Yes, I'm Still Here

Blogging will be sporadic for a while yet.  I worked 60 hours this week, and the only reason it wasn't 70 is because they're moving our office all around. Everyone on the first floor will now be working on the second floor, and everyone who was on the second floor will now be working on the first floor.  So we had to stop work at 3:45 yesterday afternoon, pack up our desks, take our personal belongings to our cars, clean our desks, etc. And we couldn't go in today because that's when the movers are doing their deal.  Next week, though, is going to be quite the week.

Here's the dealio.  In my team at work, there are only two of us right now working the process I work. The other guy is a very likeable--for the most part--guy who has absolutely zero work ethic.  I've worked his queue twice before, once when he was out for a couple of days, and then 3 weeks ago when he was out for a day.  He left Thursday afternoon for vacation and will not be back until the 18th.  So we've got a new person on our team who is going to be working my queue, which should be pretty straightforward because I keep it clean.  I look at every account at least every other day, and I stay on top of things.  And I'm going to be cleaning out my co-worker's queue.

When I ran the report at 5:00 Thursday afternoon, he had 178 accounts. By the time I left the office at 7:45, I'd already closed 15. Not because I did anything particularly heroic, but because I did a quick run-through of every account. Some had already been closed on our vendor's website, and he just had to take five minutes to approve fees in one system, remove a code in another system, make a note in another system, and then close it in our database. Then yesterday I did documents to secure several vehicles that we needed to get picked up. I wrote up requests for 12 accounts that needed pre-charge-off letters sent. I sent at least a dozen pre-charge-off letters. If I'm on top of my game, his queue will be down to fewer than 100 accounts when he returns.

He's going to be really pissed at me.  I already know that. He didn't talk to me for 3 days after the last time I worked in his queue, despite the fact that I saved him from two lost liens and did the charge-off process for 15 of his accounts.   It's because he doesn't care about his work. He wants to coast on appearance and personality instead of actually doing his job. It pisses him off that I came onto the team in late September and our team lead and manager consider me an SME, and come to me for special projects instead of to him.

If he didn't talk to me for 3 days for working his queue one day, I figure I'm in for at least a week or two of the silent treatment after working his queue for a little over a week. That's cool by me. Frankly, I'd be just as happy if he decided he wanted to go work for a different department or even a different company.

I feel bad about this.  I want to like people. I want to respect them. I believe most people deserve my respect, even if I can't manage to like him.  After seeing how he mismanages his work, though, I don't have any respect for his work ethics. None. There's no reason for this state of affairs. Fortunately, in the rearranging of our group due to the move, I'll no longer be sitting right next to him, a state of affairs for which he is undoubtedly as devoutly grateful as I am.

I'm not doing his queue to show him up, and try to make him look bad. I'm doing his queue to help my team and my company. Lost liens cost us money. Charge-offs cost us money. Picking up cars that we should be charging off costs us money. Abandoning cars that we should be picking up costs us money.  Last year, the team to which I now belong was performing so badly due to being understaffed and having a totally burned-out team lead who retired, that our company would have saved money by picking up every car and paying fees without even trying to negotiate. That's a sad state of affairs.  We've made a lot of progress in turning things around. We're no longer quite the red-headed stepchild of our department, and I want to keep that momentum going.  We're not going to do it if we sit around and complain about our jobs and don't actually work.

So next week I'll be at work by 6 every morning, and will be there at least until 7, or later if my team lead doesn't chase me off at 7, and I'll be there on Saturday. Because like it or not, my co-worker will be back the following Tuesday, and within a month or two, his queue's going to be back up around the 200 account mark. I want to clean up as much as I can so that when I give it back to him, it's in the condition I'd like to have someone give me.

I take pride in my work. I remember once a professor I worked for many years ago telling me angrily not to correct his punctuation when I prepared his documents. I calmly agreed, but then told him that I would not put my initials on any of those documents.  He backed down immediately.  If my name is going on a piece of work, I want it to be as accurate and complete as possible.

I wish there were a way that my co-worker would come to that feeling. I know this isn't his ideal career. Hell, it's not mine. But as long as I'm there, I'm going to do my damndest.

So thanks for visiting, know that my search for meaning is definitely continuing, but right now I've got some immediate matters that require all of my energy.  We've got a few more people joining the team, and our team lead already said the overtime is going away once everyone's trained and we're fully staffed. So there's light.

