Therapy Blog Basically

I had a good talk with Super Boss Monday about the Friday phone calls when I was home recovering. He apologized and we set good boundaries.  I was told it's okay not to respond to work texts or calls if I get them and he ordered me to stop checking my work email when I went home. I felt supported and good.

Prince Analyst suddenly had a big change of heart work-wise.  I think someone in his life gave him a stern talking to. He kicked ass on the project he had been dicking around with. I also had a talk with him where I told him, "When you see me doing work and tell me that an intern should be doing it, I feel like you're saying the work is beneath you."  Check out that therapy fu phrasing! He set me straight by complimenting me but when he compliments me, it always feels very smarmy.  He said, "I absolutely do not mean that. I just see an intelligent woman who should be doing much more challenging work." Ugh, get me a squeegee! I explained to him what he sees is not the months of work, I have done, the four queries I needed to build, and all the process improvements I had to develop that lead to a simple mailing.  I let Super Boss know I had this talk and it turns out Prince Analyst later in the day apologized to him!

Worker Bee Analyst saved my sanity this week. He took a huge reconciliation off my plate, ran with it, improved it, and totally delivered.  I high fived Super Boss one evening saying, "Good hire!"  Oh yeah, I was able to leave work before 6:00 three times this week! Having a fully staffed team is already easing things for me.  Baby Analyst helped me a ton with my billing mailing.  She had great ideas on how to improve things, made me smile and laugh a lot during a really stressful time.

Wednesday afternoon I had a little freakout and luckily Super Boss was around to help me talk through things.  It feels really weird being the more experienced analyst and the go to person for my co-analysts because my ego loves it but my brain keeps reminding me that I barely know anything.  I just generally felt like I was being a fraud know-it-all and it was exacerbated by a training Super Boss set up with me and Prince Analyst where I kept being referred to as an expert or someone who had so much experience. I did kinda but do I solidly remember it? Nope.  Super Boss told me he struggles with the same feelings of fraud and moments of panic. That helped a lot.

Thursday morning was really weird. Prince Analyst came into my office saying "So..." and he closed the door "Soo?"I gave him a look and asked him, "What's going on?" He informed me that from what he has heard that Super Boss is going to be offering me the Senior Analyst position. I squinted and corrected him saying that I applied but haven't interviewed. He replied, "Oh, I just thought from the way he talks about you..." I asked for an example. Apparently, Super Boss talks about me and him in the same breath and then Prince Analyst and Worker Bee.  He begins a lot of sentences with "Chokmah and I..." Aw! But I explained to Princey that it's probably leftover speech patterns from the 8 months when it was only us. Yeah, my company isn't a freaking royal court and no one at my level gets magically appointed to a job without following a staffing process. 

Friday felt like everything fell apart. I discovered a billing system error first thing in the morning. Luckily, it had not affected many people but there was huge fallout. Super Boss and I spent three hours in my office trying to fix things. He uttered two phrases that perfectly sum up how I feel about this damn billing: "I feel like my brain is going through a million things." and "I'm not stressed but I feel like I am going to cry". Yup, welcome to my life. In the afternoon, I had to deal with a screaming phone call from an employee where all the talking points and tactics that I have been taught did not work. I also had a co-worker point out to me that I can ignore policy and fix things for the employee. Which is basically the entire reason why the billing process was a wreck for years and would undo months of my work. My heart wants to help the employee but I can't. So, I got incredibly upset. I cried in my office, cried on my drive home, cried to my mom, roommate, and brother. Sometimes I feel part of the work I'm doing diminishes who I am and is immoral. But it's company policy and cue the Nazi jokes about "following orders". This is how I felt Friday but I feel better now.