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Mental Wellbeing 2


Xray the Enforcer
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Small rant under cut. Just getting it out of my system. Not a serious problem at all as problems go, but having an internet yell about it now may help me sleep later. 

Spoiler

If you have a brand-new employee, don't leave them more or less on their own for more than a week with just a string of recorded webinars to watch that don't work properly in second-hand form, and webpages they've already read. Don't sit for hours in your office with your door closed right next to the office your new employee is in. 

The odd thing is that I think my new boss is probably quite a nice person from my contact with them. I just have no idea what he's doing, or thinks he's doing. It's so different to the previous inductions I've had from a sub-type of educational professional known for being highly organised and meticulous. : ) I can't tell if it's the move to a different field, the personality of the boss, or the combination of organisational turbulence and a remote working culture that finds it hard to adjust to new people that's led to me being treated this way. 

I get terrible imposter system. When I was offered this (not very high-paying, not technically difficult) job, the first thing I said was 'perhaps HR emailed the wrong person...' I've spent parts of the day slumped on the desk with my head in my hands wondering if I seem so incompetent and stupid and horrible that I haven't even been given access to the most basic tasks yet, tasks I thought I'd be doing on day one. 

I'm going to try and firmly indicate tomorrow that I would like some actual work to do, but being born and brought up in a traditional/tall-poppy-syndrome-prone area in the north of England has trained me to try and be as self-effacing as possible, so it's hard

 

Edited by dog-days
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It’s been a while but here I am, because there’s steam to be let off, boy, there sure is. 

Spoiler

My bloody job pisses me off. I spent 3 hours proofreading and editing a… tender, hell knows I’m lazy to google the correct English word. Much as hell knows that the colleague writing the fucking thing was also lazy to google the correct words in their own damn mother language. There wasn’t a sentence I didn’t need to change at least twice. And that’s just the grammar, the content part is trash too. 


Now, it’s not that I don’t have the time to rewrite this thing, I absolutely do. And it’s not that I don’t find morbid masochistic joy in correcting other people’s work. What pisses me off - in this particular case, much like about this job in general- the complete lack of quality in what we do. I did go into it like, oh damn, a senior colleague wrote this, other people - allegedly - read it, is it really my place to edit every single sentence?  But bloody hell, it’s so bad I physically can’t leave it be! And you know what I don’t care. I don’t care if anybody thinks it wasn’t my place to correct to this extent. If you ask me to read and review, I will read and review. I have made the mistake of not correcting something that wasn’t up to my standards because I didn’t want to hurt a colleague’s feelings, and boy, was it bad, and did my boss of the time tell us it was bad. 

So to be constructive - but mainly because I don’t like being associated with stuff I regard as trash, and I’ll have my name on this thing too - I offered to make further edits tomorrow with a content rather than grammar focus. Anyway, I know this is entitled and conceited but I am better at writing stuff than the colleague and this would all have been so much easier and more efficient if I had just written it myself to begin with. But that wasn’t really ever on the table, nobody said, people we are going to have to write 15+ pages about this project, who is the person who can write, worked on the project and has the time to jump on board? That person would be me. And maybe if I were five times pushier and vocal than I am, I would/could/should have squeezed myself onto this board, but I’m not, so I feel kinda overlooked. I mean writing sensibly about topics I’m familiar with is one of the not many skills I actually have, so it would have been nice to do something I’m good at for a change. Although this job had in the past manage to convince me that I’m shit at writing too, so who knows.
 

Well the takeaway is, I should be far more pushy and vocal and confident, but it’s soooooo haaaaard because I hate the freaking self marketing so much and I’m terrible at it. 

