The Less I Seek My Source For Some Definitive, The Closer I Am To Fine

There have been some small indications of progress on the job front this week. I met with a head hunter who is going to submit my resume to two good firms here in town, and I badgered a partner into saying he would put me on a (non-billable) project of his.

I don't want to leave my current employer, but I see no real downside to seeking employment elsewhere. At worst, I won't get any interviews and the resumes will be wasted bullets. At best, I'll get a job offer or two, and I can go to my current employer and say, "Fuck you. These places want to hire me. Do you want me to leave or will you guarantee in writing that I can stay?" It is better to create more options for myself. At least it makes me feel proactive and forces me to update my resume.

We Did Nothing, Absolutely Nothing That Day, And I Say, "What the Hell Am I Doing Drinking in L.A.?"

I've been spending all my time working my tuchis off trying to save my damn job. Several partners at work are probably down at the courthouse filing for restraining orders against me because I've been pestering them so much for work. My mood ricochets dangerously between being certain that I won't lose my job to despairing that I'm going to be ringing in 2009 shaking a paper cup for change. I'm not sleeping well either, which is unhelpful to my state of mind.

On top of that, I have a crush on my fitness instructor, who is a woman. As am I. And I'm not gay. Or at least I wasn't. Maybe I just need a good night's sleep.

Two Face

I had to work on a project today with the bitch who tattled on me to Mr. Harsh Reviewer. This is the person I hold primarily responsible for the precarious state of my job, so she is lucky to be alive right now. I would have loved to push her down a flight of stairs or pick her up and throw her through her office window, but I restrained myself. Right now, she has the upper hand, but once I save my job, we'll be on equal footing again. In order to save my job, I need to get along with her. Thank goodness that the first thing every good Southern girl like me learns at her mama's knee is how to fake being nice to bitches you cannot stand.

I will be killing her with kindness now, but I will be killing her with other things once my job is safe. Oh yes.

People Have Problems That Are Worse Than Mine, I Don't Want You To Think I'm Complaining All the Time

Last week, I did a lot of work toward shoring up my position at my office. I also stressed out about it to the point of being unable to sleep or move my neck comfortably. I'm trying to keep up the former while abandoning the latter.

I know that I'm good at my job, and I know that I can continue to do it well given the chance. At a certain point, I think I have to trust myself and my abilities and rely on the fact that I can turn this situation around without needing to make myself insane over it.

Poor Me, Why Me, Oh Me, Boring, The Same Old, Worn-Out Blah Blah Story, There Is No Good Explanation For It At All

I talked to a friend of mine today about my crap job situation. This friend is not only a super-cool lady; she's also the headhunter who placed me in this job (that's how we met). It is by no means her fault that things have taken a downturn, but the fact that she played a role in finding me this job probably gives her more of a vested interest in my success with this employer than the average person would have. She gave me some tough love, let me tell you.

She started by giving me exactly 15 minutes to vent, and then she cut me off. She assessed exactly what points were raised in the negative feedback, and she went step by step through what I need to do to address those points. If I get a new project, I feel prepared to tackle it with new savvy. That was the good part.

The bad part was that she thinks I need to explain to the two negative reviewers that I'm at risk of being fired based on their feedback and guilt them into giving me a new project that will generate another evaluation. She also told me that there is no way they don't remember exactly what they said in their evaluations and their claims otherwise are just passive-aggression and that I shouldn't believe anything they say because of the aforementioned passive-aggression. That made me feel like I wasted my time going to talk to them to begin with, but my mom pointed out that it still cleared the air and gave them a new reason to respect me and admire my chutzpah.

I haven't slept well in about a week, and I think the muscles in my neck are tensed so tightly that I'm at risk of my head snapping off. I need a good night's sleep or I'm going to burn out in week one of a three month sprint.

I'm Gonna Show Him What a Little Girl's Made Of: Gunpowder and Lead

I talked to Mr. Harsh Reviewer today, and it was both positive and unbelievably frustrating. I'm starting to worry that I'm more likely to be fired for assaulting a co-worker than for poor job performance. (At least the assault charge would be based in fact.)

Mr. Harsh Review and I actually have a lot of things in common in terms of our career backgrounds, and we hit it off really well (go figure). I subtly emphasized throughout the meeting that he hasn't had a chance to get to know me (read: his entire review is based on hearsay) or work directly with me (read: his entire review is based on hearsay).

He brought up the fact that "a couple" of my colleagues had found it a struggle to work with me, and I mentioned that I was pretty sure I knew one person he was talking about and that I hadn't enjoyed working with her on that deal either but, basically, that I just worked through it on my own (read: I'm professional and not a two-year-old and don't think it's right to whine to the partner because someone else is annoying me). I added that this person (read: fucking bitch) and I are working together on another deal now, that the relationship has been much stabler and that even though I didn't like working with her before, I felt that I might have misjudged her (read: I'm going to fuck that bitch up the minute his back is turned).

The part that really made me want to hulk out was when he ADMITTED that he should have talked to me about all these things before he put it in my evaluation. I said, "That would have been appreciated. I'm glad we're at least talking now though." It was all I could do not to put my fist through his window in rageful frustration. I mean, I've talked to both of the people who gave me negative reviews, and neither of them seems to have given the slightest thought to how impactful their review was on my career. Both of them basically just spoke off the cuff, and I'm over here fighting to keep my job.

Unreal. Un-fucking-believable.

Take This Job and Shove It

I met with one of the negative reviewers today (the less harsh one). The meeting was positive yet frustrating. Ms. Less Harsh conceded that the negative points she raised in her review of me arose from my lack of experience and her own lack of clarity in giving instruction. I wanted to lunge across the desk and choke her while saying, "Do you realize that something you said off the cuff that is not even my fault has been so impactful on my life and career?!?!" I mean, seriously. Do people not think about this shit when they're writing it in the first place? It's my formal evaluation, for fuck's sake. On the up side, she actually gave me some useful tips for next time (information that might have been more helpful six months ago, but better late than never, I suppose). I emphasized how much I appreciated her taking the time to meet with me and how much I would like to work with her again in the future. She doesn't have any projects in the hopper right now, but she said she thinks things will kick off again in November. She also offered to be available to answer questions for me if I work on another project of the type in which she specializes in the future, which seemed like it went beyond mere politeness. So, I hope that some progress was made there even though I kind of wanted to beat the little idiot to death for fucking me in the first place.

Tomorrow is my meeting with Mr. Scathing Review. I'll be happy to get that over with, and I'm hopeful that he admires me for having the cojones to meet with him after he blasted me. I'm also hopeful that the complete absence of character he demonstrated by waiting until my formal fucking evaluation (am I the only one who appreciates the gravity of that besides the people who have the authority to terminate me?) to tell me he was dissatisfied with my performance will also prevent him from having the balls to be rude to me to my face. In other words, I hope his cowardice works in my favor, and I hope I'm able to conceal my contempt for him for at least thirty minutes.

There's so much about this situation that I can't control (e.g., global economic collapse means that there isn't a ton of work pouring in the windows that would enable me to get some more reviews to counter these negative ones), and for a control freak like myself, that is agonizing. I try (with mixed results) to comfort myself with the knowledge that I'm doing absolutely everything within my control to help myself.

I Was Looking for a Job and Then I Found a Job and Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

My job threatened to fire me last Thursday. In the current economy, I'm sure most people are concerned about the possibility of being fired, but my job's threat was focused on my performance rather than the economy. I unexpectedly received two negative reviews (and three positive reviews), and I was told that if I don't shape up in the next three months, I'll be asked to ship out. Consummate professional that I am, I promptly burst into tears during my evaluation.

Since then, I allowed myself the rest of the day on Thursday to wallow and have since commenced phase one of my plan: Kick Ass. Phase two is: Take Names. (Neither review was fair, but the one completely premised on fiction was the result of some slander of my good name by a colleague of mine. Once I save my job, I'm going to fuck that bitch up.) I've been beating the bushes for my projects (so as to generate more evaluations, which will ideally be positive) and have reached out to the two asswipes who gave me negative evaluations so we can talk about how I can better meet their expectations in the future (read: so I can disguise my contempt for them and their execrable managerial skills while kissing their asses).

I'm waffling between feeling like a basket case over this situation and being not terribly worried about it. Obviously, I don't like receiving negative feedback or being criticized, and I especially don't like it in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. On the other hand, this is not the first time I've had to fight for a job, and it's certainly not as difficult as the other time I had to do it. Also, I faced down Satan's meaner sister at my last job without blinking (like Sarah Palin, I guess), so none of the pussies at my current job scare me in the slightest. Besides all that, I had been thinking awhile ago about going into a different branch of the same field (doing career services for students), and this stumbling block made me think that it's time to start thinking more seriously about making that transition. I don't intend to leave my current job until I'm damn good and ready to do so, but I'm a bit soured on it now, and I might be damn good and ready to leave sooner than I would have thought prior to last Thursday.

I'm a fighter, not a lover, and I'm ready to go to battle over this job. I deserve it, and, to quote Dream Girls, "I am telling you I'm not going." At least not until I decide I am. Fuck them.

"Why Are You So Far Away?" She Said "Why Won't You Ever Know That I'm In Love With You?"

It was hard to be in my old city and not contact The Only Living Boy in New York. I thought that maybe if I thought about him hard enough, he would appear out of thin air, but it turns out that that doesn't work. I guess all that reading of Lois Duncan books in my youth did not help my psychokinetic powers develop.

I keep thinking that it's going to get easier and I won't miss him so much. Some days, I feel fine, but other days, I think I'm going to have to break my hands to keep myself from emailing him. It helps that I don't know what I would say. I've already said (twice) that I basically love him and want the two of us to be together and his response (twice) has been, "Bored now." What else is there to say? The same thing, only louder? The same thing, only more desperate and pathetic? Lie to him and say that I don't still want the same things I wanted before, which will inevitably lead us back to saying the same thing again only louder, more desperate and more pathetic?

I wish that someone in real life would develop the technology from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so I could just erase him from my brain and not feel sad and miss him any more. I'm proud of myself for staying strong and not emailing him, but I wish that I would magically feel better. I wish that I could find someone else to replace him, and I thought Snowflake might be that person, but he seems uncertain about whether he would like to apply for the job.

Ugh. I just want to scream.

I Can't See New York

I'm going back to the city where I used to live tomorrow and Tuesday for a continuing education class. I'm hopeful that The Only Living Boy in New York will be there as well, though the chances of this are kind of slim.

My Mind Has Changed My Body's Frame, But, God, I Like It

The weight loss slowed down a little bit this week. I lost only 0.4 pounds, but it still beats gaining.

In other news, Snowflake and I went out for another cookie today. When I asked him about his plans for the weekend, he mentioned that he is going out of town to visit a girl he is "sort of" dating from his hometown (located no fewer than six hours away, so not exactly right around the corner). He indicated that although she is "nice" and "a cute girl" (lovely lukewarm sentiments), he isn't so into her because she's not "intellectually curious" and "the conversations are blah." I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him while pointing out that his conversations with me are scintillating and effervescent. Despite the fact that I had to spend some of my Weight Watchers points on eating the cookie, it was worth it because I found out why he's been sending me these crazy mixed signals. If he doesn't know what's going on in his dating life, how can he possibly send out any kind of clear message one way or another about his level of interest in me?