Just taking a minute to reflect on the border between my current state and my home state, here's a picture of the Columbia Gorge. Beautiful picture from Craig Wolf of Hood River outside of Portland:
Also, I saw the Northern Lights! I'm pretty sure, anyway. I've never seen a green sky before, but I saw one two days last week in the evening. It was really cool. The hills were cutting into the green. It very much looked like this picture, except without the Crown Point building:
A few cool ones of the aurora above Mount Hood:
I just flipped through some pictures from J. I love him so much. I think that every moment not spent with him is one less moment I'll ever have with him. That's how much I love him.
So, here's my view in the morning...looks way closer and jaw-dropping in person. I wish I could take one to show the real experience!
So, here's my view in the morning...looks way closer and jaw-dropping in person. I wish I could take one to show the real experience!
My view this morning
I had a terrible day at work today. I'm having a terrible time there in general. The culture and my culture don't mix. Imagine a group of soldiers and officers...now imagine them all getting hired at Starbucks and working in one department. Not that they are bad people -- in fact I like many of them. It's just the total mismatch of cultures being shoved into each other. I think asking questions is good, but it's considered insulting and insubordinate in some cases in this culture. I think offering to help is nice, but my offer comes across like I'm trying to butt in (because everything is so compartmentalized and segmented). I know I can't change the culture, and I certainly don't want to invest the effort required to do so, but I feel like I have to do something.
I am struggling so much just to have normal conversations. I feel like it's just constant miscommunications. There's no teamwork. I'm totally isolated and excluded, to an extreme. It makes me feel lost, being there. I am already lost in life right now, but I'm totally isolated, excluded (structurally but also excluded from the "good old boys" club at nearly every meeting), and frustrated nearly all day. I feel like I'm having so much difficulty that I'll get a horrible recommendation. I need to once again take a proactive approach and try to start communicating with my boss about the difficulties I'm having and how to resolve them. The problem is, he is a big part of the problem. He treats me like I'm unimportant, which makes me withdraw comments, stop making suggestions, stop taking initiative, etc. I feel like I'm useless and like I can't do anything right. That is the effect of this culture on me (and it's not just the officer side of the house--the civilian side is not great either, but it's hard to tell how much is due to reacting to the culture like I'm doing). I don't need that, especially because of the lack of good people in my current life. I've become totally isolated (a necessity in order to finish the school project) and that's not a good situation to be in when your work culture sucks too. I need a positive culture in my life to make up for the pain of the last few years of graduate school. I'm going to target healthy work cultures for my next job.
I'm nervous about leaving my job because of (lack of) finances and a weak job market in the NW for my level of experience in my field. I don't have confidence I'd get a job right away. I need to stay here at least a year for my resume's sake. I just don't know if I can take it much longer than that. I had wanted to stay 5 years for the retirement payout, but I don't know if I can last much longer than a year and a half here. I do want the stability of a government job, but not if I can't make my situation better. Everyone seems so...just plain unhappy all the time. People crying, I was about to yell at people today, griping. Everyone just seems unhappy. It's so hard to go to work in that environment that just makes me frustrated, upset with myself, and feel like a failure, because I have no life outside of work right now.
But I just don't feel like I'm ready for this position. The job description actually said 5 years of experience was required, which surprised me because when I applied it had said 3 years. I had about 3 years of professional experience, but not 5. So I feel like I got put into a position that should be "in training" but I have no one training me and no one to talk to. It is setting me up for failure. It's fine to challenge someone in a role, but in order to be challenged you have to be somewhat decent at the task first--otherwise it just makes it more stressful. So I just end up feeling dumped in the ocean to fend for myself and constantly trying to figure out who to ask. I also think they forget that I've only been there 7.5 months...they never did any training with me and I didn't know what to ask for before I was in the role, so I basically got no training (except for one aspect). I'm just horribly frustrated. Once I recover from school and get my life back on track over the next month or so, I need to start applying to jobs. My goal is still to leave in June 2014, for now. I might still try to go to Ireland for a month. Who knows, maybe J and I will elope and get married out of the country next year. I have so many conflicting desires because I feel the need to get out of this environment, but I don't want to be seen as a job hopper and I need to start saving money for a family. How can I achieve both? I need to start thinking about this now that I'm done with school and am starting to have more resources available (very slowly...even doing laundry right now sounds overwhelming!).
I am struggling so much just to have normal conversations. I feel like it's just constant miscommunications. There's no teamwork. I'm totally isolated and excluded, to an extreme. It makes me feel lost, being there. I am already lost in life right now, but I'm totally isolated, excluded (structurally but also excluded from the "good old boys" club at nearly every meeting), and frustrated nearly all day. I feel like I'm having so much difficulty that I'll get a horrible recommendation. I need to once again take a proactive approach and try to start communicating with my boss about the difficulties I'm having and how to resolve them. The problem is, he is a big part of the problem. He treats me like I'm unimportant, which makes me withdraw comments, stop making suggestions, stop taking initiative, etc. I feel like I'm useless and like I can't do anything right. That is the effect of this culture on me (and it's not just the officer side of the house--the civilian side is not great either, but it's hard to tell how much is due to reacting to the culture like I'm doing). I don't need that, especially because of the lack of good people in my current life. I've become totally isolated (a necessity in order to finish the school project) and that's not a good situation to be in when your work culture sucks too. I need a positive culture in my life to make up for the pain of the last few years of graduate school. I'm going to target healthy work cultures for my next job.
