The promotion: a thesis

February 10, 2007

So on Thursday, I finally got my promotion. Whew, it's about damn time, right?!

The only thing is, I have to move to the swing shift, which is from 3:30 to midnight. My boss hinted that this may be the case a month or so ago and I was quite hesitant about it, but I've been thinking about it, and I think this is kinda what I need in my life right now.

First of all, I wouldn't have gotten the promotion if I didn't go to this other shift. Which is kinda bullshity, but I understand. They just fired someone from that shift, after firing someone else about a month ago. There's not enough senior people on that shift, so they need me there. I get that. I'm down with it. And I am forever going to kick myself for not getting this promotion when it was offered 8 months ago. But we don't need to hear that particular bitterness right now.

But again, I think this will be good. Let me kinda take you through my life for the past year or so:
I wake up at 6:00 every day when the alarm goes off. I hit snooze once or twice and then begrudingly get up and take a shower, or maybe not. Maybe I'll leave a little earlier so I can get me some McDonalds or Whataburger or sometimes even donuts, if I'm feeling saucy. Most of the time, I am 5-10 minutes late for work. Sometimes even 15 minutes if I'm really in a bad mood.

It of course takes about 15-20 minutes to get in the mood to even start working, but once I do start to work I'm pretty good about it. Around 10:00 I start pondering lunch, what I'm going to eat for lunch, where I'm going to eat it, how early I need to go to get there before the rush starts. Lunch is a big deal for me, you see.

Somewhere between 11 and 12, I go to lunch or I eat the lunch I brought. We have 30 minutes for lunch but there's the eating lunch part and then the checking my email/procrastination period of time aftr lunch. Then I work pretty hard for the next couple of hours, until 3:30 when I do one of the following:
- Stay for overtime
- Go home and take a nap
- Go to Josh's house
- Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious, work out.

If I do overtime, I either do 2 hours or so so I can go home, get something for dinner, and then workout at 8, or I do 4 full hours and go home too exhausted to even attempt working out.

If I go home right after work and take a nap, there is a good chance I will work out later. But when I go work out at 8 and then oome home at 10, I'm usually too keyed up to go to bed, and stay up until something ridiculous like 11:30 and then wake up at 6:00 exhausted.

If I go to Josh's, I usually don't work out. I go to bed around 10 because it usually takes me a little longer to get to sleep at his house, since he doesn't go to bed until way after me and there's many activities going on in his room all at one time. And I usually wake up exhausted anyway.

For the past 3 or 4 months, I've been more exhausted than usual. It's taking me longer to get to sleep when I finally do go to bed. I've started taking Tylenol PMs on a regular basis. And I keep telling myself, "Sooner or later I'll figure this whole thing out. I'll learn how to balance working out and overtime and making time for my relationship, and I'll lose weight and not feel so tired all the time." And it never happens, no matter how much I want it to happen, because I'm just in a rut. I'm in a dumb rut where I just can't seem to get it all together in a nice little package.

Like my mom said, it just seems like I'm always at work. And when I'm not at work, I'm too exhausted to do anything else. I do so much overtime because without it, my paycheck is just sad. And I want enough money to buy the necessities and still have enough left over to buy the fun stuff at the same time. I like spending money on DVDs and iTunes and Josh and whatever else tickles my fancy at the time. If I didn't do overtime, I'd really have to watch my money and be really strict with it, and I'm just not that kind of girl.

Working out is definitely what has suffered the most, because by the time I get to the point where I need to get my ass up and out the door to the gym, I just want to sit on my sofa and watch TV and not move. And that's sad. And while I would have been somewhat satisfied doing that for another year or two or three, I'm glad this opportunity came along because I need a kick in the ass, and this is what needed to happen.

Now, I'm not saying that things will magically be different with these new hours, but I can be pretty confident in saying I won't wake up hating life anymore, because shit, I can sleep in until 2:30 or 3 if I want to now! Not that I will, but I won't have the alarm dictating my every move. I'll have time to work out in the morning and then do a little overtime after that. Or I can go to Josh's after work, hang out for an hour or two, go to bed together and wake up and have a little time in the morning to watch Northern Exposure (it's our new/old addiction again) or have some morning sexual activities.

