Work Stress - ARRRGGGGHHHH! - Page 5

[Geofizz]

My stress level: High but should be higher. I have a job offer! That's relieves a lot of the stress over where my paycheck will come from after August. It adds all sorts of new stresses, as now I need to dive into setting up and maintaining a lab, recruiting and advising students, teaching an intro class in a subject I know nothing, moving, etc. I only have a few minor deadlines in the next few months, so I should be able to concentrate on getting some of my own work done while enjoying our last summer in this great town.

Sohj: I expect to find a few missing items on my desk when I pack up my office to move. I have a reputation around here for being ultra-organized, but I am able to shatter that notion by bringing people into my office.

Sweetbaby: I find my job stressful at times, but it's a totally different kind of stress. Thank you for being one of those caring angels who is willing to subject yourself to that kind of stress to help those who truely need it. I'm sure your love and caring helped that girl and her family in her final hours.

[singermom]

GeoFizz: congratulations on the job offer! But I hear you on the added stressors. I always find that each new opportunity, no matter how positive, sort of upsets that already precarious apple cart.

We had a wonderful and muchly needed three-day weekend, and now I am starting the count-down to our California vacation, which we leave for on Saturday. We're visiting my in-laws, which is not exactly the vacation I would choose, but I'm trying to put myself in a good place about it. Right now I'm a little catatonic about everything I have to do, so am sort of ignoring the to-do list, so the stress levels are bound to get higher as the week goes on. I'm irritated that I will have to haul my laptop with me on this trip, because I goofed on my vacation day count and will have to work two days while I am there. Kind of a drag, but in some ways it will take me out of the various family dramas that always take place when we visit DH's family, so that is a blessing...

Anyway, thank goodness for the short week!

Mia

[Bippity]

Hi Working Mamas - I lost track of this thread, but I'm sure glad to see it's back!

sweetbaby - big H-U-G-S to you!

Geofizz - YEA on the job! It sounds like the real "fun" will begin soon!

sojh - mainstream parents - oyyy... sometimes that stuff bugs the heck outa me, too! Gotta love Gordy!

singermom - how are the in-laws? :LOL

curious - sounds like you've got your hand FULL!!! I used to be a mac-feind.

My stress level is average right now... that girl got fired, but has been appealing it, so it's still going back & forth-at least I don't have to stress about it anymore. (Fortunately the situation never made the papers!) In the meantime we had to fire another employee, but this was just out of his sheer apathy! (What the heck??!!) He's appealing, too! Neither will win, they were both very good reasons, but geez.

Now, my biggest stress is updating a horribly, no-good, very bad computer personnel database that I have avoided for 2 years. Everything that happens to every employee has to be entered - for all 115 of 'em - for the past 2 years. UGH... but at least the powers-that-be have finally gotten an instruction manual together, so I can figure out how to enter this poop. Before it was just a guess & trial/error method. Seems like a waste, since I maintain this information in 2 other places, but... heck, that's bureacracy for ya!

My second level of stress is being a "music widow" DH is in the pit (plays stand-up bass) for yet another musical. Just ended one 2 week run (which means 3 weeks away from home-except to sleep & Sunday's off) & he does this for FUN!? Fortunately this next one won't be quite as hectic of a schedule - only one FULL week & then it just fills in with a few performances over the next few weeks. Oh well... it's a few extra $$ coming in.

Other than that, life is peachy over here!

[Nate]

Stress level comes back every morning.

So they went ahead & hired one of the candidates--the one from elsewhere in the Univ, who had the reputation as a micromanager. She's in her 6th week here, and so far...she's done NOTHING. Our bldg move went badly, go figure, and we all ended up shelving lots of books, and that took up almost the first 3 weeks, so we were cutting her some slack. But we have yet to have a unit meeting (and now it'll be a while, since people have started going on vacation). She asked me some questions about some very specific things about my job, but that was 2 weeks ago & I've hardly even spoken to her since then. She's not going around learning the reference materials, from what I can tell, she's not asking us what projects we're working on or want to be working on--she's not supervising! I'm going nuts! I'm trying to cut her some slack, b/c I figure she needs some time to figure out her job--but I don't think she's even actively doing that! And I've even heard that she's told one of the other people in the unit that she doesn't think there's very much to do around here.

