Leaving this job

I have started the process to leave by talking to my boss this morning. I could not bring myself to tell her about the potential of working for Intellon, rather I told her about how my work/life balance is breaking me. Not a lie, but not the whole truth either. My work/life balance is breaking me and there have been many days when I feel like I just can't do it today.

I am hoping that working from home will help a little - I can prepare supper during my lunch break and do the odd load of laundry during the day. It also will save me some commute time. On the down side, it will upset my fragile routine of running and take away my friday afternoon grocery shop.

My boss suggested thinking about a 4 month leave of absence instead of quitting. It actually may be a good way to go. It would allow me to do the work for Rob through the summer and give me the option of coming back here if the contracting really does not work out or I can't find another job.

It does not look like I can work a deal to contract under Xtreme EDA, which is a bit of an issue for me and I suspect Claude. He does not support me doing the work if travel is a non-starter. While I understand his position, it is where I am at and Phil&I are willing to take the chance on this one contract.

I would love to talk to Doug and find out what potential there is with his group and determine what he work would actually be. I would also love to talk to Vecima and find out what they have going on.

But ultimately, I want to support Phil and his career change. I made the commitment and I want to stand by it. Returning to Xtreme with no travel restrictions would not be supporting him.

Tuesday Night

It is time for bed after a long day, well honestly a late night on Sunday. We went to the Eagles concert and did not get to bed until after 12:30. Phil went to Regina today and was up at 4:30. I had just enough sleep by that point to not be able to get back to sleep, so I was up as well. Now it is 9:30 and I'm tired and soon to go to bed (Phil is already in bed).

I have decided that I'm quitting my job sooner rather than later. I knew I would not last long but I wondered what the trigger would be. Two things really:

- attending a mgt meeting while my boss was gone let me see just how dysfunctional and divided our management team really is

- the almost call that would have completely undermined my role as PM and discounted the value of our procurement team. While I was able to stop the call, I found out by accident and now believe that the same sort of thing will happen again.

Working with Rob again would be interesting, but I'm curious about Doug's opportunity and potential with Vecima. If nothing happens with Rob in the next 2 weeks, then I will probably stick it out to end March while I am looking elsewhere.

I so dislike the job and realize that while it serve a purpose in getting me out of the PPD space, it is not somewhere I can linger. My boss will not take this too well, but I can't let myself stay and be brought down just because I like and respect her.

It's Friday!!!!!

I don't want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day.

Funny how an advertizing slogan will stay in your head. It has been years since I have seen an add this jingle, but yet I can't get the tune out of my head.

Feeling Alone

I wonder if everyone feels alone and a wee bit isolated or if it just part of my personality?

For as long as I remember, I have always had the feeling that people don't really like me, they just are too polite to tell me to piss off. Before Phil, I only had one romantic relationship where I felt accepted for me. All the rest, the work was in trying to figure out how to behave so that the other person would like me and want to be around me. With Phil, I have always felt like he likes me for who I really am (you know, he may not like parts of me, but on the whole, he likes me).

But even with my friends, there have only been a few female friends that I have felt really like me - and right now there are none in my day to day life. I find it tough to make friends since I am always feeling like I am intruding.

The stupidest thing triggered this line of thought, but hopefully it will go away soon. If not, I can just remove the trigger from my life.

But for now, it makes me feel very alone and loney.

Thankful for the routine

I am once again thankful for all the effort we put into being consistent and firm with the boys on bed time. There are days where I'm not sure my sanity would be intact if I did not know that by 7:15 each night, they are both in bed and done for the night (barring illness). And it is not just me who appreciates the routine, watching their little bodies relax as we start the routine of bath, book and bed.

All that is left to do tonight is fold one load of laundry. Ok, so I did not do all the laundry I needed to do today. Instead we went to the WDM to see model trains. Adam loved it! He is starting to need more attention and has developed this whining noise to get attention. It is really tough to find the balance between acknowledging his needs without appearing to give into the whining.

It is the whining that made me buy some parenting books - the Positive Parenting series. It generally promotes the same sort of parenting principles we have been following. But now we are starting to get past the point where distraction works as effectively as it did. I find myself what now? What are some different choices I have when trying to modify his behaviour without making him feel bad about himself. I have been reading it on the bus to/from work. The section about time outs was interesting. So while I have been using timeouts, I have not been following the principles outlined. I changed my approach slightly and WOW what a difference.

Another big step today for Adam - at the WDM he told me he needed to use the potty. I took him to the bathroom and he peed on the toilet!!! Both were first times for him. I was so proud of him.

3 things are competing for my mental attention these days:

Adam - is he being left out when we are all home? Alex is so busy and likes to go around the house. Trouble is, while the house is safe for Adam, it is not safe for an 11 month trying to learn to walk and who is pulling himself up on everything. The choice is to lock down the house like fort knox to allow Alex to roam unsupervised but penalizes Adam's freedom or to leave the house as is which penalizes Adam in terms of being able to have some time with parents who aren't always leaving the room to follow Alex. Adam is such an observer and Alex is a doer. I don't Adam to miss out or feel left out.

Work - don't want to be in this job, the culture is not a good fit for me. But what to do in a small market like Saskatoon and with the declining economy? My skills, while good, are not super special and it would be tough to find a good fit for my current work/life balance that I need. 5 hours a day would be ideal - specifically 9 to 3. Not sure if there is a fit for that.

Programming - I want to, but don't seem to prioritize it into my time. Going to try and get 1 hour a day of either Java, SystemC or XCode work done. Perhaps I need to register for a course to get started. I would love to take a course on object oriented coding. I don't use objects effectively and still write procedural code.

Ok that is me right now.

Dance like no one is watching

Or in this case, write like no one is reading.

Yesterday was an interesting day at work. I had a morning meeting that took me hours to recover from and become productive again. While nothing really bad happened, it is 3 hours of my life I will never get back and has left me with a vague sense of not wanting to be part of the team I work with. Hopefully today I will have my game back since there is stuff I want to do today.

On an internet board I belong to we had a long discussion about blogs and privacy. It was interesting and gave me something to think about. When I write, I feel like the whole world may potentially see my words (it is the internet after all) but yet I know that very few, if any, will read my words. I think blogging is like dancing - you either dance with joy like no one is watching or you dance with caution and while still fun, is not the heart pounding joyful release that come with true abandon.