NEXT 

Spoiler

Upon calling my mum to bitch about the above injury of pride and sense of quality, I received next to no response (aka “hmm” and “yeah, well”). 
After I finished my moan fest, my mum was like, and I’m afraid I’ll be fired. So, as I have done weekly for the past couple years, I spent thirty minutes trying to convince my mother that virtually nobody would ever even consider firing her. 
I have self-esteem issues too, but hell, how are you a 54 year old woman with 30+ years of academic career and professional experience, international recognition in your field of study, sky high student ratings, teaching excellence  awards, a highly successful leadership term, extensive corporate network and partnerships, brilliant collegial relationships and leadership recognition and sit on the sofa alone at home biting your nails that you might be fired because a couple other people have have higher publication stats than you? HOW? And who in their sane mind would ever consider firing you? 

I swear I have spent 100+ hours trying to talk sense into her over the years and I’m exhausted.

 

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3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:
Spoiler

Anyway, I know this is entitled and conceited but I am better at writing stuff than the colleague and this would all have been so much easier and more efficient if I had just written it myself to begin with.

 

Your feelings about this absolutely are not what you have labeled them to be.  It's emotionally vexing plus to be in this situation.

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3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I suppose. Im just in a bad mood, will probably see it from a different light tomorrow. 

What I meant was that you being in a bad mood over this is understandable, and justified -- even though it seems the way things are set up there's nothing you can do to change it.  You are not what you called yourself.  You are a good and competent writer and editor.

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7 hours ago, Zorral said:

What I meant was that you being in a bad mood over this is understandable, and justified -- even though it seems the way things are set up there's nothing you can do to change it.  You are not what you called yourself.  You are a good and competent writer and editor.

You know what, I am, and frustration probably comes from the fact that there’s little to nothing I can do about elevating the quality of this thing at this point  :dunno:  And honestly, I’m not exactly  thrilled that my name (as “responsible for communication” of all things) is on this thing. Sister had a very similar experience at her sorority the other week, she was pissed about it too. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A therapist relative told me she thinks I'm on the spectrum, and the suggestion left me feeling shocked for a couple of hours. It did have bearing on the topic at hand between us, and we're pretty open about and accepting of mental health stuff in this family, so I don't think she guessed such a suggestion would unnerve me. I didn't inquire at the time as to why she thought that because of my shock, but I'd like to ask later.

 

How do we put stuff in the hide-y boxes?

Edited by Lizard Queen
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3 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

That question is so rude. You can prove that you are not” on the spectrum” by telling them to go fiddle themselves and use a finely modulated and emotional tone. If you can use a metaphor and pronouns that would help:)

It's alright, I know she meant no harm :) It did have relevance to what we were discussing and I don't think she realized the suggestion was going to rattle me because of the sort of stuff we talk about already (this part of the family is pretty open about personal mental health stuff) and how she knows me. 

Also, she's not my therapist -- we're related by marriage and she is a therapist professionally.

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10 hours ago, Lizard Queen said:

A therapist relative told me she thinks I'm on the spectrum, and the suggestion left me feeling shocked for a couple of hours. It did have bearing on the topic at hand between us, and we're pretty open about and accepting of mental health stuff in this family, so I don't think she guessed such a suggestion would unnerve me. I didn't inquire at the time as to why she thought that because of my shock, but I'd like to ask later.

 

How do we put stuff in the hide-y boxes?

I just use spoiler tags. 

About eight/nine years ago, I was teaching English to a German businessman, and he talked about a book he was reading - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I've wondered off-and-on for years if this was his way of trying to suggest that I might be autistic, and it wasn't even a direct remark. These things have an way of - getting under the skin isn't quite the right expression. Of staying with you, I suppose. 

Spoiler

The new job is going much better. B) I do now have stuff to do, and hopefully will gradually acquire more stuff/responsibility as I become part of the organisational furniture. I went for this job because it relies very little on the 'soft skills' that I suspect I never had much of - my previous role I chose in order to be closer to my then-not-ex, which was obviously a mistake - and it's a relief not to have to feel I'm falling short constantly despite my best efforts. 

 

Edited by dog-days
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Diagnosing a real person is very passive aggressive and nowadays it seems like a word extraverts use to bully introverts, but there are lots of real spectrum people, just none that I’m aware of with insight of feelings and nuanced situations. The Curious Incident seemed right on the money so that you can contrast.

