Work Travel

If you follow my blog at all you know that I travel a moderate amount for work, usually for conferences or conventions. I am traveling again next week and just found out that our coordinator forgot to book our rooms so we are not in the conference hotel!! As a matter of fact we are in a hotel that is 3 miles away with limited shuttles between the two hotels!

This fact alone makes me want to cancel the whole trip (alas it's not just me and I'm actually presenting so that would be super uncool). I will be there from Wed through Sat and I can already see what a huge pain in the ass this is going to be. Usually I go to my room often throughout the day, if I don't have a session I'm particularly interested in or if I need some downtime after an intense talk. I also usually have to work a bit during the day which means not only will I not have the opportunity to go back to my room and rest, but I'll also have to carry my lap top around with me. I am so not looking forward to this, something tells me I'll be attending less sessions than I usually do.

I have only stayed at the non-conference hotel once before in my career. Hubby came with me for my first poster presentation and although I liked the smaller boutique hotel we stayed in I vowed to never do that again!

Oh and god help them if they don't have a bath tub!!!

30 posts in 30 days

I really do enjoy blogging but haven't been very good about it the last couple of months so I've decided to give NaBloPoMo a try. Thus ,today begins 30 posts in 30 days. It will be a challenge as I am traveling a lot this month but I believe I'll be bringing my lap top with me and can even post via my blackberry if I don't have a computer handy.

Wish me luck.

If there is anything specific my readers would like me to talk about please feel free to add a comment to this post and I'll see what I can do.

Rewriting Reality

I know that sometimes one persons reality is not another persons. I know that we enter situations with different expectations, perceptions and may focus on different parts of an interaction. However, I fail to believe that every single interaction that two people have leads to a totally different reality for each person. I believe there is some rewriting of reality that goes on between the original interaction and the recollection of that interaction.

As you may have guessed this rewriting of reality is happening in my interactions with another individual (an individual who has some power over me). The thing that bugs me the most about all this is that the other persons rewriting of reality leads to the accusation that I don't have the ability to do things. That things are not done, or are not done on time because I did not have the ability to do these things on time, correctly or sometimes at all.

I fully recognize that perhaps I could be the one rewriting reality, however I have discussed these "lack of ability" accusations with other people and they recall these interactions/situations in the same way that I do. I have confirmation that were someone not standing in my way I could have easily done things on time, correctly and completely. Also, when the accuser is pressed for details about how I did not have the "ability" to these things, the tune changes and all of a sudden it's "well I did not mean you didn't have the ability." Really? Because you're exact words were "I should not have expected you to do this given that you did not know how."

These rewriting of realities are driving me crazy. They're diminishing my motivation and lowering my moral. But when you're dealing with someone who is overly sensitive, insecure and passive aggressive what the hell do you do? Besides fester in frustration that is??

4 day workweek= 4 day weekend :)

I have a 4 day work week this week, hubby and I leave Friday for grad school town. Going to grad school's football game on Sat and visiting friends/colleagues the rest of the weekend. Really looking forward to our 4 day get away. I'm sure I'll need it after my meeting tomorrow. I haven't seen some of my friends in just about a year! I am so excited to see them all.

What will tomorrow bring?

Tomorrow is my annual review with my boss. It should be interesting. For the most part I have to let them direct the conversation so we don't go down the wrong (i.e., too sensitive to make progress) road. The one on one meetings are supposed to be a means of my boss getting feedback from everyone about how the team should be restructured.

Mental Health Day

I've had a hard time adjusting since I got back from the West Coasts so I took a mental health day today.

Slept in
Had a massage (for the first time in 5 months: and made another appt for next week)
Sushi for lunch with my sister
Extravagant Pedicure (also with my sister)
Caught up on our household bills (feels good to have that under control)
Had dinner out with hubby
Ran a few errands with hubby
Going to bed in 15 minutes (@9:30pm)

I think that's a pretty good mental health day. Although physically I feel like I got my butt kicked (hold all my stress in my neck and shoulders and massage therapist tried to work a bunch of that out for me today), psychologically I am really glad I took today for myself.

Home sweet home

My East Coast brain can not handle the West Coast time zone. I have been sleeping well but you would never know it too look at me, I look like a walking zombie. I'm at a work related conference which means I had to go to a session during every available time period (for both taking notes to report back to the team and because it was important to have a presence at this conference).

During down time I have been logging into work and troubleshooting what I can. The team has become increasingly more frustrated and their unrealistically (in my opinion) impatient with the fact that things haven't changed since I last week. The fact that I'm on the opposite coast, 3 hours behind has made all of this worse because I can't respond to them timely and help to simmer things down before they get all worked up. I am exhausted.

I never ended up using the bathtub. But I'm glad it was here. :)

I scheduled a big meeting at work on Monday, otherwise I may think about not going in. I feel like I am in serious need of some downtime. But at least I'll be able to spend the weekend in my own bed with my hubby and my puppies.