I'm nervous about leaving my job because of (lack of) finances and a weak job market in the NW for my level of experience in my field. I don't have confidence I'd get a job right away. I need to stay here at least a year for my resume's sake. I just don't know if I can take it much longer than that. I had wanted to stay 5 years for the retirement payout, but I don't know if I can last much longer than a year and a half here. I do want the stability of a government job, but not if I can't make my situation better. Everyone seems so...just plain unhappy all the time. People crying, I was about to yell at people today, griping. Everyone just seems unhappy. It's so hard to go to work in that environment that just makes me frustrated, upset with myself, and feel like a failure, because I have no life outside of work right now.
But I just don't feel like I'm ready for this position. The job description actually said 5 years of experience was required, which surprised me because when I applied it had said 3 years. I had about 3 years of professional experience, but not 5. So I feel like I got put into a position that should be "in training" but I have no one training me and no one to talk to. It is setting me up for failure. It's fine to challenge someone in a role, but in order to be challenged you have to be somewhat decent at the task first--otherwise it just makes it more stressful. So I just end up feeling dumped in the ocean to fend for myself and constantly trying to figure out who to ask. I also think they forget that I've only been there 7.5 months...they never did any training with me and I didn't know what to ask for before I was in the role, so I basically got no training (except for one aspect). I'm just horribly frustrated. Once I recover from school and get my life back on track over the next month or so, I need to start applying to jobs. My goal is still to leave in June 2014, for now. I might still try to go to Ireland for a month. Who knows, maybe J and I will elope and get married out of the country next year. I have so many conflicting desires because I feel the need to get out of this environment, but I don't want to be seen as a job hopper and I need to start saving money for a family. How can I achieve both? I need to start thinking about this now that I'm done with school and am starting to have more resources available (very slowly...even doing laundry right now sounds overwhelming!).
I wonder how society would be today if no men were around. I was reflecting on how women are encouraged throughout life to depend on a man. And I know that sounds cliche, but I can illustrate it well with an example. I'm watching Bear Grylls climb down a mountain in South Dakota, building fires, etc. He said something that made me think about how many mountains he's climbed. I reflected on how many I've climbed. I've climbed a good number, but nothing compared to him. Anyway, it got me thinking about something I thought about this weekend when I had a question about my computer...I though, "I don't need to worry about figuring that out. I'll always have a boyfriend in my life who knows about that kind of stuff." It was something related to an issue I'm having with a data file in my Outlook program.
But I actually thought that, I'll always have a boyfriend who can take care of that for me! So you can see what I mean...being dependent on a man. Rather, being encouraged and reinforced to think you are dependent on men. Girls, at least in my experience, have always been socially allowed to opt out of things. I did half ass knee push ups in middle school along with all the other girls because that was something I could get away with as a girl. Women at work kind of assume that the men will do any difficult moving task, even if it's not that hard (like moving a desk to a new office). The point is, when you grow up thinking that you can always just ask someone to fix something for you, you really do become dependent on them because you don't learn how to do it yourself. I've decided to actively combat this.
That's why I ask for instruction so that I can take care of things myself. Like fixing lights on my car, replacing air filters, etc. Even the seemingly easy things to a guy might not be things that many girls typically know how to do. I have no clue how to work a lawnmower because my brother always got that duty (not that I wanted it!), but I know how to clean the house because that was my chore. I'm reflecting on how reinforcement throughout my life has led me to not learn certain things. I want to continue making sure I learn those skills so that I feel powerful and independent. I know many of these words sound cliche, but hopefully in context you are able to step back from those words and understand the meaning behind my explanation of gaining my independence back.
Wow! Well, I started out the entry with an intent to focus on the good things I had seen and done today (Mount Rainier was beautiful of course), and I spoke to my "non-work colleague" BC about really good things. She is encouraging me through this recovery process. We talked about how for the time being I need to focus on letting myself recover and not doing anything else -- letting myself catch up on errands, watch TV, cook good food, exercise, and not feeling like I have to go run out and do other stuff. I need to recover. If I could choose a few words to sum up this current period of my life, they would be: Lost, Loss, Recovery. For sure.
Wow! Well, I started out the entry with an intent to focus on the good things I had seen and done today (Mount Rainier was beautiful of course), and I spoke to my "non-work colleague" BC about really good things. She is encouraging me through this recovery process. We talked about how for the time being I need to focus on letting myself recover and not doing anything else -- letting myself catch up on errands, watch TV, cook good food, exercise, and not feeling like I have to go run out and do other stuff. I need to recover. If I could choose a few words to sum up this current period of my life, they would be: Lost, Loss, Recovery. For sure.
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