Savorin' the Weekend

I’m savoring every minute of my weekends as my workweek can be intense, riddled with must-do projects and deadlines, sometimes cutting into my lunch hour. For now it’s paying the bills, polishing my foreign language usage and the hours are affable. I can’t complain.
I still get plenty of daylight at the end of the day…to squeeze in a jog, to make a meal and to consume the print news of the day. The feeling of Fridays can’t be beat though, as I look forward to the two-day weekend break when I can irresponsibly sleep-in that extra hour, brew a hot cup of coffee my way (I like to drink mine with hazelnut creamer) while skimming a plethora of new books I have been collecting but not read.
Then, Bubba and I will play. We spent these last two weekends romping about. Last weekend, we had extraordinarily hot weather. We flew a kite, threw a football around at the beach and had a few barbeques. This weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown and then went up the 21 stories of the Coit Tower (in an elevator) for a gorgeous cityview. We invited Bubba’s star student (the one whose wedding we attended in Hawaii) on all of our outings. She recently graduated from college and is now a full-fledged Army nurse. She is on the tail end of her stay in San Francisco, preparing for her departure and the next phase of her life and career. Her husband was picked up to train with the US Army Rangers so she will be alone for a few months. She warmly invited Bubba and I to go live with her in Hawaii as she will eventually be stationed there. She promised to get a place with enough room for the four of us. What an incredibly sweet offer!
I have been bonding with her even though she remains Bubba’s student and friend. She considers Bubba to be her mentor. Today, she joined me on a workout and we ran nearly 5-miles on a steady pace, even though I haven’t done too much distance running lately. I will really miss her.
This last week, I have been contemplating the positive effects of socializing. It’s actually a health benefit. With this in mind, I have come up with a goal to seek out a new best friend. I have a handful of wonderful friends all around the world, but I believe in the physical presence of this friend.
Unlike, being in school, where we have naturally abundant opportunities to perpetuate friendships, I have to start from ground zero. I thought about posting an ad to find this new friend. I half jokingly voiced this lofty goal to my soft-spoken ivy-league colleague and she reacted to my idea with keen interest. She replied that she might soon be in the field of seeking out a new best friend, also. We instantly compared notes on our backgrounds. Though I surpass her a little bit in age, she surpasses me in academia. She has grad school under her belt. She shares my love of exercise. She is an athlete. She participates in marathons and triathlons. She’d be a motivational force. We discovered our similar sense of humor and taste in comedy. We are capable of recalling the same scenarios in films and commercials to substantiate our 'inside jokes.' Since I haven’t even begun my search, yet, we agreed on keeping our options open.
She suggested bowling, when I suggested a low pressure outing to get to know each other better. We shall see where this leads. Friendships are fun and so good for the mind and heart.

Rock of a Perspective

Work remains a challenge (never ending spreadsheets, data processing, foreign language correspondence and looming deadlines) but my attitude improved after an informal one-hour telephone conference with a tele-commutin' colleague today. I came up with a laundry list of specific questions pertaining to the workload in my queue. My colleague helped me to understand my job so much better. Furthermore, my bosses sat me down and stipulated that I didn't have to finish every assignment sent to me as long as I progressed productively at my own rate. I had a sensation akin to that of a light-bulb going off inside my head and suddenly, all that haziness, dismay and impatience with work receded from my mind. (Hope it will last!)
My morale is also picking up as my new colleagues are gradually befriending me, offering up their guidance and expressing their very own struggles on the job. Their stories are helping to alter my 'perspective.'
I read an essay once on this topic. I recall the closing line the commentator made about how individual perspective can be so solid, "you can cut it with a knife."
When I now think about 'perspective,' I have an image of a physical form.
In an effort to overcome my burdensome 'perspective' block brought on by the grief of escalating duties and zero training at work, I've recently tried readjusting my thinking and my attitude. Coming across an article in a holistic magazine, I was introduced to Byron Katie. She originated a movement called, "The Work." In a nutshell, we become prisoners of our own negative thoughts and its downward spiral effect.
So, as I hop out of bed everyday at dawn, I (try to) become cognizant of how I stand, how I walk and what I'm thinking. I pull myself taller, chin up higher and remind myself to put my best foot forward and in the process quell, if any, waking negative notions.
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be." Abe Lincoln

Dippin' Morale

It’s a Sunday night. I am rewiring my mindset to feel more positive about the coming workweek. After witnessing the recent exodus of employees, I am starting to picture myself jumping ship. The problem is the training, or the lack thereof. No dummy projects, no formal manual, not even a brief overview. Although, we have samples bursting at the seams in our computer database, it is so time consuming to dig them out, look through them and determine which to apply to the project at hand. It took me more than half the day to figure out how to create an invoice, to save them and to send them straight to a client overseas.
The worst part is being delegated these little tasks by superiors via instant messaging and without any further instructions. Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, I was so relieved, when my colleague, the ivy-league graduate, expressed her true colors. She confessed she didn’t know how much longer she could stay. She was getting tired of the critiques of her finished products.
It is only after completing a project that the little errors are brought to our attention: “Never do this, never do that.”
So why isn’t a few weeks committed to showing us the do’s and the don’ts of the job?
Her disappointment made me see how I am not the only one with a dipping morale. It has been interesting to come into work and to be able to read and write in a foreign language all day but it’s no fun having our sweat and toil rejected.
I am trying to remain positive and to equate the possibility of a raise with a sense of job satisfaction.
But my colleague and I did joke, though, how we might derive more pleasure serving up hot coffee as a barista than to sit here, working through a pile of projects without guidance and then to be on the end of a barrage of critical feedback after.