ixaera keeps on going~

[ixaera]

50 minutes ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

I AM SO BEHIND ON YOUR BL, BUT THIS SHIT LOOKS GOOD. KEEP IT UP.

 

IT'S OKAY I'M BEHIND ON IT TOO LOL

 

51 minutes ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

I can't even imagine. I might lose my mind if I saw a woman using 5 pieces of equipment at once. And who TF does two kinds of lat pull down in one circuit? Crazy people, that's who.

 

While keeping an eye out to see if she was done with that cable pull down I saw her doing things, and it wasn't consistent like a circuit should be. She'd do a thing, do these fly cable things but where you kneel and pull them in? Then sometimes she'd do something on the lat cable and other times she'd do some kinda abs on the bench press. I only saw her actually use the pulldown one time, it was puzzling.

 

52 minutes ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

What does the bottle say, woman?  

 

Dunno! I had rescued them from a ziploc in my purse lol

I coulda googled it though.

[ixaera]

MAYLY CHECK IN

5/10/17 & 5/11/17

 

A word. I am not feeling it these last few days. Nothing but fitness stuff is being felt at all. I have a theory on why:

 

It's shark week <-- this is obvious reason #1, but it doesn't USUALLY totally destroy my groove

I'm not giving work stress enough credit <-- I came to this conclusion yesterday

 

Work stress things: It's not that bad and I shouldn't be so stressed, but I am. There have been A LOT of changes lately, some of which seem to indicate the legacy stuff I support may go away (at some unknown far future date). The key to this not also being when my whole job goes away is probably figuring out how to onboard other data management teams and learn their stuff too. The other guy who does my job is a poor troubleshooter and has frequently done stuff to cause tier 1 to complain to me (at which I say, hey, I am not team lead or in any position of authority, you need to complain to your manager and pressure her to complain to my boss, it can't come from me). This sometimes includes a heavier case load for myself, which doesn't reflect in report numbers because he frequently will do things like take a case, confirm there's an issue and send it back with a "confirmed there is an issue" as the message, which is obviously unhelpful to everyone but quickly boosts his own metrics. I have other complaints, but they are just gripes and don't actually affect me. THIS stuff does. Because he's the only other person doing this, when he fails and tier 1 still needs somewhere to go, sometimes they pick me (they have other outlets, like going around us directly to tier 3, which IMO is bad for my future too). So I sometimes end up with case work that doesn't end up in reports because it's informal and research requested via IM. And yeah, I know the answer is to complain to my boss, but my boss really likes this guy and honestly if this guy goes away my stress just gets HIGHER. I have no guarantee he would be backfilled. They have never backfilled my team lead who left.

 

I also back up someone who has no one else on her team, so when the two collide, it can be very stressful. 

 

So okay, time to acknowledge that this might be sucking some life out of my attempts to organize myself and playing a role in the desire to just switch off at night. Which is okay. Rest is an important way to cope. But, I'm probably going to swap to a weekly format for more flexibility so I can rest more when the signs point to it, or work harder when I can.

 

EXPEND

Lift 

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 

Switched to Friday again because my back was complaining on Wednesday night.

 

Get on the elliptical

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 

Did this yesterday but not Wednesday

 

Walks (track all walks)

2 walks Wednesday, 0 walks Thursday

 

ABZ

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Did some planks Wednesday but was a total bum Thursday

 

RECOVER

Food

1507 & 1710

99 & 123g proteins

Not as good as it sounds. Dinner was SUPPOSED to be lemongrass turkey w/ zucchini and some rice but I kept going "ONE MORE TURN" on civ 6 and dinner was red wine and a thinkthin bar instead vOv

Definitely affected me this morning

 

Water (64 oz a day plz)

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Yep

 

GROW

Write

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Nothing

 

Study

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 

 

Nothing

 

So you see I am having issues

I'm barely doing my cardio (I have to do it today and tomorrow to finish this week, Sunday is off the table). I'm still lifting. That's... about it. My food's doing okay but not awesome. I'm hoping with the exit of shark week today or tomorrow my ability to follow through will increase a bit.

