2008 has been a year of change for me, a lot of change. To be frank I haven’t enjoyed all of the change but…what can you do? Life sometimes comes at you and before you know it you are looking over your shoulder saying “What the heck?!” In light of that, sit back and be ready for a long, winding post that may at times make very little sense. I haven’t shared too much of what has been going on in my life for a multitude of reasons but the silence is being broken.
By nature I am an introverted person. Crowds and groups of people bother me. Talking about my personal life, deep personal life, is hard. Sharing is something that does not come easily unless it is with a friend I’ve known for years or a family member who has known me forever. Even then I can be selective and it tends to get worse when I get depressed or out of sorts. Serious things, I take those deep inside of myself and examine them pretty critically. Being introverted I guess I’m pretty introspective too. And my self examination can take a very long time. While examining like this I get pretty withdrawn and to those of you I do normally share with – I apologize for not being myself since April of 2008.
Thankfully it’s not going to take me a full year to get back on track. Though in the past its taken me several years. I remember this one time I shut down for nearly 2 years…
In April the major changes started with a decision to take a new position within my current company. It was a hugely difficult decision to make because I truly loved my job as a customer service representative. Not only did I have good hours and decent pay, I was excellent at what I did. In 2007 I ranked as #5 out of 105 employees. And I was rewarded by my employer for those achievements. But you know what? That was not the best part of my job. The best part was the people that I worked with. They made me laugh, they challenged me and they brought out the best in me. My peers and my management. I knew that was important, valuable, but I didn’t realize how much so until it was gone.
When I did decide to take my new position as a case manager I thought that, being in the same company, the atmosphere would be the same. God, was I terribly wrong. Over the past few months I’ve hinted that it has been difficult. I’ve been really hesitant to post about because, well, my name is all over the place and my bosses could easily Google me and find this blog. Well, it’s time to come somewhat clean.
The environment I went to was and continues to be very hostile. While people are friendly and I really do enjoy working with many of them the over all ‘feeling’ of the place is not all warm and fuzzy. In and of itself case management is a very stressful job. Not only are there a lot of nit picks with coding and documentation, many of the groups have special processes that are not always well documented. The goals you are expected to meet are not always clearly laid out. Feedback is sporadic and sometimes has the feeling of a pat on the head rather than addressing any real issues there might be. You are making decisions that effect people’s income, rationalizing the approval or denial of benefits for an illness or injury. That’s tough. Then overall, people are not happy. One person described it as ‘they eat their young here’. It’s more like they eat everyone.
My training started in April and it was terrible. Death by PowerPoint. The actual practical training – the building and management of medical claims was short and not well delivered. By the end of May, early June my training class was ‘on the floor’. We had been assigned managers and were building and making decision on claims. All of our work was checked by someone and once reviewed we were notified and advised to contact the claimant to let them know the decision. While I understand and agree with the work being checked the system itself was not very efficient. There were of us in the training class. At the highest point we were each doing around 8 claims a day. There were 6 people reviewing those claims. It caused delay in getting claims reviewed. Because of the number of claims being looked at, when there were errors we were not able to be ‘coached’ (one-on-one discussion about the error and how to avoid it in the future) so while we knew we made errors we didn’t always know why they were errors.
Long story short – I never felt like I got the training I needed. What I’ve learned I’ve learned on the job. That is not always a bad thing but there is no grace period for that learning on the job. Errors I made while I was trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing affected my overall performance rating for the year of 2008. While I don’t know what my rating is this year I know it simply can’t be as good as it was last year. I feel like I’ve been working for a totally different company.
Over the past 6 months or so I’ve gotten good feed back from my immediate supervisor and co-workers. That’s good. I’m just emotionally exhausted because I feel like I’ve been traveling uphill with 100 pounds of bricks on my back. While it’s illegal to require overtime it’s been highly encouraged since the summer. One of the reasons I took this job was because I would hopefully be able to work from home. One of my fears at this point is that if I don’t do the overtime, when it comes to trying to get a work from home position, I’ll get looked over for not being a team player. I’ve put in some 60 hour weeks this year. While taking two college courses online.
Oh yeah! The college courses. In the midst of all of this I got a wild hair up my butt about going back to college. After nearly 20 years after my last formal education. Why? Damned if I know but I think it may have had something to do with being unhappy in my current position and wanting to be ready for a move elsewhere. My employer has a tuition reimbursement program that I applied for and frankly should not have had a problem getting approved for. I fought for six months, finally having to get my local human resources rep involved before getting approved. Three days after my classes ended.
That added a little bit of stress to my life because well, nearly a grand of school bills you are responsible for hanging over your head will do that to you.
After being introspective about my college education I decided not to continue. With the over time not required, three teen-aged children, a wonderful husband and family and friends…I simply don’t have the time. I ended up with an A+ in Criminal Justice. I failed English. Can you stand it?! I failed English. How could this happen you ask? Simply put, I didn’t have the time to write the final paper. No paper, failing grade. That blows. I’ll be responsible for paying for that class. Thank goodness I’m working the not required over time.
