern with the day job. I'm making progress with the current job, but also don't expect to be keeping it for very long. It's a weird place to be.
Sometimes, it feels like no one I know takes my problems very seriously. I'm not sure if the folks closest to me just don't understand my issues because my mental processes are so different or if I'm just not good at communicating what the problem is and why it affects me. But when I talk about something that means a lot to me, it feels like a matter of moments before I can see their focus shifting elsewhere. And maybe the problems I bring up aren't very large or meaningful in the grand scheme of things -- depression can often make a mountain out of a molehill that way. That's the problem with being unable to trust my own brain with matters of perspective: it's entirely possible the things that make me feel the worst are things that no reasonable person would sweat.
That internalized mistrust makes it difficult to be more open about the things that bother me; I don't think anyone really cares and they're probably right not to. But it still affects me.
Whenever I have these thoughts, I wonder if I'm just being too sensitive, or if I'm expecting my friends to read my mind. Maybe my expectations are unreasonable, or I'm reading genuine concern and interest as anything but because I only expect to be dismissed. The whole thing is so...tricky to navigate that I often end up not talking about what's going on with me at all because it's easier than unpacking how I feel and feeling a little rejected when the feedback isn't what I'm expecting. But that ain't no way to live.
It's also possible that what I've told folks about my relationship with anger and criticism is informing their response. I don't want folks to treat me with kid gloves, but I DO want them to understand that RSD can make certain things more difficult than they'd think. To their credit, R. and K. have been pretty great about changing the way they offer advice or give feedback and I'm very grateful for it. But there's always that little pang of guilt in me when I notice they're trying to spare my feelings because it's clear they're spending effort to manage me. Which is exactly what I asked for. >.>
I suppose this is all top of mind now because I'm trying to be more open about my feelings and needs. I'm struck by how often I don't seem to have the vocabulary for my emotions or stumble over my explanation of why things strike me a specific way. I'm working to get better at that, to be a more compelling speaker, but that's also a process. And it's not...entirely clear whether I'm on the right track most of the time.
Anyway. The only way to learn is by doing, so I guess I'll just have to keep doing it and iterating better habits.
Training so far has been...minimal. I've been pointed to the documentation available and my manager scheduled daily meetings with me last week, stepping that down to every other day this week. Each ticket is a maze of diagrams with sketchy legends, various IDs for one thing, references to standards and practices I can't find easily. It's been *really* confusing and there isn't a glossary helping you orient yourself with all of these acronyms, job-specific definitions, and arcane processes.
There is some frustration with that, but for the most part I understand it. I think the workload for the team is pretty damn high and the manager has other regular duties that stretches her time even thinner. And I have been slowly but steadily making progress with various reports. There's just enough progress week-over-week for me to feel like I'll be fairly comfortable with most reports in a couple months.
The problem is I may not have a couple months. Stanford may still make an offer, and Instacart is looking good that way too. And today, I start my interview process with UC Santa Cruz's Scout extension as a Customer Service Assistant. Looking over the job it feels like a weird hybrid position that mixes frontline support with specialized tickets and a lot of admin/strategic work overall. Honestly, it doesn't sound like a bad gig. But if their hiring process is this slow I have no idea when I can expect an offer. Instacart and/or Stanford will most likely make their move first.
So overall I'm in a holding pattern with the day job. I'm making progress with the current job, but also don't expect to be keeping it for very long. It's a weird place to be.
Sometimes, it feels like no one I know takes my problems very seriously. I'm not sure if the folks closest to me just don't understand my issues because my mental processes are so different or if I'm just not good at communicating what the problem is and why it affects me. But when I talk about something that means a lot to me, it feels like a matter of moments before I can see their focus shifting elsewhere. And maybe the problems I bring up aren't very large or meaningful in the grand scheme of things -- depression can often make a mountain out of a molehill that way. That's the problem with being unable to trust my own brain with matters of perspective: it's entirely possible the things that make me feel the worst are things that no reasonable person would sweat.
That internalized mistrust makes it difficult to be more open about the things that bother me; I don't think anyone really cares and they're probably right not to. But it still affects me.
Whenever I have these thoughts, I wonder if I'm just being too sensitive, or if I'm expecting my friends to read my mind. Maybe my expectations are unreasonable, or I'm reading genuine concern and interest as anything but because I only expect to be dismissed. The whole thing is so...tricky to navigate that I often end up not talking about what's going on with me at all because it's easier than unpacking how I feel and feeling a little rejected when the feedback isn't what I'm expecting. But that ain't no way to live.
It's also possible that what I've told folks about my relationship with anger and criticism is informing their response. I don't want folks to treat me with kid gloves, but I DO want them to understand that RSD can make certain things more difficult than they'd think. To their credit, R. and K. have been pretty great about changing the way they offer advice or give feedback and I'm very grateful for it. But there's always that little pang of guilt in me when I notice they're trying to spare my feelings because it's clear they're spending effort to manage me. Which is exactly what I asked for. >.>
I suppose this is all top of mind now because I'm trying to be more open about my feelings and needs. I'm struck by how often I don't seem to have the vocabulary for my emotions or stumble over my explanation of why things strike me a specific way. I'm working to get better at that, to be a more compelling speaker, but that's also a process. And it's not...entirely clear whether I'm on the right track most of the time.
Anyway. The only way to learn is by doing, so I guess I'll just have to keep doing it and iterating better habits.