[Urgan]

55 minutes ago, ixaera said:

While keeping an eye out to see if she was done with that cable pull down I saw her doing things, and it wasn't consistent like a circuit should be. She'd do a thing, do these fly cable things but where you kneel and pull them in? Then sometimes she'd do something on the lat cable and other times she'd do some kinda abs on the bench press. I only saw her actually use the pulldown one time, it was puzzling.

 

I think they call this "farting around"....

 

34 minutes ago, ixaera said:

It's shark week <-- this is obvious reason #1, but it doesn't USUALLY totally destroy my groove

I'm not giving work stress enough credit <-- I came to this conclusion yesterday

 

Work stress things: It's not that bad and I shouldn't be so stressed, but I am. There have been A LOT of changes lately, some of which seem to indicate the legacy stuff I support may go away (at some unknown far future date). The key to this not also being when my whole job goes away is probably figuring out how to onboard other data management teams and learn their stuff too. The other guy who does my job is a poor troubleshooter and has frequently done stuff to cause tier 1 to complain to me (at which I say, hey, I am not team lead or in any position of authority, you need to complain to your manager and pressure her to complain to my boss, it can't come from me). This sometimes includes a heavier case load for myself, which doesn't reflect in report numbers because he frequently will do things like take a case, confirm there's an issue and send it back with a "confirmed there is an issue" as the message, which is obviously unhelpful to everyone but quickly boosts his own metrics. I have other complaints, but they are just gripes and don't actually affect me. THIS stuff does. Because he's the only other person doing this, when he fails and tier 1 still needs somewhere to go, sometimes they pick me (they have other outlets, like going around us directly to tier 3, which IMO is bad for my future too). So I sometimes end up with case work that doesn't end up in reports because it's informal and research requested via IM. And yeah, I know the answer is to complain to my boss, but my boss really likes this guy and honestly if this guy goes away my stress just gets HIGHER. I have no guarantee he would be backfilled. They have never backfilled my team lead who left.

 

I also back up someone who has no one else on her team, so when the two collide, it can be very stressful. 

 

So okay, time to acknowledge that this might be sucking some life out of my attempts to organize myself and playing a role in the desire to just switch off at night. Which is okay. Rest is an important way to cope. But, I'm probably going to swap to a weekly format for more flexibility so I can rest more when the signs point to it, or work harder when I can.

 

Congrats, welcome to Team Work Stress. Acknowledgement is half the battle, or something. It's probably more subconscious than you realize and the only way out is a good Strategy because you have got two problems, right? Learning new stuff and figuring out a way to get the extra work you do logged. You can't get rid of Shortcut Sammy and you don't WANT to get rid of him because Reasons, can you ask your boss if you can document your actual work somehow? Surely they'd be interested in seeing where all your productivity is going?? 

[ixaera]

15 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Congrats, welcome to Team Work Stress. Acknowledgement is half the battle, or something. It's probably more subconscious than you realize and the only way out is a good Strategy because you have got two problems, right? Learning new stuff and figuring out a way to get the extra work you do logged. You can't get rid of Shortcut Sammy and you don't WANT to get rid of him because Reasons, can you ask your boss if you can document your actual work somehow? Surely they'd be interested in seeing where all your productivity is going?? 

 

Here I am, ON THE TEAM

I feel so included ;_;

 

The learning new stuff is not really feasible because 1) I do not know who I could reach out to who might have gaps they could use help with 2) there are kind of political walls even so but 3) our boss is working on that at least and we've been sort of transferred to another grandboss who could potentially put us to good use over time as our legacy stuff goes away

 

For the logging stuff there is a little bit of backstory: We don't really log anything! So, twice since my team lead has gone (so I suspect this used to be something he provided) my boss has asked me to find out how many cases we've done. It's not easy because we share an account and differentiate our cases with a field. Since it isn't closed or opened by us, it is only temporarily in our care, it's tricksy to figure out who's done what, but eventually I get some numbers out of the report system and supply them. We tend to run about equal by those reports. So there's no official metrics! At all. 

 

I don't know if I want to suggest real metrics, because then our tides of Super Busy and Super Slow become things for dumb managers (not my manager, he knows better) to look at and go "but why have you only done one person's work from this period to this period, it's too slow to have two people" not considering all the times when there's three people's work for two of us. Anyway. I don't know, maybe that's invalid. We actually were doing metrics briefly after acquisition, but then were told to stop. They were also entirely self reported, so I'm sure someone could just say they were "researching tickets" for 8 hours even if they did 30 minutes of work and then laundry all day.

 

My direct boss knows I'm valuable and does his best, so I'm not worried that someone would mistakenly think this guy is The Shit when he's disrespecting boss's requests and generating some complaints from the people he supports (and he's not All Bad by any means, the guy is pretty smart and has strengths that would be better applied in a dev ops type setting, preferably one where he didn't have to troubleshoot anything). 

 

Anyway, I'm not being defeatist. I think it will resolve itself with time and that there will be an unfortunate adjustment period somewhere in the future.

[Urgan]

17 minutes ago, ixaera said:

For the logging stuff there is a little bit of backstory: We don't really log anything! So, twice since my team lead has gone (so I suspect this used to be something he provided) my boss has asked me to find out how many cases we've done. It's not easy because we share an account and differentiate our cases with a field. Since it isn't closed or opened by us, it is only temporarily in our care, it's tricksy to figure out who's done what, but eventually I get some numbers out of the report system and supply them. We tend to run about equal by those reports. So there's no official metrics! At all. 

 

Could you request an additional field for internal reporting/documentation? Something you could use should any questions arise about workflow?

 

18 minutes ago, ixaera said:

The learning new stuff is not really feasible because 1) I do not know who I could reach out to who might have gaps they could use help with 2) there are kind of political walls even so but 3) our boss is working on that at least and we've been sort of transferred to another grandboss who could potentially put us to good use over time as our legacy stuff goes away

 

Moar research needed?

[ixaera]

25 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Could you request an additional field for internal reporting/documentation? Something you could use should any questions arise about workflow?

 

The reports operate off of case comment add/modify dates, which don't always seem to work as expected, and closed/open dates. One option is to just acknowledge the weakness in the report and say "ok, these are for cases opened by tier 1 during this time period, we touched X number of them" or whatever. This would be fine. I could additionally ask if I can slap my name in our tag field on cases that I get asked about but don't get escalated. This doesn't solve everything but it solves a few things.

 

29 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Moar research needed?

 

Aye, but I'm considering this as "in progress" on my boss's part for now, and then if I uncover networking resources I can probably do light footwork on my own, but as it stands, I only know Big Boss names and it would be super weird and potentially damaging for their new managerial report's report to be IMing them (they are in other cities) going "hiya have any work for me?"

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, ixaera said:

The reports operate off of case comment add/modify dates, which don't always seem to work as expected, and closed/open dates. One option is to just acknowledge the weakness in the report and say "ok, these are for cases opened by tier 1 during this time period, we touched X number of them" or whatever. This would be fine. I could additionally ask if I can slap my name in our tag field on cases that I get asked about but don't get escalated. This doesn't solve everything but it solves a few things.

 

Something > nothing. Get some CYA on the down low. The last thing you need is more eye-lasers trained on you for trying to find a way to prove you work your butt off. May require running reports a couple ways, but sounds promising!

 

6 minutes ago, ixaera said:

Aye, but I'm considering this as "in progress" on my boss's part for now, and then if I uncover networking resources I can probably do light footwork on my own, but as it stands, I only know Big Boss names and it would be super weird and potentially damaging for their new managerial report's report to be IMing them (they are in other cities) going "hiya have any work for me?"