So sorry some” well meaning” people disturbed you.

 

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I'm just beyond tired of dealing with Social Security. My disability has been cut off for the second time this year despite spending all of the back pay that I received before December 1st. It seems like one hand doesn't know what the other is doing over there. I have to jump through all these hoops over mistakes that THEY made.

I'm just gonna send a check of the disability money I have left to them and go all in on my job search. This shit is ridiculous.

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My goodness, I’m so annoyed at everything today. My job, the traffic (it takes now 20 minutes to find a cab to get from a to b in the inner city), my family (who really haven’t done anything wrong at all, I’m just projecting on them), friends (who also haven’t done anything wrong),  myself and my lack of time management skills, the meatballs I’m cooking, the time I waste feeling shit after getting the booster, my Christmas to-do list… 

well. I should shut up. I have only two weeks left before I’m on my holiday leave, I received a very lovely bouquet of flowers for my birthday and it wasn’t my puppy that died today. (It was my grandmother’s and late great grandmother’s miniature dachshund, bless his heart). 
 

edit: I got a grip, finished cooking dinner, had two gin&tonics and phoned my grandma who’s really distraught about the doggo and I suppose she was glad to talk to someone and chat around for… well 42 minutes, bless her heart 

Edited by RhaenysBee
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  • 2 weeks later...

Going through a really rough patch recently of feeling really rubbish  at my job. I love where I work, in a museum, I love my team. But my role is basically 2 jobs in one and I feel like my brain is being pulled in way too many directions, stretched way too thin and actually for not a massive amount of money. But I don’t feel like asking for more cos I don’t know if I deserve it! Argh. Just is what it is but I needed to vent because I’m starting to go into some dark thoughts about all this which is ridiculous but there we go. My sense of self & validation has become a little too tied up in work and I don’t like that. 

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4 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Going through a really rough patch recently of feeling really rubbish  at my job. I love where I work, in a museum, I love my team. But my role is basically 2 jobs in one and I feel like my brain is being pulled in way too many directions, stretched way too thin and actually for not a massive amount of money. But I don’t feel like asking for more cos I don’t know if I deserve it! Argh. Just is what it is but I needed to vent because I’m starting to go into some dark thoughts about all this which is ridiculous but there we go. My sense of self & validation has become a little too tied up in work and I don’t like that. 

I am sure you deserve more money. If you have extra responsibilities, you should get paid extra also. The worst that can happen is you stay at the same rate, but at least you know you tried to get more. For all you know they are terrified you may leave for more money as now they are getting a great worker for a pittance. 

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4 hours ago, maarsen said:

I am sure you deserve more money. If you have extra responsibilities, you should get paid extra also. The worst that can happen is you stay at the same rate, but at least you know you tried to get more. For all you know they are terrified you may leave for more money as now they are getting a great worker for a pittance. 

I don’t think I actually deserve it though because I feel awful at my job. I never seem to hit deadlines, all my work seems subpar & not as good as it should be cos I’m so stretched for time, busy & stressed out 

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Here is what I would say if you were working for a private company in my profession (IT):

Don't fall in to the trap of trying to do too many things, consequently doing most of them badly, and ultimately probably getting burned out and/or resigning or being fired. You will get little sympathy from your employer and will only damage your mental health and career. Instead report that you have too much to do and request prioritisation of your tasks. If you don't get it, choose your own prioritisation, making sure to prioritise tasks you enjoy and that will help you grow, and, if you want to play nice, also those you think most crucial to your employer. Then make sure to report this prioritisation, and your progress, at frequent intervals, keeping a record. If ordered to pick up a new task, say "okay, which current task do you want me to drop?", and if you get no answer, choose one to drop and document this in your next report. If your manager won't work with you and keeps demanding that you do everything at top priority, then look for another job.

I don't know how much of that applies to you, but your mental health must always come first.

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