2017-04-04 - 3:12 a.m.

I kinda get a kick out of these horoscopes. I was in bed early and then some TEACHER sent a late e-mail message which my phone picked up ( I don't LIKE having my email updated on my phone! I mean I turned off the ROUTER to ensure the whole darn house would GO TO BED! and then my little crappy Trac phone is dinging in the middle of the night because a TEACHER sent an email around my bedtime (10pm it seems) which came through well after midnight? DARN I SHOULD have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but I remembered I FORGOT to be sure the late dinner my one child and I enjoyed around 8:30 pm was put away!(It was not!) So I got up to just put it away, cleaned the kitchen , then packed a gym bag intending to SWIM in the morning!

High hopes...
one of these days I WILL get up at 5:30 AM again and get back in the early routine of exercise. I miss that.

Amazing how motivating it was to give the now former neighbor a ride to work each morning! I SO MISS having some incentive to get out of bed early!!! I did go swimming once when teen's therapy appt got cancelled last moment by her sick therapist and I was already working from home up at some early hour to be out of pocket for that time, so I WENT SWIMMIng, and I have to say the guy working at the pool was JUST SO DARN HOT. ABSOLUTELY HANDSOME and friendly and WOW that SHOULD be incentive to get my butt out of bed...

but interestingly, a hot, single, reportedly "Great DAD" ( I know someone who works there and she told me that about him. She said its hilarious , as a group they call the "Golden Girls" changed their routine to be there when HE is there, and she says he is so darn handsome and charming EVERYONE has a crush on him...) has not been as motivating for me to get up out of bed as the struggling alcoholic loud neighbor of mine who needed a ride to work was!

Well , sorry state that even THAT incentive has not gotten me back to the pool! THAT WAS A MONTH AGO or more...

But I made effort , got to bed sorta early enough to get up and swim. When awoken in middle of night packed my bag for gym, but then it was like that book "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie"... but the adult MOM ADHD Version...

I of course then had to HUNT for the $20 I had in my wallet, which took out to offer to contribute to the ice cream fund (when at work as a wonderful family called and bought ice cream for whomever wanted it from Baskin Robbins on Sat night! I brought two teens with me to the retirement community which I do often and it was actually fun as I was done with work at 9 but had to wait for them to finish the card game they were playing with some seniors, and their ice cream!So I visited and we did word puzzles and it was a blast actully hanging out til 10pm with the night owls there!)

The fantastic family visiting their grandma would not let me help pay, so the $20 got put in the pants I wore...
So of course at 1AM I had to search for that, to pay for swimming ....as when I went last time I had no cash and hot attendant let me swim anyway and I had said that would surely make me get myself back there to pay back.

Even that has not been motivating enough! I HAVE To go again to pay for last time.

So of course in the process of looking for the money I had to straighten up my room a bit (at least until I FOUND the pants worn, which happened to be hanging in the closet; who would have guessed.)

You get the idea... then remembered I FORGOT to submit my TIMESHEET to my agency.

So came on line to that slippery slope of being sucked in... cleaning up e-mail; even updated my USAJOBS acct...

Found a job REALLY CLOSE TO HOME that I will apply to. (I like my job but it is NOT full time and I have not health insurance and this one , while a stretch as I bet they will get 200 other applications with experience more aligned for what it is... nonetheless is something I would SO ENJOY And its a great commute...)

Stopped myself from completing that NOW . Will get the arts newsletter and that done before the end of the week.

Did respond to a recruiter for a job also close. That one would be BIKING distance actually! OFF THE TRAIL near home so I HAD to respond to that inquiry! (I have enjoyed my current job so typically don't entertain recruiter interest). Thing is, while I did get a raise , the past few weeks have entailed working more to get the job done RIGHT. I am a bit disappointed that last week when I let them know I HAD to stay late on WED and THU to get it done they did not approve Overtime! The thing is, they asked "Is it critical" I said " I think so" but my current team members didn't think so. I think they were mistaken and that was demonstrated by the fact that the one who didn't think so asked me to stay late TONIGHT to finish something (really the SAME project I was trying to wrap up LAST WEEK. It just takes TIME to do it right!) So considering we STILL didn't finish after I stayed until 7:30 tonight (and I really did work more than 8 hrs on Friday as well) I am a bit put off they could't have just approved the damn overtime for this ONCE in the year I have mentioned I knew I wouldn't be done in 40 hrs. They told me to just work the 4 hours Fri to hit 40. I didn't want the stress today so KEPT working until I felt done with the piece of the puzzle I was on at work; and they seem OK with me sorta comping it out by logging 40 hrs THIS week then going to an actual work event (typically not open to contractors but FT only) which is a bit of a celebration of the new system rolled out. Basically I worked a total of 48 hours last week but logged 40 so if I get my essential tasks done by the time of the work party I can go to it. Its also just BS that they have a party but contractors are allowed to go only if on THEIR time (not company time). Just poor management if you ask me that makes people not want to stick around.