 

Depends how scared you are about being shuffled off. If you're not too scared, then maybe try to shelve the matter as you can't do anything now, wake me in X months? Because if you can't fix then you just can't stress. Not fair for the worry bots in your brain to saddle you with someone else's responsibility.

 

If you have the feeling that you should be building some kind of bridge before the one you're on combusts in order to rest easy and there's something you can do during low work times, maybe? Random irons being put in the fire could...back-fire? How many fire metaphors can this thread take??? Yeah, randomly sending out feelers would get you the worst possible eye-lasers UNLESS you could parlay it into taking initiative that is in a good light and relevant. Kinda tricky, only a good bet if something falls in your lap? 

 

We talked about job hunting and decided you had too good a thing going where you are. That's still true, right? I hope you can set your mind at ease. That Uncertain feeling is the worst.

[ixaera]

2 minutes ago, Urgan said:

We talked about job hunting and decided you had too good a thing going where you are. That's still true, right? I hope you can set your mind at ease. That Uncertain feeling is the worst.

 

I still get to work from home 2x a week, which is GREAT for lifting days when it lines up, and my manager is really really hands off which is a fantastic fit for me. I work MUCH better on my own. Micromanagement stresses me like crazy and I feel like it's hard to find this situation. That said, I mean...

 

It might be time soon? I think for now I'm just going to keep my fingers on the pulse and see where it looks like the train is going. Even if I got let go, chances are I would have severance and I have good enough history with customer service and tech to get something more or less rapidly. The market is quite good in DFW.

 

Sigh, you're right. I need to not stress. It seems like I am where I am for now. But how do you not stress? I'm trying to find the switch...

[Urgan]

It doesn't cost anything to cruise for job openings as a Plan B. 

 

When you start thinking about it, try asking yourself what you can do about it right now.

 

Like, today.

 

If the answer is nothing or you're doing the best you can, then you have to set that problem aside like a ticket that's in someone else's queue. Give it up, it doesn't belong to you anymore. If there IS something you can do, nothing manages stress like proactivity. You're a problem solver, right? You got this.

[Urgan]

(I don't mean to suggest not worrying about such an important thing is NBD, but rather I know you're smart enough to paddle your way to greater job security, whatever that looks like.)

[ixaera]

[Urgan]

[Jord]

On 5/12/2017 at 3:08 PM, ixaera said:

 

QFT???

[ixaera]

On 5/13/2017 at 3:26 PM, Urgan said:

 

Dat perspective tho!

 

 

[ixaera]

I kinda failed super hard, so I'm coming up with stuff for just this week only and seeing how that goes. I have some basic ideas that will keep it simple in the face of Too Much Real Life

[ixaera]

Oh but here's my workout from Sunday:

 

Bench Press

1x5 50 lbs

1x3 60 lbs

1x2 70 lbs

1x1 85 lbs

3x3 93 lbs

 

T-Bar Row

5x3 80 lbs

 

Leg Extensions

3x11 55 lbs

 

Seated Leg Curls

3x11 55 lbs

 

Suppinated Grip Pull Downs

3x8 80 lbs

 

It was kinda busy for morning time, and I wasn't feeling curls or flies, so I just did some pulldowns, with a grip that works the biceps. Went to Mom's, put together a patio table, didn't expect to be tightening the bolts after my sister and getting ribbed for being "so strong"  Really the first super obvious real life application of this stuff so far.

 

Saturday night was the UFC fight, which we attended. I have discovered that sitting with 50k people is not for me, I nearly NEARLY had a panic attack (my chest did a thing and I felt like I couldn't breathe for a minute, but me and the beast, we struggled, and I came out the victor somehow and did not have to run away)

[Urgan]

23 minutes ago, ixaera said:

It was kinda busy for morning time, and I wasn't feeling curls or flies, so I just did some pulldowns, with a grip that works the biceps. Went to Mom's, put together a patio table, didn't expect to be tightening the bolts after my sister and getting ribbed for being "so strong"  Really the first super obvious real life application of this stuff so far.

 

Saturday night was the UFC fight, which we attended. I have discovered that sitting with 50k people is not for me, I nearly NEARLY had a panic attack (my chest did a thing and I felt like I couldn't breathe for a minute, but me and the beast, we struggled, and I came out the victor somehow and did not have to run away)

 

Two kinds of strong.

[ixaera]

MAY 15 - 21 GOALS

Just one week to feel this out, going for simple but strict enough to engage me.

 

Lift On The Program

Yeah, it's MY program, but sticking to it is the name of the game.

 

Get on the elliptical 4x week

 

Bonus: Any day that includes fitness time may also include video games time

 

Stick to weekly average of 1550. JUST DO IT.

 

Protein 95g+ 6 days a week

 

Stick to a non-whole fruit & veggie sugar cap of 25g (so added only) 5 days a week

This is where we're starting

 

Saturated Fat cap of 22g 6 days a week

 

Bonus: A completed week for diet means I can buy a fun thing, with a cap of $30, and it can be saved for next time. Ideas right now include new tank tops for public wear, new video games, new printed socks, etc.

 

Write! Every! Day!

 

Bonus: Can have a pub night where I drink more than one drink/eat nachos/etc (the idea is that it doesn't conflict with the weekly average though)

 

Study Sometimes!

Do Yer Chores!

 

No goal for these two:

Treats via chores (thinking a vague chore difficulty/time spent to snack unhealthiness ratio perhaps idk, not getting too specific here because I don't want to go down the road of saying "this food is safe, this food is unsafe" -- think more obvious things like a small serving of ice cream, a small cookie, a glass of wine, stuff that would contribute towards that added sugar cap, or maybe a bag of chips even)

 

And I earn tv time via studying.

 

So 4-5ish goals that are fairly simple with tangible immediate rewards

Can we dig it??

 

 

I predict the actual difficult things will be writing daily, getting on the elliptical enough times, and studying. I'm hoping my need to hoard rewards will kick in and I'll just be hyperproductive toward the goal of having the ability to do whatever I want via rewards.

[Urgan]

I'm for a sliding sugar macro if you're doing food rewards. Keeps it simple.

[ixaera]

1 minute ago, Urgan said:

I'm for a sliding sugar macro if you're doing food rewards. Keeps it simple.

 

You just reminded me I forgot my saturated fat goal too oops

 

I'm unsure on the slider for it. I don't want to use it as a way to eat nothing but donuts, and I'm real good at figuring out how to totally crush the spirit of my goals lol

Today's planned earned treat (assuming I do my chores) is a small glass of this chocolate shop wine I've been VERY much enjoying. It's a sweet red, 8g of sugar in a small glass, and it looks like I'll hit 33g with it. My dinner is leftovers and it would be a pain now to retroactively go find how much of that is added sugar, but the watermelon doesn't "count" and it's 9g so I'm safe today anyway.

 

I'll just let it float for a week and see what happens. 

[RedStone]

Just now, ixaera said:

a small glass of this chocolate shop wine I've been VERY much enjoyingI'll just let it float for a week and see what happens. 

 

I need this in my life!

[ixaera]

3 minutes ago, RedStone said:

 

I need this in my life!

http://www.chocolateshopwine.com/

 

It's this stuff! So good!

[RedStone]

6 minutes ago, ixaera said:

http://www.chocolateshopwine.com/

 

It's this stuff! So good!

 

ERMERGERRRRRDDDDDDD  

[Urgan]

Maybe build for the allowance to have one very specific treat? A different type of goal than being able to have chips on Wednesday, sure.

[ixaera]

24 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Maybe build for the allowance to have one very specific treat? A different type of goal than being able to have chips on Wednesday, sure.

 

Maybe, I already have that write-every-day reward which could be applied to something like that, though. The spirit of this one is more of a daily bag of chips/glass of wine/serving of oreos type thing, maybe a pint of Halo Top if I scrub the shower or something. I also only aim to go under the added sugar cap 5 days a week, so I have some leeway built in.