Proactive

Times are tough for my company. Since I’m in charge of accounts receivable (the inflow of money owed to us), there is tremendous pressure on me to collect on unpaid past due (and sometimes not quite due) invoices. I’ve been trying to do a good job, but my big boss is getting stressed out by invoices that are even one day past due.

Today, my big boss called an impromptu accounting meeting, the majority of which was stressing how important it is to collect and explicitly showing how frustrated he is by my performance. Less than five minutes after the meeting, he sent me a strongly worded email saying how important my responsibility is to the company and that I need to be more proactive. He also said my job is very difficult, which tells me that my lack of results is all that much more disappointing. I’m paraphrasing the email (I don’t have it in front of me), but I was freaking out for the rest of the day. I really felt like I was going to get fired.

I talked to my old boss/friend about it after work, and he helped to calm me down a little. He knows that I have communication issues with my boss, but I should still ask for help when I need it. My boss is still there to help me (it’s just business, after all). He also said “if you can’t change others, change yourself,” which is an interesting thing to consider.

After I got home, my old work crush called me to see if I was okay. I hadn’t talked to him at all about what happened today. He said he knew that I’m under a lot of pressure right now, but he wanted to remind me that the reason why my bosses give me so much pressure is because they know I can handle it. They expect more out of me. If they didn’t expect so much, they wouldn’t be as demanding. This was a common topic when I was still in sales (since my old boss/friend had very high expectations of me and therefore yelled at me more than his whole sales team combined now), but I often lose sight of that fact these days. His minute-long phone call with me was short but encouraging.

I’m still freaking out a little bit, but talking to my two good friends at work helped a lot. I’m pretty sure tomorrow is not going to be a picnic, but at least I’m not as discouraged as I was initially.

I’ve been watching episodes of I Love Lucy tonight (Season Five, when she goes to Europe) to relax. Lucy is so funny.

One Of Those Days

Today was one of those days where I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I felt off the whole day. I left work early (well, 7:30pm is earlier than usual) to try and relax at home, but I still feel anxious.

It didn’t help that I made a mistake at work toward the end of last week that just caught up to me today. I felt like my boss was mad at me all day. I’m thinking it’s because she got in trouble from her boss for my mistake, but I don’t know for sure. The mistake isn’t irreparable, but I really should know better by now. I hate making mistakes like that. My boss barely said two words to me today, which is noticeably different from our usual many conversations over our shared cubicle wall.

In other news, I had an envelope waiting for me when I got home that was from the US Department of the Treasury. Apparently I qualified for the recovery rebate credit (and I didn’t know about it when I filed my taxes a few weeks ago), so I got a nice bonus check! My day still feels crappy, but at least I’m a few hundred dollars richer.

Out Of Stock

This week has been quite a struggle. The beginning of the week was rough, and today wasn’t great either. Because I didn’t watch one of my client’s inventory closely enough (I was watching, but I thought things would be resolved today), they’re going to be out of stock on two of our most popular items over the weekend. This is going to be a huge blow to my sales.

As a last-ditch effort to fix the problem, my warehouse, production, and shipping teams all helped me get ready to deliver the items to my client’s warehouse 60 miles away. I left in the early afternoon. Without traffic, it should have taken an hour. Unfortunately, given a Friday afternoon in LA, the traffic was ridiculously bad. It took over two hours to get to the warehouse, at which time the warehouse manager refused to receive our packages (they close their receiving department early). I had no choice but to turn around and go back to the office. It took over an hour and a half to get back.

My delivery attempt ended up being a large waste of energy, time, and money. When I got back to the office, my boss didn’t get mad at me; after all, it wasn’t my fault that the traffic was so bad. I stayed in the office for another two hours before going home (it was around 8pm when I left).

It was only as I was driving home that my boss called and yelled at me for not watching the inventory closely enough. I should have communicated to him that there was an inventory problem earlier so that it wouldn’t have to come to a last minute effort. The fact that we tried to fix the problem is fine, but the fact that there was a problem to fix is my fault.

Anyway. It was a long day and a long week, neither of which ended well.

Rough First Day Back

After such a nice vacation, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that my first day back at work would be hard to get through. Even still, today was really rough. I feel like I kept making mistakes all day. My boss even yelled at me for one of them. My boss rarely ever yells at me anymore. Not only that, but I made my coworker friend/crush’s day really stressful because of my indecision and subsequent bad decision.

What’s worse, I might be coming down with something. I felt a bit hot and cold in the morning, almost like I had a slight fever. It got a little better after lunch, but then my back started hurting a lot. By the end of the day, my back was very uncomfortable. I had to lay down on my bed as soon as I got home.

I really hope tomorrow is better.

Self Worth By Association

I’ve been feeling crappy again the last couple days. Part of the reason is that I had a lot of interaction at work with my work crush yesterday. I got paired up with him (actually, I requested to work with him) to zone a particular department. We got to take our breaks and lunch together.

At first, working with my crush was fun. It’s nice to talk to him and see him flash his smile. After a while, though, I remember that his mind is always on girls (he’s a total player). All I can ever hope to have from him is his friendship, and it’s hard to say whether that will last after I stop working at Target. But even if we are able to maintain contact after we stop working together, what kind of friendship will we have?

Ever since I was a kid, my self worth has been linked with the friendships I have. I feel better about myself if hot or popular people (the cool kids) are friends with me. Since I can’t be cool, hot, or popular in my own right, living vicariously through those who are is the next best thing.

If I’m associated with someone “important” (in other words, someone I have a crush on) then I feel important. If I’m not, then I feel worthless. I feel invisible, and the loneliness that has lingered with me for most of my life sets in again.

Yesterday, when it was just my work crush and me talking, I felt good. I was carefree and happy. But the instances when he was talking to one of his straight friends (with the straight guy banter only straight guys understand) or when he was on the phone with one of the many girls who is infatuated with him, I felt like a wallflower. I faded into the background, perhaps where I belong.

Who am I kidding? I’m friends (nominally) with my work crush, but I’ll never be good friends with him. He already has better work friends than me. At the moment, that realization makes me feel like crap. I’m sure these feelings will pass in time (they always do). I know my feelings are completely ridiculous and illogical; I’m not even sure this post makes any sense. One’s worth shouldn’t be based on the perceptions of others. Yet somehow I still feel this way.

I Never Learn

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy all day today. I think I might be starting to get sick, but that’s not why I feel bad. I tried to avoid admitting this situation to myself (which is why I haven’t said anything about this on this blog), but my feelings today made it pretty unequivocal.

For a few weeks now, I’ve vaguely liked this boy at work. He’s young (but legal), straight, extremely cute/hot, and a total ladies’ man. He was the first person at work to ask me if I was gay and subsequently was the first person at work to whom I came out. He’s pretty nice to me, in a strictly platonic (friendship between boys) sort of way.

Over the last couple months, we’ve become pretty good work friends. I’m fairly certain that our social circles would never meet outside of Target, but I like to think we’re friends. Unfortunately, the more time I spend with him, the more my feelings for him are developing into a crush.

At the same time (though it started earlier), I also developed a small attraction to one of my high school friends (he’s also straight, of course). Technically, he’s a friend of a high school friend, but we all went to the same high school. We didn’t hang out together very much until I moved home last August. I like to think we’ve become friends in our own right, but I find it difficult to have conversations with him. He’s really into watching sports of all kinds, but I know very little about them.

I also find it hard to talk to my high school friend because he’s incredibly cute. He’s more cute than hot, which is why I’m not calling him cute/hot, but he has really nice muscles (and abs), so he’s pretty hot too. I get intimidated by his attractiveness. Whenever I talk to him, I feel like my attraction to him shows (he knows I’m gay too, by the way), so I get really shy and awkward around him. If we’re in a group, I tend to avoid eye contact with him but take in glances when I can.

My high school friend was in Las Vegas with me this last weekend. Because I know in my head that my attraction to him will never be reciprocated, I got mildly depressed during parts of the trip. There were a couple times when I had to walk off by myself to clear my thoughts. Sometimes I felt better, but other times I didn’t.

So that was the setup for what’s been going on in my head all day. Neither crush will ever be reciprocated, and that recurring (almost incessant) thought made me want a comforting hug. Unfortunately, I really wanted a comforting hug from one of my crushes, which clearly will never happen. Knowing that just made everything all the more painful.

My work crush noticed that I looked a little depressed today at work, but I never got a chance to sit down and tell him why. I’m not sure if I should tell him why, though I don’t think he would start avoiding me or something. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

It’s amazing how much I don’t learn. Straight crush after straight crush, I never learn not to fall for straight boys.

No Clicking, Just Snapping

Nothing clicked today, but I think something snapped. My fears of never getting a job and wondering if I’m making the right career choice were overpowering again. Everyone else has faith in me, but I still don’t. I couldn’t stay focused on studying, so I ended up sitting in Starbucks drinking tea to try and calm down. It didn’t work.

I went to the gym to unwind. After not working out for almost two weeks, I feel like I’ve lost some muscle and gained fat. I didn’t gain any weight, so it’s hard to tell. Even if I didn’t lose muscle, I still need to bring my normal routine back. The fact that I had pizza for dinner isn’t going to help anything. For the record, pizza was my dad’s idea, not mine.

I really hope the next four days aren’t like today.

Not My Day

I’ve been having a bad day. I woke up really late (close to 1pm) and it’s all been downhill from there. I’ve been feeling off and nervous all day. I went to the bank to deposit a check for my mom, and I dropped my shiny new cell phone in the parking lot. It still works, luckily, but there are some scratches on it. I’m obsessive about the condition of my stuff (for example, I don’t buy used books), so this is a bigger deal to me than it sounds.

I couldn’t concentrate on anything, so I decided not to study and just came home to try to relax. I still feel anxious for no reason. I feel like something bad could happen at any minute.

To leave you with something a little more uplifting, I found this commercial on YouTube that I used to see on TV: