2021-08-17 - 10:22 p.m.

Today was a trying and tiring day.

I felt so defeated!

I started off REALLY strong this morning.

Let me backtrack to yesterday....

I worked this weekend. So it was super busy between going to exercise class to start off the weekend Saturday morning; then a wonderful run which felt fabulous ( I Felt GOOD!!), a nice text with my friend Dr. Fauci who I think will be my running partner for the MCM 10K this year...
then work; and then Sunday morning lovely church ( virtual as I was multitasking getting church volunteer work done!)
then work at the retirement community,

I awoke happy and energetic and ready to start my week.

NOW it was the first week that the weather has NOT been in the 90s and near 100 degrees in WEEKS.

So, on Monday morning I could re-claim my office space! (Which is in the basement and the cool haven away from the rest of the hot humid house. I have been working upstairs and when not too hot on my porch). The kids of mine ( young adults) have been hunkering down in the basement and had brought sleeping bags down there. With a house full of folks with POTS it is not a surprise, and not unusual, and no NOT a result of any "bad" indulgent parenting to have folks asleep at all hours of the day ( at least SOMEONE).
I mean I have two diagnosed here...
Occasionally of late ALL three of the kids here have been awake during normal daylight hours! It happens more often than it used to.

So I went down to work and had to go back up and bring down my NEW Dyson vacuum and first put away sleeping bags and pillows and straighten my office ( AS THE MESS DRIVES ME CRAZY... and you know its my comfort to straighten it. Kids don't care and they will be happy to leave the sleeping stuff out and have it ready to use when/if gets hot again. It honestly is easier for me to take the time to tuck them away then complain or nag or ask them to do so, In fact that morn they all were asleep in beds in actual bedrooms since the heat wave broke!)

But I just HAD to vacuum! Then I HAD to also put away the clean laundry that was folder sitting here on a table. I mean I WANTED The space to look nice and orderly and PEACEFUL for my work week in MY office space.

IT felt so great to be back working in this home office setup! So I started working later in the morning than usual... really late in fact for me.

OH but wait... I had woken up EARLY and BEFORE work was on a roll with the continuation of the church project.

I am in charge of an order of T Shirts for the church. Seems like a simple thing, right?

Yeah.. but...
I used a survey monkey to set up the order forms. As it is a FREE account it does not aggregate all the info and spit out a really organized report with data points in it .

NO,,,I could PAY for that... (and of course I don't have the authority or the church deacons account credit card to do that unilaterally) OR can pull the info and organize the data myself.

Which took hours!
YES
For about two hours between Sunday night before bed ( when I would have loved to have been practicing guitar or writing music out to they lyrics of some fun bad songs I am working on... I don't care how hokey and bad they are; they will be fun! I have some silly lyrics crafted as a start... and a sung recording I hope to not lose from my answering service before I transcribe it. I lost the last two tunes from inspired moments!)

So after I finished and placed the order for T-shirts with the supplier and was SURE that each person who wanted something particular would get it. I made it complicated...we have four different shirt options.... but everyone wanted something different and I accommodated. Some white, some blue, some crew , some V neck, some long sleeve, some short.... I mean maybe more than 4 variations? I don't know I just know it was fun to do ... but the math part took too long. I had to figure out who pre-ordered; cost and how much risk work carrying by ordering extra shirts for all those who don't read emails carefully or go on social media and didn't catch the blasts EVERYWHERE to order a shirt if you want one...

SIGH... Ordering name tags next.... that will be simpler. My supplier is sending a prototype and price point soon. I asked a couple weeks ago and he was busy. Post COVID it seems like a nice idea to have name tags, especially as some of us are awful at remembering names.

So basically after spending, now that I think of it actually two hours in the morning ( in addition to the time Sun night of at least another hour and likely more); of working with order numbers, item numbers, pricing and modeling of different order price points and risk to settle on what I wanted to order....

I was just TIRED of working with data.

I mean price quotes and modeling are things I can only do so much of and my brain is freaking tired.

OH YEAH,...
not only that project... but I ALSO had to review a couple prospective mortgage refinance options. So I logged onto work computer to work a bit...

and it was rather slow this Monday morning;

so shifted gears to do the number crunch on refinance options. (GO refinance NOW if you have anything over 10 yrs on your mortgage and get a 15 yr mortgage if you have anything over a 3.5 rate. Seriously. WORTH IT. You can ALWAYS pay off faster than the mortgage! Great time to get a better interest rate on a shorter term and with a lower monthly payment for many in the market.. .. or a longer term but lower monthly payment and can pay off more aggressively if can afford such.)

So I took a break from work to run more numbers....
and basically was just FRIED from that kind of work with data,

So fried that when I finally settled in to work for a few hours...I was exhausted and it turned out the ONLY work left on my TO DO that I could work on at the time- was a data analysis project.

OH MY GOD!
YEs it required data analytics of pulled info from one source and then organizing and analyzing it. And I tell you my brain COULD NOT PROCESS any further data analytics.

Lo and behold... on Friday I pushed out a contract requested ( simply as it was a slow day and I needed to log SOME hours to be paid so any late requests that came in on Friday got DONE Friday afternoon. Its the ethics thing... I was multitasking working on mortage stuff and watched time OFF the clock and still owed some hours to even hit my 4 hrs Friday. So I actually worked late Friday to make up that time when there was ACTUAL Work to do.)

Work has slowed down a bit. It ebbs and flows and it was a slow week last week.
But then yesterday and today were even slower,,,,

I have some projects to work on... that require ANALYSIS of our DATA and working aggregating and looking at it in EXCEL.

YUP
I just could NOT do it.

I was spent.
My brain FRIED for that kind of work,

And I did not have ONE legal contract to provide analysis of.

So I did what any reasonable person would do.

I only worked three hours for the actual work and only ledgered three hours on my time sheet. ( Thank God I had one contract review I was not done with that allowed me to get some substantive legal review done, and I could organize emails and save files- file clean up. Without that I would not even have had that much work.)

FIRST I did pull my employment contract thinking "My boss said 20 hrs a week. Now do I get paid 20 hrs even if don't WORK 20 hrs?"

The thing is for many that is actually the case.
I turned to my contract. It just says I get paid my rate by the hour without any promise of total hours per week. In fact when I worked over 20 hrs I billed for actual time. So now likewise if not 20 hrs worth of work I will bill actual time!

I can't in good conscience bill for hours not worked. There are a couple thing to be done... but I will do those the next couple days. I just was not up to them yesterday or today frankly.

I did some work today; again only 2 hrs worth.

This is totally unusual from what the norm has been. Its just a light few weeks! September will be busier. I have some items coming up and know will have more work flow. I will check what modifications are due as know there are things I can get done. I have some compliance work to do; reviewing that we are meeting all regulations. Business development will happen and the capture and project managers will send work my way they need done, so it will pick up. Sure there are things to do otherwise but they require that analytic type of work and I have to be on point to do that. I have to be in the right frame of mind or I am just not efficient at it so best to wait for the energy and for my brain to be ready to handle that. Its an energy thing!

Honestly though it was legit slow the past couple days. I am also awaiting something to be delivered to me before I can more forward on one project.

All in all I really love my job,

It was just really weird to have the anomaly of such slow days!

But that was not even the vent of the things that made today hard!! I think I won't even write about that just now....

Funny I rarely write about work. The things that went wrong today were not really work related...

only ancillarilly... But it was lots of things I had to do that took up my energy and time.. and left me without ability to be very productive at work! ( Volunteer work; financial planning... logistics...) Honestly... a lost day... sorta...
But was not on vacation so that stinks. I mean if was not earning money but on the beaches of an island I would not mind...
but if I am not getting much work done ( and yes I COULD have worked on other projects but had no mental energy left )...well frustrating.

And we are not reporting to an office. I mean if you are hired for 20 hrs a week at a weekly rate with clear hours IN The office well you get paid if you show up EVEN If there is no work! Managing staff is important for companies to not be throwing money away on labor in such situations! BUT if you are hired part time to be paid by the hour for 20 hrs remote,.,and one week there is NOT work to keep you busy those 20 hrs... so you end up on phone with banks...etc.... doing laundry... dishes...walking the dog...
I really am not on board with being paid for those 20 hours. UNLESS Actually WORK them , I don't feel comfortable billing them.

This is all to say I need to get my butt in gear and get my web site up and running. There was an issue with the hosting provider and access to my site which I never resolved.

Basically I started this job part time and happy with only working part time for this company only for a while.
But I am getting the indicators it is time for me to put time and energy into setting up myself to provide outsourced support of contracts for other clients.
I LOVE that this company hired me expressly indicating in my employment contract I may run my own business, as long as do not compete for their business.

I might be in this frame of mind also as talked to a friend of mine who said is job hunting as there is not much for him to do in his new role in his new job ( he was canned the same time I was from the company that was a sinking ship we worked for previously. They had to let a bunch go to be viable basically. It was obvious....) We were discussing how it is nerve wracking when not busy. I was reminding him that is is OK to be in a place that is HEALTHY And not manic and crazy with non stop urgency and artificial emergencies manufactured to keep everyone productive at all times. But at the same time that I was encouraging him to not be worried it resonated with me when he said he prefers being kept on his toes, being kept busy and keeping his skillls sharp by being challenged. YES I get that. I found it weird to just not have anything to do (but the one task I was too tired for! I will work on that later this week first thing in the morning after being refreshed when my brain is optimal and efficient! But it does make sense since things are slowing down for me to challenge myself by finding my own clients for my own company since not working for a large entity that always has more that I could jump in and work on. Large companies ALWAYS have things that can be done it seems! The ebb and flow of working for a small is very different. I intentionally did want to not start off strong but wanted to gradually shift into working for myself. I take NDAs VERY Seriously, I won't steal business from my old employer.

I WILL HOWEVER call contacts I made during course of business with my old employer and do some rainmaking. THAT is different. It also makes a difference if wait for the time period of an NDA to expire before making those cold calls. That is my intention! To have confidence I do my job REALLY WELL and that the clients supported know and appreciate that and a couple years later they will STILL have confidence in my personal ability. So I am not in a rush . I feel it best to take time to relish this slower work period and appreciate the ability to have my presence and attention at home for my family who DO need me now despite their ages of being older.
I know a number of folks who will be happy to put the word out to whom they know and I am sure with a few calls can find someone that would benefit from my services.

DAMN I am tired. Tomorrow is another day.
Oh yeah today I did get up early and was on the phone by 8am and worked with another mortgage lender, mopped the kitchen floor, gave the dog a bath, and then at 9:30 took kid to Dr. appt... then in afternoon ran the band kid back and forth.....

I mean it was just a busy day but I felt like I did not get MY work done for work!

I answered some emails; reviewed a couple questions... yeah did somethings...

Ce la vie... slow day...
tomorrow I have a contract to draft. WHEW That request came in and I was so happy as I prefer when it is busy and I can get "in flow"!

And tomorrow and the next day I will tackle those projects that are still on my to do that require analytics.

It was just too much today...
I watched the news when couldn't think! As if that helped... but it was something to do when I couldn't run numbers. But then perhaps that is WHY I couldn't process any more. I mean the news in Afghanistan is horrifiic.
A friend posted how to apply for a special visa get out of Afghanistan just days before the collapse as he is an administrator for a college there. Thankfully he is back in the states after a few years on his contract that was not extended I suppose (as heard it ended). He must be grateful now it was not extended!
Blessing....

I did take time to find the info for local refugee resettlement programs as they are in need of volunteers, to post the info on social media. (They always can use them!) I was glad one of my kids said "Hey we should volunteer as there will be Afghani's resettling here."

I am sure I can jump into refugee services volunteer legal work at this time. I will put the feelers out. This is the exact kind of legal work I started off doing years ago. Funny how history repeats itself.

Afghanistan intervention lasted longer than our US intervention in Somalia.
But nonetheless the situation reminds me of what is happening in Afghanistan.
Historically in situations of intervention it seems stability does not come easy when the US pulls out of a country. Taliban so quickly establishing control however is something entirely and unexpectedly new. That is not following the playbooks of events of US Intervention of the past.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Somalia-intervention

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