Mornings

Things are always better in the morning. I always prefer to work in the mornings so that I have energy, a fresh slate, and a clear(er) mind. I still have horrible anxiety and anger thinking about all the interactions I've had with people, the incivility, the name-calling, storming out of rooms, and what crap I have to look forward to today.

Up until about two days ago I was able to maintain a positive, cheerful attitude at work even when interacting with mopey, gruff, immature idiots. Rather than get dragged down and have a bad attitude too (which would be warranted given what's going on there...) I made a conscious decision last year to just act as I would if I were living my ideal life. Act happy. It's not really an "act" though, I'm just letting myself be happy and choosing to express that at work, rather than letting myself be unhappy and being mopey and rude like the others.

I love the mornings. I've been trying to get up regularly at 5 a.m. so that I can work for a few hours before work. That plan hasn't worked too well since I finished my PhD because I expended SUCH a high degree of energy trying to finish that thing that I didn't have any resources left. I'm proud of myself for getting up at ~5:30 a.m. this week to do stuff before work. I've done some studying for my first interview, did some budgeting, read some stuff for mental health prep before I head into hell (work). I need to work on going to bed earlier and getting up at 5 a.m. That's my goal for tomorrow and Friday.

Today I plan to go into work as cheery as usual. I am going to be stern and protect myself when people ask for help, and say, "Google is your friend. Use it." Or something like that. I will work on the projects I haven't gotten to work on in weeks due to the lawsuit. I will look forward to the future rather than let myself get bogged down ruminating about how awful the situation is. It really is a horrible situation, but I can't afford to let it affect me because I need to be in a good place when I start interviewing. I haven't had an issue with any of this stuff I'm talking about until about two days ago when I reached the end of my rope.

Normally I don't have to do self-talk in order to be positive, but seriously you wouldn't believe how bad things are...I will do a summary later with examples of the types of things going on. I heard someone call me an "overachiever" a couple days ago (lol). Someone also saw the two awards in my office that I've received within 14 months of working there, and she said, "You're so spoiled!" And she didn't mean it in a good way...she resents that I get treated so well by the higher-ups. That's just an example of what I go through.

Luckily the names I'm being called are totally tame and really aren't negative things compared to what other people are being called. But still, it makes me feel bad when people aren't even happy for my awards and what I have done -- instead, seeing my awards makes them resent management for not giving them an award and makes them see me as "privileged" and spoiled. Of course that detracts from how good I felt when getting the award. But I won't let it detract because you know what? Now I have two awards on my resume to show for my work here, which only looks good for me. And the only people I care about impressing are the two people I'm going to ask for recommendations when I get a new job. I just need to work on impressing them and managing my impression so that they see how awesome I am (and can tell the interviewers that).