Disconnected

I had a great time in Vegas. I didn’t do much besides walk with my friends from one casino to another while watching one of them play slots as the other played poker, but the trip was very relaxing. Starting from around 10:30am on Friday, I had zero access to the internet all weekend. At first I was hesitant to be so disconnected from the world (I could have bought 24 hour access to WiFi in my hotel room for $12), but having no internet was a great way to force myself not to think about work or any other worries.

In other news, when I came back home Sunday afternoon, I found out about the swine flu outbreak. I hate hearing about possible pandemics; they really scare me. My heart starts racing any time I read about the Spanish Flu. I’ve been keeping up with the news on the swine flu, which makes me worry more. I really hope the World Health Organization (WHO) can get things under control quickly.

What a great way to come back from a weekend with no worries: worrying about a pandemic. I guess I can’t escape reality forever.

Failure To Communicate

My friend/boss gave me a side project to do but didn’t tell me quite everything I needed to know in order to get it done. I tried doing what I could with it, but in the end I failed to deliver the results he wanted (he actually used the word “failed” several times).

The theme today is communication. What I was supposed to do was figure out what I needed to finish the job properly and communicate with my friend/boss so that he could either provide what I need or direct me to who can help me. My failure with my assignment today was not only a failure to do my job but a failure to communicate.

As my friend/boss was telling me about my lack of communication skills, I recalled my days as a graduate student. I always feared going to see my advisor. Nothing I ever did was good enough; I either didn’t do enough work or what work I had done was trivial.

As a result, I tried to avoid my advisor whenever possible, and our communication was kept at a minimum. When I was forced to meet with him, I was afraid to tell him what I had worked on, because I was afraid he would say I was wasting my time.

I’m doing the same thing again. Whenever my friend/boss asks me what I did during the day, I’m always afraid I’m going to say the wrong thing. I don’t properly communicate with my friend/boss because I’m afraid he’s going to be upset with me. I realize now, though, that he’s going to be more upset with me if I fail to deliver what he needs and didn’t come to him earlier when he could have helped.

Something else my friend/boss said today (that is and isn’t related) is that he has very high expectations of me. He said that when he gives people assignments, he usually gathers all the necessary tools he thinks they need and just tells them to do it. For me, though, he expects more. If he just gives me his end goal, he expects that I can think and research on my own to figure out what I need to achieve that goal. It’s flattering, I suppose, but it’s also a lot of pressure.

Self-Conscious

I made a few more mistakes today. I’m not confident in my abilities, so I ask my friend/boss for everything, but he doesn’t want me to ask him for everything anymore. He wants me to make my own mistakes and learn from them. I am learning, but I hate that I have to make mistakes to learn. I hate looking like a novice.

I really am too self-conscious for the business world. I’ve been a very self-conscious person all my life. I’ve always been afraid that people will judge me and either think I’m stupid or just generally look down on me.

I don’t know why what other people think is so important, but it is. Hopefully I can get over it soon and move forward. No one succeeds in business if they dwell on their mistakes and embarrassments forever.

In other news, my friend/boss and his boyfriend are going to LA Pride (commonly known as just “Pride”) tomorrow. They invited me to go with them, but I’m supposed to go to my cousin’s master’s graduation. Unfortunately, family obligations come before big gay celebrations. Oh well, maybe next year.

Maybe It’s Time

At some point, I have to stop being scared of life. Stop being scared to take risks. Stop feeling sorry for myself.

My friend/boss is presenting me with opportunities to move up in the company, and I’m still reluctant to take on more responsibilities. But maybe it’s finally time to put my reservations aside and rise to the challenge, rather than always backing away.

How does someone change one’s self image? How does someone become more confident? All of the reasons why I’m resisting moving forward are in my head (I’m pretty sure).

Maybe it’s time to do something that’s good for me, despite myself.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I found out recently that my friend/boss has early stages of carpal tunnel syndrome. Today he wore wrist braces while he worked so that he doesn’t make it worse.

I’m really scared I’m going to get it too. No, I don’t think it’s contagious. Since I have an office job now, I sit in front of a computer screen all day typing and using a mouse. If I’m not careful, I could end up hurting my wrists too.

Every so often throughout the day, I shook my wrists out and did some hand exercises. When I started to notice that my wrists were resting on the keyboard while I typed, or if my wrist was angled when I used my mouse, I stopped and readjusted myself in my seat and brought myself back to a proper position.

I might be overdoing the caution at this point (who worries about carpal tunnel syndrome after two weeks?), but building a good routine in the beginning is easier than breaking bad habits later. I need to get one of those gel wrist rests for my keyboard and mouse so that I can further prevent wrist problems.

A Reluctant Apprentice

Just when I start to get comfortable with my everyday responsibilities, my friend/boss wants to give me more to do. I’m not complaining; I’m just a little scared that he’ll give me too much for me to handle.

My friend/boss talked to me after work, and he explained how he wants me to gain as much from my experience with our company as possible. He doesn’t want me to do only mindless data entry that almost anyone can do. He wants me to learn how to do his job, but I’m not as well versed in business as he is.

He is able to look at market prices of products from competing companies and determine prices for our own products in order to compete. He also has to decide what products should go on sale when for each client so as to not compete with ourselves and eat our own sales. It’s all very complicated.

Whenever my friend/boss gives me something to do or wants me to watch him do something, he wants me to ask questions, even more questions than I’m already asking. He’s trying to get me to understand his thought processes so that I can eventually take the reins.

With every decision my friend/boss makes, he takes risks. He doesn’t know if his plans will benefit the company or whether his promotions will actually attract more buyers. I’m really not a risk taker; I don’t think I could take the kinds of risks he takes.

When I was trying to be a manager at Target, the job didn’t seem as important within the grand structure of the company. But a manager at a smaller company has a lot more weight to pull, an thus a lot more weight on his shoulders as well. I’m reluctant to sign on to that kind of responsibility so quickly.

More Than An Assistant

Today my friend/boss showed me some basic formulas on how our clients (resellers, basically) determine their selling prices for our products based on the costs we give them. In order to set new selling prices, we have to reverse the formulas to figure out the new costs we should be charging the clients.

While my friend/boss was inputting the formulas into a spreadsheet, I noticed that he oversimplified the reverse formulas (he wasn’t following basic fraction rules). I fixed his mistake! Who thought math would come in handy in business?

Later on in the day, I also noticed that my friend/boss was missing some important information from a few vital spreadsheets he gave me to work on. One of the first things my friend/boss taught me is to not assume things. Just because my friend/boss made the spreadsheets doesn’t mean that they are necessarily complete and/or accurate.

Today was a good day for me. Last week, I felt like I’m just my friend/boss’s assistant, but today I felt more like I’m actually working with him (which is what he wanted anyway).

Now that I’m getting the hang of things, though, he’s probably going to start giving me more responsibilities. I should be excited that I’m doing well (I think) and that my friend/boss is putting his faith in me, but I’m still really scared that I’m going to fail and/or disappoint him.

No Future

I asked my store team leader about the meeting he had yesterday with my interviewer. He told me that my interviewer thought I came off as very nervous during the interview and suggested that I start as a regular team leader to gain more leadership experience before trying to become an executive team leader.

The team leader position is definitely a step up from my current position, but it’s also a world away from being an executive. Team leaders are paid hourly at about 1.5 times my pay rate (think of cashews instead of peanuts), whereas executive team leaders are paid a (decent) salary.

I’m disappointed in the situation, but mostly I’m frustrated with myself. I really didn’t feel nervous before the interview. I even felt almost confident. But once the interview started, I became a different person. Once I’m in the interview environment, my brain shuts down and my nerves take over. If I consciously know that someone is judging me, my ability to articulate thoughts is thrown out the window.

My fear of failing at interviews causes me to fail at interviews. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m starting to wonder if my fear of being judged stems from being closeted for so long. I’ve been so afraid that people would find out that I’m gay that I get nervous and defensive when all eyes are on me.

The worst part of this whole situation is that my severe lack of interviewing skills will prevent me from getting any job which requires an interview, which is pretty much any job worth getting. My parents tell me that the only way to become comfortable during interviews is to go to a lot of interviews. But that implies that I will fail at interviews countless times before eventually getting my first job. Considering that I’ve never gotten a call back for an interview from any job to which I’ve applied (except Target, which barely counts because I had connections), just getting the “practice” interviews for me to fail at could take years. I really am unemployable.

My store team leader said that I shouldn’t reapply for the executive team leader position for at least six months (to let my name pass through the system). Given that, I don’t know how much longer I should stay at Target. I basically have no future there. I don’t really want to quit without having another job to fall back on, but I can’t just sit on this job forever.

Since my life has no meaning or direction, needless to say I was pretty down all day. My work crush tried to cheer me up a little bit (in his straight guy, arm’s length distant way), but even interaction with him was little solace.

Car Accidents

My work crush was in a car accident yesterday. He was noticeably scratched and bruised up from the airbag, but he has no major injuries. He was complaining that his beautiful face has some scratches (he’s conceited, in a cute way). I’m just glad that surface injuries are all he has to worry about (though I have to downplay my relief in front of my crush).

I hate car accidents. I was in a car accident eight years ago (April 27, 2000, to be exact), and I got anxious sitting in the passenger seat for years after that (I still am, sometimes, depending on who’s driving). Much of my fear of driving stems from that accident. I’m a lot better now, but it always worries me when I hear about other people’s near-death experiences. Car accidents are so common yet can take away someone you love in a second.

I can’t fathom how upset I would be if one of my friends (or crushes) died. It’s a terribly morbid thought, but I worry sometimes that the unthinkable will happen to someone I care about. Sometimes, if I don’t hear back from certain friends for a long time, I go through hypothetical worst case scenarios in my head. The thoughts spark intense fear in me.

Coincidentally, my other straight crush had a car accident just before our trip to Las Vegas. Maybe I’m a jinx.

Interview Anxiety

My store team leader (STL) called me into his office today. He said he would send my resume over to a STL from a different Target in our district, and that STL will call me to set up a pre-screen interview, probably near the end of next week. If I make it through that interview, then I get to go through three more interviews before becoming an ETL.

I’m already starting to freak out, even though my first interview hasn’t even been set yet. So much weight is placed on the interviews, and I haven’t had much experience with interviews. My only real interviews were for my current job at Target, and those were very informal. I was applying on a lark anyway, so I didn’t think too much about the outcome. This time, I really want the job. The stakes are much higher.

One of my worst fears is being interviewed. I don’t think I make a very strong first impression, and I don’t see why anyone would hire me over other people. Luckily, one of the ETLs is going to coach me in interviewing. She really wants to help me become an ETL. I just hope we can turn me into an employable person by the end of next week.