I just think this will help me out of my rut. One thing that will help is waking up and working out. When I work out earlier in the day I'm less likely to ruin that by eating like a pig. Plus, I'll probably wake up too late to get delicious breakfast offerings from McDonalds and Whataburger, which is a good thing.

It is still a little scary, though. Like, the Wonder Twins have to deal with a lot of stuff as Senior Editors, and I'm not sure I even know what they deal with on a daily basis. I'm sure I'm about to learn, though. They seem rather stressed out, so...I don't know. I'm not sure what this promotion will bring, as far as new responsibilities go. I know I'll get to help train new people. I'll help with the stuff that happens on a daily basis that I haven't learned about yet.

And with this promotion comes...a raise! With more money! And there's like a shift differential once it hits 6 or 7 at night, or something. I get paid a little more, that's all I know. And that'll be nice. Very Nice.

I do have some hesitation about it. Mostly because I don't know exactly how Josh and I will figure this routine out. Will I be too tired when I come to his house at midnight, and then when I wake up in the morning will we have time to hang out at all? I am betting my best weekend time will be Sunday/Sunday night, which I am looking forward to. Because on Friday, I'm so tired from a whole week of being tired all week that all I want to do when I get to Josh's is go to bed. But now if I go there on Sunday evening, we can spend lots of time together and then I can take my time on Monday waking up and going to work. I think that will be good.

So anyway, my boss boss (not my supervisor and not the Big Guy, but the one in between) told me some nice things she noticed about me and my work when she called me in her office to talk about this, and I did admit to her that it's nice when someone notices all the hard work I put into this company. She also said that she noticed I have made some mistakes, but we're all human. So that was a good conversation we had.

Ultimately I am really excited and optimistic about this new schedule. I will miss my day shift people but J is one of the swingers, so it'll be nice to have someone I can call a friend to hang out with again. I'm just glad my hard work was finally recognized, because you know what? I really have worked hard for this. Ever since they hired me 2 years ago, when I had been working for my dad doing basically nothing and before that getting fired from job to job in Austin, all I wanted to do was prove that I was capable of working hard for someone and benefiting the company. And I did that.

My dad said that he doesn't know anyone who had success happen to them overnight. And what kills me is that I feel like it kinda did happen overnight to the Wonder Twins of Senior Editor doom. And it kills me that I am STILL bitter about that, even when I have what I deserve. And you know what else kills me? That I don't feel like anybody at work cared much that I got this promotion. Like they haven't seen how fucking hard I've worked to get it. The Wonder Twins didn't even congratulate me. And while I recognize the fact that I shouldn't be so insecure that I need them to acknowledge it in some fucking form, but I really wanted them to. And that just shows how immature I still am, and that sucks.

OMG, I'm so sorry about how completely boring this entry is. But I've had all these thoughts swirling around in my head for 2 straight days and it really helps to get them all out in this forum, as usual.

Isn't interesting how I get all worked up about work these days when all I used to talk about was boys and Guns N Roses and, like, puppies?

By the way, I missed Axl's birthday. He turned 45 a few days ago. He's going to be taking his tour to South Africa. He can't fucking come to Texas, but South Africa? Sure!

Tonight I am at the farm, where I have gotten in multitudes of cuddle from my Charlie. He is my baby doggie and I love him so much it hurts. He gives the best cuddles ever and he doesn't give them out like some kind of doggie whore, so when he does, they're special.

Oh, and I've tried to catch up on the last couple episodes of CSI. There have been a few little Grissom-Sara nuggets that really make me go "AHHH GRISSOM AND SARA!" But the writers have really been giving just tiny little nuggets to suggest they're still seeing each other and that they feel strongly about each other, but nothing that really makes any damn difference in the whole scheme of things. I wouldn't say I want a sex scene, but like, a kiss or something would be nice! GRISSOM AND SARA COME ON!!!

And that is all, I have rambled enough.
Here is a picture of Charlie and me from a few years ago: