work – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

Suna’s Longest Day

Today was quite a slog, but not without its highlights. I have not been sleeping well for a few days, so 6am came quite early. Sigh, as hard as I try not to turn other people’s issues around and blame myself, it sometimes happens, especially when I’ve messed something up. Hence, little sleep.

But it was worth getting up early to make it to an 8am horse lesson with sleepy Apache. He was feeling a bit better today, plus he had some excellent entertainment in the form of two curious foals who shared the training arena with us. Those babies have lost all their shyness and found Apache fascinating.

He did a great job playing the patient but grumpy uncle role. The filly just marched right up to him and said HI. She only left when he snorted at her. The colt, who has been less brazen in the past really wanted to be Apache’s buddy.

Both foals did that cute mouth snapping they do to show they mean no harm, but the little guy did try to taste Apache’s mouth and substantial hindquarters.

Tarrin road Apache a bit to work on his turning and the little guy followed them like he wanted to do some work, too.

His mom, who’s trying to recover from a rough patch, kept telling him to stop, but it really didn’t work. That’s okay, it was great practice for Apache (and me) to focus with lots of cute distractions.

All that circling and baby stuff wore me out. Gotta pee.

We made it home in time for me to shower before work started. That’s good, because things did not let up for the rest of the day. Finally, at 7:30pm I was able to leave my desk. Whew. It’s a good thing I’m so peppy for an old gal. I wasn’t even phased to walk into the chicken coop in time to see a turkey egg going down a rat snake’s throat.

Tomorrow I hope to have a book report for you!

Thankful for Diversion

It’s a good thing my new consulting position cropped up. Getting immersed in creating quality documentation this week has been very helpful in keeping me from dwelling on how the natural disasters keep coming more and more often.

I’ve been able to concentrate so hard on enjoying my work that time seems to speed by. I’m really feeling like a part of the team, plus my input is solicited and seems appreciated. I’ll enjoy this as long as it lasts!

I think you can tell that all the vegetation was sparkling this morning. Cheerful.

I do want to be there to listen to folks who need to talk through their sadness and feelings, though, and I feel more able to empathize and provide support (and receive it) having given my mind a break.

Our creek spilled its banks overnight, though we’ve not had as much rain as most areas nearby.

We’re in for a lot of weird nature stuff, I’m afraid. It does serve as a reminder to live well and love hard. Speaking of love, here’s a salute to my many friends working right now to kick some medical challenges away from their lives. Your healing vibes are on their way!

Penney wanted to tell you that Lee strung lights in the porch.

Great Teaching? It Depends

What makes a teacher great?

I’ve written about teachers I admire many times in this blog over the years, and you can go to the search bar and find them (a good teacher encourages students to do the work themselves, ha ha). I’ve even been called a good teacher, which is undoubtedly an advantage for my career as a teacher. Great? Some might say so; others might not. That’s fine.

Great teachers are passionate about helping people learn. I’ll teach you that this is a passion flower *Passiflora incarnata.* Passion.

One person’s great teacher can be a poor fit for someone else. That’s why I think one factor that makes a good teacher is the ability to change their style depending on the student. That’s why I prefer to teach one on one. It’s hard to meet all the students’ needs in large group settings. It’s very frustrating and makes me cranky.

Whoever taught my son how to lay floor tile was at least a very good teacher. All that’s left are baseboards.

Great teachers need more than a mastery of the subject matter and a sense of humor. The best ones I’ve had all were able to make whatever they were teaching relevant to their students and got them thinking about the topic for themselves. Sometimes the diversions that come about when engaged students start asking questions make the subject matter unforgettable. I can still remember what that feels like.

It makes me gloriously happy – and here are morning glories.

One reason I was a student so long was that many great teachers engaged me, made me think about things in new ways, and shaped me into who I am. I loved learning and still do. I could probably attend pragmatics and semantics seminars the rest of my life and never get bored, but hey, I have Master Naturalist trainings now, and some of those presenters fit my criteria for great teachers!

I also love teaching, whether students find me “great” or not. Helping someone learn a new skill or see things in new ways feels almost magical. It’s darn hard work figuring out the best way to present new content to perhaps a disinterested audience but nonetheless it’s rewarding. No wonder I had a difficult time staying retired! I enjoy the challenge.

Speaking of challenges, the baby swallows challenge me to leave them alone.

Maybe next time I retire I can stick to teaching nature apps instead of project portfolio management. As they say, no one dreams of being the best project manager ever as a child. You just suddenly are one. Then you watch a lot of training videos if people like me can keep you awake.

New Job New Motivation

This is an interesting point in my life. Having time for myself for three months was really pleasant, once I got used to being retired. But I’m just as glad to have gone back to work for a while, because it’s opened my eyes to a few things.

Granted, I haven’t been in the new organization a week yet, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how positive everyone is, how helpful they are to each other, and how they all like what they’re doing (mostly). People act interested in each other as people, even contract workers. And they’re generous with their time and expertise. I’m having a great time collaborating with others in roles similar to mine.

Cheerful as a yellow Kingbird on a wire.

The company has many goals and values that I agree with, like diversity and inclusion, carbon neutrality, and having fun (the larger team couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had playing kickball).

Gee, I hope the “new job glow” doesn’t wear out too quickly! It’s refreshing to not be looking over your shoulder for HR to escort you out of the building or to have no idea where your team is going or what’s next. I spent too many years in my previous two Austin tech cultures, both of which had an atmosphere of negativity that I was always trying to make the best of because I needed money. And all those mergers and acquisitions!

