02/16/2013

Bittersweet, today.  It was hard to hear my niece describe her mom’s fiance as living with them and putting no effort into having a relationship with her, that they only get to have deep family talks when the guy isn’t around.  If they’re having a conversation like that, he comes in and stops it.  I felt like telling my niece that she could move in with me.  I was by no means a perfect parent, but I am glad I never imposed a step-family environment on my son.  Forever, I didn’t believe in step-families, because I’d not seen a healthy example of one.  Thankfully, my own son’s step-mother was the person to teach me that step-families could be caring and healthy.

I am still warming up to the idea of being enthusiastic about my job.  I am working on a project with a woman who I find both patronizing and inspiring.  She is the person who hired me, the one of the three who advocated the most for hiring me.  I used to internalize her actions, but I am coming to realize that some of it is her own personality shortcoming.  What I like about her is that she is down to earth, professional, productive and pleasant.  She gets shit done, she’s interesting to talk to.  What I don’t like about her is that she only recognizes her own way as the good way, and it took me a while to see it but she is arrogant.  She has a PhD in psychology and she’s the company’s golden child, albeit for good reason (works hard, incredibly productive, not too good to do the crappy work herself).

She also hired a mini-me of herself, which is a woman from Texas who is very demanding but her personality is so kind and inspiring that when I talk to her I become my own damn cheerleader – "yes!  yes!  I am inspired to get that done for you!"  Not too much bad about her yet, but I’ve only worked closely with her for a few months.

I’m lucky to have opportunities to learn from people like this.  I realize that I am not reaching my full potential.  I don’t have a desire this late in life to work on a graduate degree, but I can find other opportunities to reach more of that potential.  I do have a bit of a goal to make my paycheck look a little more like a phone number than an area code.  Right now, it looks like a zip code.  I am also lucky that I know I have marketable skills, and if I want a raise I can just go get another job.  But I think I want more of a challenge than that.  Getting a raise by getting a new job could just mean I interview well.  It would be really cool to meet my financial goals by staying in the company and proving myself worthy of the raise or promotion.