My year has not been all bad. All of the above simply consumed me and sucked me mostly dry. My family and my friends have suffered. I went from taking Ambien occasionally to taking it on a nightly basis. My buddy Lexapro and I, we went from 10mg of happiness to needing 20mg. The Ambien has provided endless hours of entertainment for my family though. That stuff hits FAST. I get kind of stupid if I take it before I actually have my behind in bed. Even if I am in bed my husband tells me we have some pretty interesting conversations. *grin*
2008 saw my baby girl turn 13. Yes people, you saw that right. Thirteen. A teen-ager. A young woman. Starter adult. My baby. Parenting has been the longest commitment I’ve ever made. I’m not always happy with the job I do, heaven knows that I am my own worst critic, but she’s not a disaster so I can’t be doing it all wrong. She baffles me,she amazes me, she causes me endless frustration and I love her more than my own life. Though currently she’s not high on my list because she’s got 3 girlfriends over and they haven’t stopped yelling for the past 4 hours. Thank goodness for Ambien or I’d never sleep tonight.
Every year I have a deeper and deeper appreciation for my mother. It’s so ironic that there is no way you can understand the sacrifices parents make until you are a parent yourself. Suddenly you see everything, everything, in a different light. Every year I also see more of my mother in my own actions, my own appearance. And I’m glad of it because my Mom, she’s an amazing woman. If I can be half of what she is I’ll be doing pretty darned good.
I should probably break this post up into a few posts but I’m not going to.
The wonderful boys my husband provided for me continue to amaze and sometimes frustrate me. But that is normal. I hope. *snark* Mr. Sixteen turned into Mr. Seventeen in December. He’s still driving on his permit but I’ve got high hopes for him getting his license soon. Hubby and I are planning on driving to Texas in February and if I can’t get vacation week off we’ll need to do it the week after vacation. He’ll need to be here to watch the 13 and 14 year old. He’ll need his license so he can drive to and from school (because he lives in a different school district).
The 14 year old played football for the first time this year And he enjoyed it, plans on doing it next year. We’re proud. He’s bowling again this year too (along with the girl child) and continues to improve.
My husband continues to be amazing, supporting me though my nearly daily crises since June. The man really must be some sort of saint.
The Honda Fit we got in, what, July? It’s a souped up go-cart but I really like it. Today I filled up for $10.00. Makes me feel like a kid again. Not so good in the snow, which is not so good for where we live, but I’m holding out hope I’ll be working from home sometime early in 2009 and it won’t be a major issue.
At some point in the past few months Paul has torn down a good portion of the walls upstairs. Wow! It’s a huge space. It’s multi-colored but huge. Once we’re able to actually get it finished it’s going to be something. I’ve got my eye on some beautiful mission style lighting from Meyda Tiffany fixtures. Perhaps we’ll be able to get those once we’ve won the lottery. Something I’m hoping happens sometime in 2009.
What else? I’ve spewed nearly 2000 words so far. And it’s now officially 2009. Happy New Year!
I’ve got some resolutions that are not really resolutions. More like wishes or hopes. I want to be a better wife, mother and friend. Those are kind of ongoing though. I’d really like to get a Plum Nikon Coolpix so I can keep it in my purse and snap photos on a whim. It seems like every day I see something I’d like to take a picture of. I also hope to be more dedicated to this blog and more transparent while doing so. Several years back I was actually doing pretty good and then I’m not quite sure what happened. I’m going to focus more on what I like about my job (it’s very challenging and I do like that) and not what makes me unhappy about where I am at. I made the decision to be there and God knows my future better than I do so I expect He’s got plans for me. I’m going to get back on track with my weight loss and start using the tool my surgeon created for me when I had surgery in March of 2006. When I switched jobs I found out that I really am a stress eater. And it’s not been pretty. going to dig up my old pink jammies to take pictures in. And I’m going to post them. And I’m going to be accountable. And I’m going to lose the rest of this stupid weight. And have a tummy tuck. And wear those flippin’ Lucky jeans that have been in my closet for nearly 3 years now. Grrrr.
I haven’t had a facial since April. My skin is a wreck. No one sees it but me but man, I know it’s a wreck. Maybe I can use some of that not required over time money to get some micro.
Anyway, that’s pretty much life from 2008. It’s way past my bed time and it sounds like the girls are winding down. Time to take the dogs potty and head off to bed.
Happy New Year everyone! It’s my sincere prayer that everyone has a wonderful 2009
I’m working on a big blog post for 2009 – updates and the like – but I came across something on a blog I follow that I simply had to post about.
It’s here, it’s here. The most amazing thing to happen to Christian Speculative fiction since…ever!
Tomorrow is a great day for Christian Speculative Fiction – 