The thing is, I don't even KNOW if by the time of the work event I will be DONE with my work to even go to that...
I CAN"T stay late tomorrow as kid obligation. WED in fact I can't stay late as another kid obligation (I was asked to go by one kid to something so that comes first! They so rarely ASK me to go do something now that in teen years!). I have some things I HAVE to get done as others are dependent on them.

I just think there is not realistic expectation of how long it takes to have QUALITY and get this job done well.

Ce la vie...

So long and short of it is that my job which was rather easy is now stressful.

And I am in a moderately paying job without responsibility for a reason. I don't WANT a stressful job. If I am going to be in a stressful job well then it is time to job hunt and get PAID WAY MORE than I am now. Mainly as I KNOW I can get that in this market. I have the lower pay trade off as its been low responsibility and stress. But if it gets to be highly stressful I think I won't be as inclined to want to stay around. Peace of mind and work life balance is more important to me at this stage of my life and career.

I am also getting concerned as I keep hearing that when they onboard folks from contractor to employees they pay them LESS.

WHAT THE HELL?

I have no idea WHY anyone would accept that?

I mean think about it, there is a middle man making about 100% of what I actually get paid NOW. (That was AFTER my 20% raise!) I am not kidding about that markup.

(I have drafted MANY contracts for professional services... Going rate is about $85 per hour that companys pay for them and that is about the same whether it is an ENGINEER, or a CONTRACT MANAGER, or a DATA ANAYLST... I mean that is the market rate for hiring SHORT TERM contract labor.)
Now the contracts tend to get anywhere from $25 to $50 per hour, which to be honest has more to do with their NEGOTIATION SKILLS and willingness to take a job in which they are underpaid than their actual JOB SKILLS or experience.

I see attorneys working for $25 per hour in contract work and some working for $100 to $200 per hour and frankly the main difference between each is CONFIDENCE and sense of worth in market.

One HAS to be willing to take less if out of the game for a while... which I was when studying for the BAR. The key is SHORT while as its foolish to stay in a low paying position for TOO long. But I have been back at it for a couple of years, underpaid for my experience and skill set, so I would be foolish to not expect what I am worth AT MY CURRENT place of employment if they offer me full time OR elsewhere if they don't offer that.

So I was moonlighting checking out job prospects (just in case !)

I started out writing to do one silly simple thing. Horoscopes often provide amusement to me as I clean out the massive email mess (which of COURSE I had to do after entering my timesheet). I wrote all the below FIRST and then Kept going!

I was going to redline today's horoscope just for kicks... as at work I have been in perfectionist editing mode. I worry some wonder what the hell I have been doing and why it is taking so long. The thing is I just CAN'T hand off a finished product that is crappy.

Plain and simple. I might be sloppy in my personal journaling, but not in my work. WHEW I have been getting an odd sense that one particular co-worker for some reason must feel a bit insecure (she needn't!) and has been somehow a bit competitive with me. Well more than a sense, a few behaviors exhibited by her let me in on that....

Omitting me on an email send out of work deliverable. (Co-worker forwarded it, I did a heavy edit to improve and sent it back to drafter. I have no problem being a ghost writer or editor and happy to do that. ) It could have been just an oversight, but if intentional that is just downright silly. No reason to NOT avail onself of my obsessive need to correct spelling, remove awful OCR crappy characters and clean up a doc to be better than it was. I mean we all have talents and I am persnickety when it comes to professional writing. Co-workers should not find that THREATENING but rather LEVERAGE it and have me edit their stuff! When I need help with EXCEL skills which I am rather marginal at I am quick to reach out and let them know I am treading water just getting by but need a bit of coaching to make it to shore!!

(WHEW two weeks ago a couple really great team members DID give me the encouragement , support and some learning tools advised as well and I am proud I have mastered VLOOK UP , something two years ago I had no idea what even was.)

I however am not patient enough to show redlines in this horoscope so just IMAGINE I marked this up to correct the hideous misspelling and improve it:

Here's your daily complete forecast for the day:

"OVERVIEW
Some people see you as inflexible, but today you prove them wrong. You may not intend to, but your devotion to getting things right means you almost certainly have to bend a rule or two...

CAREER
Adversaries and rivals are starting to get overly competitive, but they haven't counted on you rising to meet their challenges. Little do they know you can easily give as good as you get -- and then some. They should move on to other issues before too long."

WHEW THAT IS A RELIEF!! Heck team work is what makes my workplace nice, and competition just kills that environment.

There were folks retiring as well as layoffs recently so I understand that makes some people skittish and act funny... but you know trying to make self look good by putting others down, of trying to make someone else the fall guy, or tying to cut someone out of the conversations and decisions that matter doesn't in the end ever serve anyone well. People notice that kind of behavior and it just reflects poorly on the actor trying to manipulate. Ce la vie ; I can't worry too much about it!

Back to bed for a couple of hours more sleep.

Maybe I will get up TOMORROW to swim.

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