Highs and Lows

I got to travel on vacation without baby, dog or husband. I went through security so fast that I started to laugh. Oh yeah, left the computer at home too. My husband and I call it the "travel brick". You bring it but don't use it.

I spent a long and lazy weekend talking with my girlfriends (talked non-stop), spending time getting spa treatments and a great mani-pedi. Heavenly! Though I have to admit, I'm going to miss the breakfast buffet we had every morning. So nice when you don't have to cook or clean up afterwards.

I could have done this forever if I didn't miss my kiddo, puppy and hubby so much. Oh they were such good boys while mommy was away. I was very proud to see that my husband started and finished a house project and my son and dog were both happily healthy and wanted to cuddle with me.

Work is still work. I'm in between projects which always drags me down since I only like being productive. So my morale is not so great since I feel useless. Also, with all the stupid office politics and not enough coding, I feel blah as well. I contemplate quitting but I'd only be running away from bullies and incompetent people. And there are fewer of them than there are worthwhile coworkers who inspire me. So I guess I'll stay though folks seem to have waged a campaign to have "a collective cheer" if I left. I disturb the careful balance of mediocrity in the office.

There are crabs and fleas in the workplace. Put a flea on a table and it will jump as high as it can. Put a cup over the flea and after bashing itself by jumping too high, you'll soon not hear the flea hitting the cup. Remove the cup and you'll see that the flea is still jumping, but it will only jump as high as the cup will allow. I call this institutionalization. Smart in some respects, but also the term "broken" comes to mind. Then there are crabs. Ever wonder why you can have a basket of live crabs with no top on it sitting in your kitchen? It's because as soon as one crab tries to climb out, the other crabs grab it and pull it back down.

I don't want to be a crab or a flea.

Flowers At Work

Call me old-fashioned but I LOVE getting flowers at work. I love everything about it. I love that my husband is thinking of me. I love that each breath is filled with something sweet. I love that other people notice that there is love in my life. Nothing makes me happier at work then flowers sent by my hubby. I don't care who you are, there isn't anyone who doesn't love flowers on their desk.

OK, alergies or the wrong kind of flowers can make this a bummer. But the gesture! That must count for a lot, right? I guess if you get them from a stalker then no....well, you get the gist of what I was hoping to express anyway.

My work morale is a little better. There is someone I really like and respect a lot at work and I vented some of the downer events of the past couple weeks to them. He made me laugh about it. And also validated some of my concerns. I know and trust my VP and I know that my management stack will make things better. It takes time. But I can't help feeling as though certain individuals are holding my org hostage with their secret special knowledge and underhanded political games. I don't think these folks realize that they are being political. They are probably scared for their jobs or feel territorial. Part of me empathizes. But then the other part of me, the good citizen, realizes that this is a horrible thing for a coworker to do. It keeps the more junior people from learning new things, it stunts the offenders career even if they think they are creating job security, and overall, it puts the organization in a weird catch-22. You can't get rid of them because they won't cross train anyone and your org is sort of left with a single-source weak spot. Meaning if someone gets hit by a bus, we've got no backup coverage.

Now you know why I don't want to manage EVAR! This sort of thing is just nutso even if I understand the human nature behind it. But it stunts the whole org over time, not just a single person's career. Healthy teams can't handle too much of this sort of behaviour.

I think I'm in a good mood because I'm about to clear off my bug list. I'm a productivity junky. Oh, it doesn't matter that I cooked dinner, did the laundry, made some brownies. No, that's not what makes me perky. It's clearing out my bug list so that I can get started on my next project. How sick is that? If I've ever said that I could try to be a SAHM, I was kidding myself big time.

No Fever Today

Hooray! After a terrible weekend of sick toddler who only will sleep when mommy is holding him and STANDING, my kiddos fever finally broke! I see the end in sight of my sleepless nights and worry.

In the meantime, work politics and defensive coworkers has brought down my morale. Love the tech stuff, the actual coding. But there is nothing like office politics to just derail your love of work. I'm hoping that my wonderful manager (he truly is amazing) will figure out the right thing to do and make everything better. Don't get me wrong, no one did anything wrong and I didn't offend anyone directly. But I am a proponent of post mortems and if you've ever been a part of one, you know that sometimes when outting everyones thoughts about the previous release, it starts off as a bitch session but usually the whole process results in something positive. But for folks who have never done one before, some people can't see beyond the bitching to understand that there is a positive process happening here.

I think I'm worried about my pregnancy. I feel like I'm not gaining as much weight. I gained more than 50 pounds the last time which is OK since I'm not very big and I might have been a little underweight since my wedding was just shortly before and I was hella-skinny for that. I just hope I don't have gestational diabetes. I didn't the first time but this pregnancy, my life is just more stressful and I'm not sure I'm eating as well as I should be. (Or as regularly.) And I'm certainly not sleeping as much.

But life is good and I feel great now that my kiddo is feeling better. His happiness really makes my day.