Saturday, September 23, 2006

The Day The World Didn't End

So I guess there will be short stories here after all, where they can't be avoided. It's hard to write about feelings when you can't vent about situations. And I'm so over the blue font...for now.

Yesterday I seriously thought I was falling off the edge of the world. The things I thought would push me over didn't actually (school), but a lot of other unexpected stuff happened...work stuff; stuff that I'm okay with now, but yesterday I was 2 steps away from breaking down. I felt upset, panicked, angry...but more than anything else I just felt helpless; and while indifference was definitely not on my list of feelings, I was at the almost point past caring. You know, the point where you feel you tried as hard as you possibly could have, and it still wasn't enough, so you just don't feel like trying any more.

Anyway, my Genetics test was not as horrible as I thought. I knew I wouldn't ace the thing, but I am surprised by how much I knew. Basically, I knew enough that I enjoyed taking the test, regardless of how I did on it. I tend to panic in situations where I'm lost and/or have no plan, so really I was just worried about how I would feel looking at an exam without knowing how to get to point B. But I do freakishly enjoy taking tests, and the more prepared I am, the more I enjoy it. So all that was pleasantly unexpected within my day, but before that point I was running on no sleep,and I was at my mellowist moment. Anxiety tends to counter-effect caffeine apparently.

Phase two of my story: Upon arriving back at work my supervisor, Micro Manager, was at our bench. He's this very Southern, good natured but too-anal-about-things-to-be-as-laid-back-as-he-seems, guy. I've never seen him not smiling, even while making suggestions that are basically code for, "I say so, so it goes." But he's becoming the area manager, and he's been really stressed lately, so I unfortunately was on the receiving end of his breaking point. Before my test not much was going on, and I had gotten to work at 12:30 am to get everything that was going, well...going; my main reason was so I could skip out and go upstairs and study for a couple of hours before I went to take my test. My co-worker (who is actually the person on the other week, because Leon had some council thing to go to for this council he's on) had my number, and I told her, "If you need anything, I'll just be upstairs, so call me and I'll come back down." I thought this reasonable, since I was clocked out while I was upstairs. I then came down to check on things right before I left, and all was as it should be. Two hours later when I came back, things had gone horribly awry. An allergen cap had been dispensed wrong and got caught in one of the wheels on the instrument, and that stopped everything from processing. At least 500 tests were ruined. My co-worker was off training for one of the new instruments she'll be working with (basically everything in our department is changing, and even my role will be affected by cross-training pretty soon), and no one had told me she would be. I guess where I'm getting at is that Micro basically blamed me for what happened. He was ticked off that I had been upstairs without okaying it by him first, even though he wasn't even at work at that point, making that possibility a null one. And I wasn't about to skip my test, one that he knew about, to babysit an instrument because of this 1 in a 1000 chance that something bad would happen, which naturally decided to happen.

With this whole situation I kind of just felt like...I've been trying so hard to do what he wanted me to do--namely not doing my homework at work--and he had said they'd be willing to work with me when it came to school--namely that I'd be able to at least clock out and do my homework when necessary--but when it came down to it I was taking all the effort and no one was keeping their end of the bargain. Talk about a bunk system. And I was thrown by the onslaught. I couldn't even really respond to his berating. Then he just kind of went into a meeting, and I went on lunch. At this point I vented a little to Sheidi, and was ultimately less upset after lunch than before. Then before I left for the day I pulled him aside and basically said, 'I left my number, everything was fine right before I left, and I couldn't have missed my test.' He said, "I know," and he was back to not being a jerk, so I'm willing to put it aside and largely forget about it at this point. I think he ultimately knew it wasn't my fault, but I do think I'll have to be cautious from now on. He's the kind of guy who second guesses everything, so I never feel he has much confidence in me, or any of us. I hate that. And I'm guessing that some brown-nosing will be necessary for a while here.

Comments:
Brown-nosing? I wouldn't. Just do your job the best you can and work things out...but don't brown-nose. If it were me, it would feel like I'm constantly thanking him just for the chance to work, even though you are as needed there as he is. You're worth more than that sweetie!
 
When I say brown-nose, what I mean is over-acheive. That's what I do when I have nothing else to do. I find myself doing random things that aren't necessary, because I've already done everything that was necessary, but that are nice for me to have done. Stuff nobody else would have thought to have done, so it's appreciated. I really don't think I can stop myself from doing so if I'm doing my best, because my best is pretty freakin' awesome.

But yeah, it's been a while since I've had to resort to random tasks, because before I had homework. I still don't know how all this is going down, but we shall see. I'm certainly not going down with a sinking ship.
 
Note: Posting is a two-way street, baby.
 
I felt that way on Friday too. You seemed okay at dinner. I hope everything gets better.
 
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