Just What Am I Hoping to Find, Anyway?

Who the hell knows.

Peace of mind? Direction? Self confidence?

Only time will tell.

Hi. My Name's Faith. What's Yours?

I used to blog a LOT. But then I changed jobs and suddenly life got so busy there wasn't time for blogging.  I've missed it. Somehow, though, that old blog just isn't calling to me. It's there waiting for me, and maybe if the time is ever right, I'll go back and revisit it. For now, though, here I am.

So what's on my mind today? It's been boiling around in  my brain for a few days  now. I think I have a fairly healthy self-image, for the most part. I look in the mirror and most days feel like I look pretty good. Not great, but pretty good, all things considered. There are some people in my life, though, who just have to look at me a certain way they have, and suddenly I feel homely beyond all description. And, worse, every now and then I try to take a selfie. Some people can take the cutest selfies ever, and you see them and think, "how adorable!" Man, not me. I don't know if it's the angle, the lighting, or what, but when I try taking a selfie I first gasp in dismay, then laugh, then try to make the most ridiculous faces possible until I give up and delete (if I ever even saved it to begin with).

My point here is that what I see in the display of my phone or my tablet or on the face of someone I care about is so vastly different from what I see in the mirror.

Which Faith is the real Faith?  The laughing person who crosses her eyes at her reflection and admires her hair, turns sideways to see if her outfit is more or less flattering? Or the one whose green eyes droop down at the outer corners and whose bovine face is glowering (unintentionally, I assure you!!) at the camera?

I hope, and would like to think, that it's the former. I will guarantee you that the Faith I feel like inside is far more like the girl laughing at herself in the mirror.

But just realizing how differently I see myself makes me wonder how other people see me. Am I homely? I asked a trusted friend that today, promising that I wasn't fishing for compliments. She answered me straight up. I'm average looking. I've got gorgeous eyes that she thinks I should play up more. I've got the normal features, put together the way they should be. Nothing wrong with that.

Why this yearning for beauty? How much of it is because of what is inside of me, and how  much of it is because of what I see reflected around me? Baz Luhrmann famously admonished people not to read beauty magazines--"they will only make you feel ugly."  And I've looked at enough pre- and post-Photoshop pictures to know that even the images that are before our eyes every day don't necessarily have a lot of bearing in reality.

I also know that the more I  know and love someone, the  more attractive they are to me, regardless of what my initial impressions may have been. I'm thinking of someone now who, when I first met him, I thought he was really good-looking. As I've gotten to know him much better, I still find him attractive, but I see the goofiness that was always there. If I were to describe him to someone, I might say that he's kind of funny-looking, in a cute way. How much of that is his actual physical appearance and how much of that is attributable to the fact that I know him so much better is a moot point. I adore him. And I find him attractive because he is an attractive personality.

Don't get me wrong--I've got the guys that I figuratively drool over. David Tennant, anyone? Benedict Cumberbatch? But their hotness--for me--isn't just physical. It's again their personalities shining through their beautiful features.  I saw a photo just the other day of David Tennant hugging a kid dressed in a Dalek costume. How can that not be hot?

So boil it down to bare essentials. I've got two eyes. That's a good start. They're green, and I have dark eyelashes that never quite regained the thickness I had before I burned them off years ago (long story). I've got a mouth, two lips just like I'm supposed to have. I have a nose. Two ears. All the limbs are where they should be, fingers and toes, everything works mostly as it should.  I'm fat. Working on becoming less so, but there it is. My eyes droop at the outer edges, and I find it very unattractive. And my mouth is small. Crooked teeth.

That's all biology and genetics. That has nothing to do with who I am.

I laugh a lot, and I laugh loudly. I'm nerdy. I love to read, love to write, love to create. I love to hop into other people's lives and try them on like new suits of clothing, and then take them off and try on something else. I like to play. I like to cook and I'd rather do almost anything than clean. I'm Wonder Woman without the 22" waist and the mile-high legs. I'm awesome.

That's not bragging. How can it be bragging when it's the truth?

My point is, though, that I bet you're awesome. Most people are. Heck, I guess everyone is awesome, in his or her unique way. My life is full of awesome people who brighten it up every day. Thanks for being one of my awesome peeps!

Faith out!