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Post by peachymom1 on Jan 16, 2017 23:46:59 GMT -5
What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting - you are welcome to do that but you are also welcome to chime in!
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Post by peachymom1 on Jan 16, 2017 23:48:27 GMT -5
Good morning! Last week Louise brought up the subject of unlearning old habits and learning new ones. I’ve been thinking about that for a few days. Sometimes we get so used to doing something that it doesn’t even occur to us that we could try another approach. Or we get so overloaded that we can’t even think straight at all.
Since the first of the year, with the acquisition of our company by a larger one, there have been many things going wrong, and everyone in the old company is frustrated beyond belief, including me. It got to the point last week where I wanted to pound my fists on my desk and start screaming as loud and as long as I could. I actually went and took a walk in the cold rain to see if I could sort my thoughts out a bit and try to find some direction.
At first, I just replayed the job aggravations in my head. Then I remembered that my job is to support my department, to help others with whatever they need, and basically take care of people. So that’s what I resolved to do. I decided to smile and use humor as much as possible to divert people and cheer them up. I even joked with the help desk technician when I called for the fourth time to find out why I can’t get into our online HR systems. Everything is going to take time, it’s going to be hard to find anyone with any answers, and I’m just going to have to accept the fact that I won’t be efficient at my job for a while.
What do you do when work gets overwhelming or frustrating? Are you the type who can let it all go when you leave for the day (if you’re employed outside of home)? If your work is at home, can you take a break from whatever (or whoever) is getting on your nerves and come back to it later? How do you handle curveballs? Do you run away from them / hide / step up and bat them back / shrug your shoulders and say “whatever” / or what?
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lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,285 
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Post by lee058 on Jan 17, 2017 8:24:16 GMT -5
Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well. After two days off, it was a little hard to get up this morning, but I did anyway. Good thing I have an alarm clock that I place just out of reach.
Re today's topic: When things get overwhelming, I try to not lose my temper. If it is a conversation that is getting out of hand, I try to be clear in my speech, and if I feel like things are out of control, I try to get out of the room for awhile. If I am dealing with physical work (like yesterday's cleaning up a huge mess in the kitchen), I take breaks to sit down, have a drink of water, call my mom, etc. If anyone says anything like, I thought you were going to clean up that mess, I respond by saying that I need a break. If anyone comments further that I am being very slow (for example), I try to not be nasty and just say that the task is going to take awhile. I don't like arguing; it just makes me tired, depressed and/or angry. Occasionally I will suggest that the other person take over the task, but I don't usually do that as it creates more hard feelings than it is worth.
Anyway, I do my best to look on the bright side of things. If I have a lot of work to do, I try to look at what I will get out of the situation. For example, I always have a lot of laundry to do. I try to focus on how nice it will be to have clean clothes.
I'll check back later. Have a peaceful day, Lee
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Post by louise on Jan 17, 2017 10:13:45 GMT -5
Peachy, I think your new outlook about changes at your job is very healthy and will also help others (which is a big piece of what you do at work anyway, just with another slant).
As I have mentioned the company I work for is in trouble. We are a privately owned company and our publisher/owner was out for 5 weeks in the fall with pneumonia, came back for some days over the next few weeks, and then had a heart attack the week before Christmas. He has not been back since, although we do expect to see him this week. Our CFO had also been out for a few months with a string of surgeries. For my boss I can't help feeling his woes are causally related or at least impact each other. And the potential is there for this to happen to the rest of us - I don't mean heart attacks but there is a gloominess in the office. We are a small company and having the 2 highest officers out for so long is problematic.To relate this to today's question and also to something I had brought up a couple of weeks ago (around Pharaoh's question "What do you do?") my self concept has been bound up with my job and separating them is critical. It's not that I don't have other ways of seeing myself (including some positive ones)but there is some relearning (or reframing) that I can do.
As a birthday gift one of my friends came over Sunday and helped clear my kitchen table of papers (well not completely clear, but some wood is definitely visible). Kitchen counter looks great too.
