Maginations

I'm up so early this morning - a full 45 minutes before my alarm and unlike yesterday when I went back to sleep, today I just decided to get up.  Dishwasher humming.  Dog fed and in and out twice. I took the time while she stood at alert scoping out her domain to give the sliding door track a quick wipe.

Finally! yesterday was a turning point for me.  My mental attitude is most definitely affected by my physical well being and the past week or so has been hard.  Haven't felt great for awhile - still snuffly and my ears are bothering me a bit.  I had my every three to five year procedures on Monday - grateful the prep was on Sunday so I didn't have to miss a day of work for it.  Like everyone on the planet, I detest the prep day - but I survived.  Procedures went fine.  But Tuesday morning, I awoke still just feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and my mind was mush.  Absolute mush.  So I did the unthinkable and phoned in sick.  On a board day.  And a Cabinet day.

Later that day, a couple things transpired - in hindsight the things were clearly 'people getting along fine without me and what else did you expect them to do' - but at the time, one thing in particular really bothered me.  And my mind immediately went to the dark places my mind can go and before I knew what was happening, I was totally fed up with my job; my boss; a host of other things and people...and the only logical solution was 'find another job'.  Which I realized I could totally do when a quick perusal at Edjoin.org turned up a couple completely possible jobs within commute distance.
I felt sad at the thought of leaving while simultaneously energized at the thought of 'all things new'.

On Wednesday, I had a planned day off to go into San Francisco with J. and meet our 'new' finance guy.  We've been with a company since J. retired a few years ago and our account rep sent us a letter that he was branching out on his own and would we like to move our accounts to his new firm.  We like the guy but there were some things about his move and his setup on his own that made us a bit wary - so he encouraged us to meet the CEO of our current company and see what we felt after that meeting.  We'd never met the CEO before - scratch that - J. had met him because he did a transition seminar when J. left the bank - but I'd never met him.  And this is a big deal for us, obviously. Decisions about our life savings are not to be taken lightly - and we want to feel comfortable about who we are working with.

I was totally rooting for the underdog - our account rep who was going out on his own - but a few minutes with the CEO of our current company changed my mind.  Turns out our account rep wasn't doing all that great on our behalf in some areas - once J. moved his retirement savings into an account with this firm, some things should have happened that didn't.  We should have been moved to a new 'tier' of services and we should have started receiving a lot of things for free - no trade fees.  Our prior account rep hadn't done that for us - he should have.  The CEO saved the account 'cuz he will handle it personally - he should have been handling it for awhile (they decide who handles what based on account value and our account should have been with the CEO from the start - only we transitioned my accounts first and J.'s later [he couldn't move his 401(k) until he had officially separated from the bank so we had to wait while J. was on severance pay]) - so the handling of our account went to the account rep we've been working with vs. the CEO.

We talked through a lot of things that had come up over the few years we were working with the other rep and we decided to stay with the firm we've worked with from the start.  Our former account rep had indicated his departure was 'all good - we parted amicably' - and we got plenty of indications that was not necessarily the truth.

So a day of planning our financial future and talking a lot of things through combined with a nice lunch with J. in San Fran was a positive.

Back to the office yesterday and my day started with a seminar with CBO's from five other counties in our area all together.  It was quickly obvious that most of the CBO's in the room are burned out and exhausted.  There's camaraderie in a job that few do and not many want to do.  I felt tired and burned out myself - still ruminating over the things that had transpired while I was away and my lens was definitely 'I'm so sick of this crap' still.

At 1PM (the seminar was really great, by the way), I pulled into the parking lot and entered my office building - and was greeted by a friend/peer/fellow admin who gave me a huge hug and said 'oh, I missed you so much - are you feeling OK? We need to do lunch!!'....and then my team who were warm and funny and said 'she's alive!' with great enthusiasm.  A slew of people in and out all with 'yeah, Majah's back!  We missed you!'....it was like sixty minutes of warmth.  I won't lie - it felt great.

And just like that, my mood lifted.  The thing I was irritated about was quickly resolved when I did the right thing - I marched over to the office of the person involved, closed the door and we talked it through.  She was immediately contrite and said 'no, that wasn't the intent'...and like everyone else, had said 'yeah, you are back - we missed you!!'....sincerely and warmly.

It was a good reminder how quickly I can get into my own head and make mountains out of nothing. It was a good reminder that everyone I work with (well, almost everyone) are genuinely nice people who are all doing the best they can at their respective jobs.  Also a reminder that we all have stuff and at any moment, that stuff can really color our lenses and impact (greatly) how we see things at any moment.

I'm still overworked; tired; burned out; irritated with the State of California and the changes being made to education funding; frustrated about things in our district that will take a long time to sort out and resolve - but I feel renewed energy and hope.  I know that building a new team to tackle all of it takes time but we're going to get there.  By hook or by crook - we will get there.

Which is a good thing 'cuz I'm not retiring yet.  I'm too young.  I knew when we got married that I would work well past J. and I'm going to do my best to hold up that end of the bargain for as long as I can.  

Tomorrow, H. and I are going to Jackson!  I'm still 'even' - gambling on the same money I've been gambling on for over a month - not winning hugely but not losing, either - so we're going up.  I had a very exciting weekend last week when the machine next to me rewarded one guy with a $900 jackpot.  He was so excited.  I played that machine a bit too when he left....and then about 20 minutes later, another guy sat down and he won $10,890!  Like the guy who'd won $900, he had no idea what he'd won so I had to tell him 'hey, congratulations - you just won $10,890!!'.  Chaos ensued.  The guy was such a nice person - and so thrilled to have won - he needs a new car and was so excited to have money to 'buy a better car'.  And he said 'I'm so sorry because I know you were playing that machine a little off and on and it could have been you'.  I said 'I'm so happy for your win and it's OK!'...and I really meant it.  It was a nice day of watching other people win.  And maybe tomorrow, it will be me winning a big one.  I love to dream...

I'm on an interview committee ALL DAY today so the day will be busy and full - just the way I like them.