Ask around, lady, there are all sorts of things to do. We've just been waiting for leadership to get them done.

Yesterday I took a mental health day, which was really nice--but I have to work this wkd, BOTH days. : I'll get M-Tu off as comp, but somehow that doesn't help. Especially since on Sunday I have to work 11:30 - 8, which means I'll walk in the door & dd will be ready for bed (hopefully). And since she's used to me coming home at 5:30, she'll have been getting increasingly upset since then, which means dh will be tired & stressed...

Okay, enough for now--basically I just have to take over the unit in a bloodless coup, and I need to get to get off my butt & get the cover letter together for this job in NH I'm applying for. And that requires doing something other than hanging out here.

So frustrating. I don't WANT to move--I want to stay here & work on fun projects and get us settled in the building. But I feel like my hands are tied...

[sohj]

Nate:

Somewhere in the back of my head, I'm remembering a movie from (I think) the 1930's with Alec Guinness. It was english and he played a bank teller who didn't like his supervisor and devised a suitable plan.

Maybe you should locate this movie and watch it for tips?

Sorry things are so frustrating. Keep plugging away.

[Piglet68]

wow, is it just me or did this thread suddenly get really long!

I'll have to come back and read it through more carefully....just wanted to say congrats to GeoFizz (where is the new job? faculty position? sounds awesome! )

[Nate]

Sohj--the Lavender Hill Mob!
I'll need to get it. It could have some good tips for me...

There's also the Kevin Spacey movie Swimming with Sharks. But I didn't really like that one--actually, I don't think we even finished it, it was so unpleasant.

I hope you all are having a nice wkd. I'm cooped up at work inside, and it's beautiful out for what seems like the first time in weeks.

[singermom]

Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that I am surviving the in-law visit...we're two days into it, my dh and his brother have already had the obligatory political argument, my MIL has been on her good behavior, and my kids are enjoying playing with their much older cousins, who are being wonderful about hanging out with the little ones!

To recap for those who missed this, I have to work for two days while I'm here, because I goofed on my vacation day count. So I'm up at the lovely hour of 4am PT to try and get some hours logged in before everyone wakes up. However, dd#2 just thwarted me and has decided to join me...sigh...something tells me this is going to a longer day than if I were in the office. :

I think I saw the Lavender Hill Mob, or some re-make of it...yes, it was funny!

Nate, I hope you were able to salvage some of the weekend. Hang in there!

Piglet, if you need us to start another thread on this topic, I am sure someone would be willing to oblige!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Mia

[Piglet68]

Okay, I'm caught up now!

sweetbaby, that sort of thing scares the crap outte me. we expect death to come in certain circumstances - trauma, terminal illness, etc....you don't expect a normal, healthy teen suffering from stomach flu to keel over and die. things like that make me feel like life is a lot shakier than we think. and of course, the terror we mamas feel that such things could happen to our kids (heck, it happened to Nursing Mama, didn't it?)

well, my stress levels at work are almost always low, since I pretty much work independently. i am, however, stressing out a bit b/c I have only a few weeks left here before I move back home, and so only this time to do experiments (data analysis and writing up can all be done via computer). I was working on a protocol that i hoped would make for a good experiment, but i'm just not getting things to work out the way i had hoped. while i do have a great paper out of this past 10 months (we're on the final editing stages before submission), i really wanted to get another one. so, i'm going to have a meeting with my boss and see if we can't come up with SOME study I can do while I'm still here, with a protocol that we know works, and that will result in something interesting enough to get published. i spent all last week in the lab, so now am enjoying a day of analysis (read: surfing MDC).

[Geofizz]

Stress levels: Very Low. I'm in post-vacation denial.

Originally Posted by Piglet68

I'll have to come back and read it through more carefully....just wanted to say congrats to GeoFizz (where is the new job? faculty position? sounds awesome! )

Thanks everyone for the congratulations. My new job is an assistant prof position at Ohio State. Yup, CA girl here is signing on for long-term mid-western-dom. I start in January. It looks like I'll be given enough start-up and support (both $$ and time off from teaching) to really get a research program moving quickly. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm already dreading the move, not to mention having to leave an awsome city where we've come to have a ton of friends.

[sohj]

(To the tune of "Spam") Stress, stress, stress, stress

Guess what? Because I was THOROUGH ...and identified a problem......I've got some design people angry at me because that means they've just done their work wrong.










Tough luck. :

[mirlee]

Originally Posted by sohj

Guess what? Because I was THOROUGH ...and identified a problem......I've got some design people angry at me because that means they've just done their work wrong.










Tough luck. :

Well, piss on them! I had the same problem a week or so ago. It seems that they printed our promotional brochure using a low res JPG instead of the 600 dpi TIF.

That is what is referred to as an I-D-10-T error.


Anyway, stress is the name of the game this week. I have 16 grant proposals to review by tomorrow at midnight, to lead a tour and run a registration desk for a conference tomorrow, go to the conference on Friday, present a paper at said conference in the morning, then hop in the car to drive about half an hour to present at another conference. Of course, next week, I fly to DC on Monday and don't come home until Tuesday after bedtime. Then I have an all day meeting on Wednesday.

So, anyone wanna trade???

[Nate]

Okay, Sohj, I'll bite...
I have a job interview next week. 30-40 min presentation, which I'm NOT done w/ yet & I need to present it to some colleagues here tomorrow so that I feel somewhat prepared. My parents arrive here Tuesday night from Oregon. I leave Wed at 4:30 am for a 6 am flight--have to fly from here to Manchester NH, rent a car, drive 1.5 hours, and hopefully get there w/ enough time to pick up my rental pump & relax for a few hours b/f my first mtg at 3. Then the entire next day is mtgs. Blecch.

DD *still* isn't night-weaned, despite my best efforts, and what's worse refuses to sleep for dh. And I'll be away for 2 nights. (Luckily my parents will be around to amuse her during the day--but she hasn't seen either of them since May & June, so I don't know how happy she'll be about relative strangers being there while I'm away.)

I'll be trying very hard, while I'm away, not to worry about things at home b/c I can't control them at all. But I'm a bit stressed...

[singermom]

Glad to see this one has bubbled up again...always a favorite of mine.

Nate, I was wondering how things were going on your interview--good luck with it all. It does sound quite stressful! See if you can take at least some comfort in the beauty of the leaves in NH at this time of year...

Sohj--nice siggy line! It definitely made me laugh. Maybe we should all do that for awhile. (I do miss the John Woolman quote, though!)

Well, given that this morning as I was getting ready for work, I started crying for no particular reason other than the fact that I had to go to work, I would say that work stress for me is a little off the charts right now. All the people I need access to to do my job are tied up on a top secret project, so not only can I not get my own work done, but I'm antsy about what's coming down the pike (something tells me they aren't all meeting to plan the company Christmas party...)

On the home front, DD#2 has declared this week as "No Sleep Week," and we are just about at our wits end. Two nights in a row she has been up until 11:30pm. DD#1 has broken out in hives two days in a row at day care, and we have not been able to find out what is causing them. And DH went to the periodontist who told him he needs to have his wisdom teeth removed. Also, he is turning in his book manuscript today and is a nervous wreck about it.

All for now,

Mia

[sohj]

Originally Posted by singermom

...Sohj--nice siggy line! It definitely made me laugh. Maybe we should all do that for awhile...

Feel free to use it for yourselves.

Don't worry, John Woolman will probably be back.....of course, I have my eye on an especially firey George Fox statement, though. Feeling frisky.


Big to everyone here.

This too shall pass.