... "Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"

[ReturnOfTheDad]

Great song, keep on fighting. ??

[Jean]

7 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Reminder that to fall back and regroup, and recharge, is an important part of continuing to fight.

 

Alas! Falling back and regrouping requires the energy to prep for it and communicate about it, emotionally smart people who understand the situation and don't ask you to justify or fight your way there, financial stability or a combination of the above. That is not my situation right now. A fighting retreat or repositioning is all I've known for the last 8 years and all I am able to setup right now.

[Jean]

Alright, I'm taking my previous rant back.

 

 

11 hours ago, Jean said:

emotionally smart people who understand the situation and don't ask you to justify or fight your way there

Looks like I've got that. I have to understand and acknowledge that I am in a caring environment and away from manipulative people right now.

[Scaly Freak]

9 hours ago, Jean said:

I am in a caring environment and away from manipulative people right now

 

This is awesome. Milk this for all you can get!  

[RES]

On 3/11/2024 at 12:26 PM, Jean said:

 

On 3/11/2024 at 12:44 AM, Jean said:

emotionally smart people who understand the situation and don't ask you to justify or fight your way there

Looks like I've got that. I have to understand and acknowledge that I am in a caring environment and away from manipulative people right now.

I see you friend ❤️ 

[Jean]

Quick update: I'm failing  mightily at baroning. Work is draining most of my mental energy and internet browsing/video games are eating most of my free time.

 

One thing I have noticed is that I have a mostly reactive mindset. While I can see the paths forward and anticipate the hits before they come, I consistently fail at mustering the strength and energy to proactively handle the situation and get myself in the mental space I want. Instead, I keep on tanking the hits, thinking under pressure and developing short term solutions.

 

I may have become a master at tactics but to make this work, I need to focus and get better at strategy. I'm a first lieutenant without a general and I need to become that general or find one. Good enough is not good enough anymore if it leads to me stagnating in a situation that drains me.

[Jean]

Not an update but this song has "yabadabadoo" in it and is worth mentioning just because of that:

 

 

[Jean]

Life has a fun way to merrily go round: I was fired last year, quickly got an opportunity in a humane but with some lackings in management place (that was a huge step up from what I had known since then) and it now turns out that the same situation I had before (too many people able to give me directives and evaluate me with conflicting objectives and poor view of what the actual problems are) makes me "not efficient enough" so that we're getting to the breaking point...

 

Point of focus for me is not reiterating the mistakes I've made before and keeping doing what I enjoy having as part of my behavior. This time, I intend to:

• prioritize my health, projects and being a good human being. If it breaks, it breaks ;
• keep on keeping on, which is one of my defining traits. While I don't feel bound to this work relationship, I am not giving up on it just yet. I'll focus on standing my ground, trying to make my view plain, underlying points of frictions and candidly draw plans toward project successes and following them ;
• documenting most everything. When the time comes for "the speech", I want to be the one with factual data that they can pile on.

I tend to see work relationships like emotional ones: we do have differences and encounter hardship but we should be able to get through it if we both genuinely work in that direction and communicate about our divergences. Like emotional relationships, I'm not planning on staying in an abusing one either, just doing my genuinely best effort to make it work, be happy if it does work or walk away without regrets if it doesn't pan out.

Edit: lack of/misguided leadership is a flaw I had identified right after being hired and the plan was to work there for a few years, build finances and experience and then launch my own study. I am a bit (ok, a lot) tired of having a mix of ill intending/inefficient people in management.

[Tobbe]

First of all, congratulations on the new job! I don't know what it's like in your field of work, but where I am the market is *brutal* right now with people sending out hundreds of applications and only hearing back from like 10 and then not actually getting any of the jobs at all. I speak to people who are getting desperate having been on a job hunt for over half a year! 

So, again, congrats on landing your new gig!

 

> lack of/misguided leadership is a flaw

> I am a bit (ok, a lot) tired of having a mix of ill intending/inefficient people in management.

 

Word! That really resonates with me. I was in the exact same situation myself. And that was totally the reason I started my own business. I don't want any more bosses trying to tell me what to do!  And it was the best decision ever! So I very much encourage you to do your own thing! If possible, try starting doing what you eventually want to be doing full time on nights and weekends, and once it has traction you quit your day job.

[Jean]

2 hours ago, Tobbe said:

I don't know what it's like in your field of work, but where I am the market is *brutal* right now

The market for my skillset was very demand oriented last year and finding a job wasn't really difficult. I would say it is still demand driven, though a bit less so, but I'm being a bit more careful with that assessment as my employer is letting people go due to lack of work to have them do. My reading of the situation is that we have enough job but are poorly organized, which leads to a bad repartition of it and people getting let go while others are overworked. I may be wrong on that.

 

2 hours ago, Tobbe said:

If possible, try starting doing what you eventually want to be doing full time on nights and weekends, and once it has traction you quit your day job.

One of my problems is a lack of mental energy, which, incidentally, is pretty hard to explain to old fashion managers. I've focused on taking time for myself and not getting drawn into job to meet unrealistic deadlines lately but I still have very low energy on evenings and weekends to pursue my own ventures. Prioritizing workouts is part of the process to get me up and running again, it's getting better but I'm not yet there.

[RES]

2 hours ago, Jean said:

My reading of the situation is that we have enough job but are poorly organized, which leads to a bad repartition of it and people getting let go while others are overworked. I may be wrong on that.

I had something similar in my full time job. It's getting better, mostly due to leadership being let go and new (better) leadership being brought in that addressed the issue. It's never good when the reward for doing a good job is more work, while those that are slacking are allowed to get away with it!

Glad to see you around again.

[Jean]

Thanks! I have a few focus points in order to achieve my goals of taking care of myself and being a good/attractive human being:

* walk 1h/day under the sun: this helps me focus a lot and gets me some tan while I almost don't spend any time outside at all otherwise ;

* work out regularly: I have a regular plan and an emergency workout that I can do anytime, anywhere, with no excuses. This should help ;
* sleep at least 6h/night ;

* eat enough. This one is lax, what it actually means is that if I fail to prep meals for the week and I'm hungry as a result of it, I must not try to spare money by not eating enough but instead buy whatever necessary to have a complete, healthy meal anyway.

[Jean]

Alright, you know what? Let's open a new chapter and name this part of my life:

Good things happen to attractive people.

 

 

That's a big break with my previous focus that was on achieving long term results at the cost of the short term appearance of efficiency, which followed sort of a "good things happen to good people" logic. I can't do that anymore. Instead, what I'm going to do are the 4 bullet points listed in the post above, which are:
 

• walk 1h/day under the sun: this helps me focus a lot and gets me some tan while I almost don't spend any time outside at all otherwise ;

• work out regularly: I have a regular plan and an emergency workout that I can do anytime, anywhere, with no excuses. This should help ;

• sleep at least 6h/night ;

• eat enough. This one is lax, what it actually means is that if I fail to prep meals for the week and I'm hungry as a result of it, I must not try to spare money by not eating enough but instead buy whatever necessary to have a complete, healthy meal anyway.

[Jean]

Summoning future me to help with my struggles. I want to be:

 

• a happy warrior, treating fights as routine facts of life, a life that I enjoy;
• a kind person, not afraid to be harsh but caring;
• a king at deflection: know what matters, know what does not, give the latter not even the slightiest bit of my energy or attention.

 

I strive to shape my immediate environment as organized chaos: welcome the unplanned and unforeseen, give people and situations leeway to evolve when they choose and craft areas of stability where they matter.

 

My fighting style is that of a tough, agile spellsword:
 

• I can go through any hardship with the Turtle form, where, shield in hand, life's blows slide on me and nothing stops me from doing tiny step after tiny step in an unstoppable march toward my purpose.
   
• I can dodge, redeploy, flank or ignore any situation by swiflty disappearing or teleporting away so that I can always direct my energy toward the things that matter and make a difference where it counts.
   

I am independent and efficient, my persona is The Mercenary.

[Jean]

Theme song for this part of my life will be:

 

[Jean]

Smellin' the scent of battle and the familiar feeling of readiness. Another appropriate song for times like these:

 

 

I'll be on the way toward victory until the day I give up, which ain't coming anytime soon.

[Mistr]

Good to see you here!

 

I think you are smart to document all the things happening at work. It is frustrating to have poor management. Having documentation allows you to say "project manager A set a deadline of Tuesday for this project. I would be happy to work on your project now, if you can talk to project manager A about an extension of their deadline".

 

Getting outside is great for both physical and mental health. I hope you have nice weather and places to go enjoy it.

[Jean]

Thanks! I'm preparing for asking for specific targets to be set, discussing them thoroughly and making clear and documented where I don't agree with them, do my best to stick to them or make clear that what I'm being asked conflicts with the targets that I have been given and work from there. I don't expect for it to work very well: there's too many people with conflicting views that have access to me, but at least I'll have given it my best shot and learned a lot in the process.

 

I've been reminded of this piece of music today:

 

[Jean]

Also, words of wisdom for today: things only let you down when you need them because you won't notice if they don't work while you're not trying to use them.

[Jean]

Time to gear up and do battle.

 

Battlesong:

 

[Mistr]

On 6/25/2024 at 2:38 PM, Jean said:

Also, words of wisdom for today: things only let you down when you need them because you won't notice if they don't work while you're not trying to use them.

 

This is just like you always find the missing item in the last place you look.

 

How are things going?

[Jean]

10 minutes ago, Mistr said:

How are things going?

 

Pretty good. My employer is trying to cut my salary but I think it stems from a bad evaluation from their part so don't need to question myself too much. I'll just go forward, see what happens and trust I'm resilient, independent and skillful enough to go one whatever may happen.

 

My main mistake is trying to please people, which never works, so I'm applying the only method that does work and focusing on myself. I trust good things will come out of it and I'm eager to see what tale I'll get to tell.

[Jean]

Alright, I'm finishing my current job on Wednesday. Things are looking like my next job would start November 4th.

 

Goals are:

1) Survive until Wednesday's evening.

2) Start building good habits right away :

* go to bed before 10 pm on Wednesday and the days after

* get up by 8 am at the latest starting Thursday

* Go shopping on Thursday, pile up yummy breakfast food

* Have a healthy breakfast every morning starting Friday

* Go out and exercise 1/day starting Thursday

 

Goals by day:

 

Monday: survive

 

Tuesday: survive

 

Wednesday:

* survive

* go to bed by 10pm

 

Thursday:

* get up by 8 am

* go shopping for yummy breakfast food

* go out and exercise

* go to bed by 10pm

 

Days onward:

* get up by 8 am

* have a delicious healthy breakfast

* go out and exercise

* go to bed by 10pm

 

First, crawling forward.

 

 

[Tobbe]

9 minutes ago, Jean said:

* Go shopping on Thursday, pile up yummy breakfast food

* Have a healthy breakfast every morning starting Friday

 

What are your plans for healthy breakfasts?

[Jean]

Planning starts on Thursday. I practice a strict no mental pressure whatsoever policy until then.