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Post by savtele on Jan 17, 2017 12:26:49 GMT -5
Boker Tov All! In many ways, this has been happening in our basement. For 12 years, stuff got shoved in there, then it would all get organized, then more stuff got shoved in there, then nobody could find the stuff that had been shoved in there before, more stuff, more organization, more mess, etc. Remember several months ago when we went down to "clean up the basement?" Well - that has turned into John's man-cave, an area sectioned off for future yard sale items (stuff we know we won't use again!), a "dump-run" section, John's tools all in one area with work-bench, and the lawn-mower, weed-whacker, water hoses & bbq grill have all been moved into the shed. (MUCH easier access & no big climb up from the basement!) Et voila! Suddenly we can get to the water tank without anyone falling over stuff when we need to change the filters. And things can actually be found. And, I must say, I do feel better having the propane for the grill stored in the shed, away from the house!
All in all, I think, once I (or you, or anyone) take a step back, out of whatever we are in the middle of, our minds will come up with new solutions. Sometimes I know they come to me in dreams (my brain is still working at night & without the day-time distractions).
We are expecting warm rain today. It is already 33 deg, heading to a high of 49! My deck is wet, with just a small frosting of snow left along the rails. I have to tell you, after weeks of freezing, this is a welcome change! Ok, there is a chance of "freezing rain" but that usually only happens when the temps on the ground are below freezing - I'm hoping we avoid that entirely!
I'm eyeing my windows - they need cleaning. Will have to have all the grands out on a sunny day. Everyone gets a spray bottle of windex & a roll of paper towels - and the littles "clean" the lower half of the sliding glass door. (The snow is melting, can spring be far behind???)
Have a good day ladies!
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Post by hollygail on Jan 17, 2017 12:45:54 GMT -5
The claims adjuster is downstairs right now (I'm upstairs in my office). She's going to explain everything shortly, so this has to be brief. I have a response to yesterday's thread which (with any luck) I may get to tonight, plus one for today's too (but as I said, time is tight right now). We'll probably be in a motel Wednesday/Thursday/Friday night, coming home after services on Saturday (bat mitzvah in another part of the county, which makes things just a little tight for checking out...), so my presence may be sporadic...
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Post by gazelle18 on Jan 17, 2017 18:01:29 GMT -5
I was a lawyer AND an anxious person, not a great combination! When I was younger, and the stress of the job got to me, I would often react very badly. I am ashamed to say that I slammed phones down, cursed, threw pens, etc. etc. Not pretty. It took years of maturing to get better.
Some people internalize stress and anxiety; I externalized it. Not sure if one is better then the other! The key was to learn to live with the anxiety, and reframe it. It took me years.
One way I guess I did internalize the anxiety was that I overate to numb my feelings. There were times when I could only prepare for a trial if there was junk food close at hand. Not the best habit.
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Post by hollygail on Jan 18, 2017 8:55:57 GMT -5
DH and I were together only a couple of years when he figured out that I went bonkers every year for HHD (imagine the theater for a moment; do you know what the "stage manager" does? EVERYTHING other than act and direct. I was the equivalent of the stage manager. The rabbi and cantor did their stuff up on the bimah; I was in charge of everything, and I do mean everything, else. Okay, I wasn't in charge of acquiring or paying the baby-sitters for the little ones, and I wasn't in charge of setting up the chairs, but that's pretty much it... Not only did I give out the honors (and we had numerous English readings, which I photocopied in advance and mailed to people), but then on the day of their honor (reading), made sure they were in the room, knew when to move to the front (the hall was longer than it was wide, so people in the back took a long time to get to the front), made sure there were matches for havdalah (!!!), you name it. The third HHD DH and I were together, somehow, miraculously, chocolate chip cookies found their way into the pantry starting a couple of weeks before HHD, and chocolate ice cream found its way into the freezer, things like that.
And that was once a year! Can you imagine what I did with the stress of working in an office?
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