I often felt like I was going down rabbit holes.

That’s no longer an issue. I’m working now because I want to be helpful and I’m in a place that values transparency and honesty with customers and staff. I may be tired from drinking information from a fire hose right now, but I’m doing things I enjoy (other than mandatory compliance training). I feel useful, helpful, and appreciated. That’s motivating!

Porch before tile was installed. It’s just dry fit here.

And very soon I’ll have a porch I can work from. The floor is going down, though my son is tired of having to vacuum up dog hair before laying each tile. Dang dogs.

Coincidentally, Coincidences Are Everywhere

I’m worn out after six hours of meetings, wrangling with new computer peripherals, then a fun meeting later. I’m not used to so much sitting and headphone wearing. I’ve gotta get back in the groove of work!

Carlton says he’s had a hard day of barking anytime a vehicle approached.

I’ll just share a story of serendipity and coincidence from this morning. I’m capable of that. So, bright and early, my son and I drove in his darned nice 2001 work truck to our nearest real city, Temple. It has big box stores, so it’s a city.

We headed to Lowe’s to look for some tile to make a border around our screened porch floor, since the leftover travertine from the inside of the house didn’t quite cover it. The quest failed. The big box store had ZERO floor tile that wasn’t porcelain. What the heck? We wanted something natural.

We left there and made the convoluted u-turn required to get back to the pitiful Temple Mall, where there’s a fairly new Floor and Decor store. We figured with “floor” in the name, they’d have more variety. And they did! I’d forgotten how much I love looking at wall tile, but I steeled myself to only look at flooring.

We did, indeed, locate natural stone in a large size that my son could cut to the required size. As I was dwelling on the color of the stone, I turned my eyes to the left. Wow, what I saw looked familiar. It was the exact travertine in the exact shapes we already were using.

What a coincidence! They had it.

But it was more than a coincidence. I realized that the stone was in the same spot in the store displayed exactly the same way it was in 2014, when our contractor and I picked the flooring. The store in Austin had the same layout!

Then we got the stuff to lay the tile and headed to checkout. The clerk asked if we had a phone number on file. I didn’t think so, but gave her Lee’s number. She said, yes, it was there all right, under Ruben Construction? I said sure, as we both laughed as we realized the last thing I’d bought there was that same tile!

What a coincidence. That certainly made the morning fun.

I got home an hour before my Pacific Time work started, too. Not bad but it made for a long (but good) day.

And now I sleep! I’ll be more pithy tomorrow, perhaps.

Best Last First Day on a Job Possible

Today I started what I hope will be my last full-time job ever (I did say that about my previous job that ended so oddly). Today was so encouraging that I keep wanting to tell someone, but I’ve already told my whole family, so it’s your turn, reader-folk. My new job started off splendidly.

Even the civilized 11am start time made me happy. No more 7am meetings for me! Pacific Time is nice. I’ll occasionally have a rather late meeting, but I’ll probably work 9:30-5:30, which is very nice. I’ll be able to have morning time to do things that require concentration. Great.

I met two coworkers today, and I enjoyed their positive attitudes, their eagerness to get my input, and their openness. The company seems to have a very open and honest culture. I’ll even know what products they’re making! I think we can get good things done and end up with productive and organized teams and projects. I’m stoked. (I love this initial part of any job where it’s all possibilities and few roadblocks.)

The company culture is refreshing and positive. They will even let me participate in their Employee Resource Groups. I’ll enjoy making contributions in this new place for the next few months! Let’s see what tomorrow brings when I start going to meetings. And when my laptop arrives so I can use my new email address and access the SharePoint site. Whee!

Oh how I’ve missed a work laptop. photo from Pexels.

Other good news? Look at these precious babies! They’re growing! Soon we can shut the porch door!

And my son made good progress laying out the floor on the screened porch using what was leftover from building our house. I’m glad we kept it safe all this time! We don’t have quite enough for the whole floor, so tomorrow we’re going to pick out a border tile. I hope we can find something that goes well with this natural stone that’s also on sale.

We’ll see. Being so optimistic feels good but weird!

I hope something positive happened to you today. We all need it.

Three Weeks of Retirement Left

I’ll try to get as much horse riding and swimming pool lounging in as I can for the rest of the month, because I accepted the offer on the job I was debating and it starts June 30.

The Pacific Time hours will be a bit of a challenge, because I’ve never worked in a time zone later than mine, but since it’s relatively cooler in the mornings in the hot months here, I may find doing horse stuff and other ranch chores more pleasant. I can adjust!

I’ll still have time to look for birds at my birding station, which was sited today.

Theoretically, I’ll retire again in 6 months or so. I did like the main interviewer a lot, so I think I’ll enjoy making a few more handouts and answering a lot more questions about project and portfolio management software. I’m sure glad I didn’t entirely flush that knowledge from my brain in March.

Looks like plenty of space for rainwater capture here.

In the meantime, Lee and I are taking a short drive around our area, first to close on a property sale in no-longer-scenic Cedar Park, then spending the night in Waco and going to the zoo we didn’t get to go to when storms came after Lee’s canceled jury duty. Just some couple time.

I may be a little slower, but I get there.

It’s a nice reward for making it through all the interviews and paperwork. I’d suspected they’d choose someone young and energetic. Well, my friends keep telling me I’m energetic, so I’m passing as the elder statesman energy bunny.

Can I Unplug?

How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

I don’t think I’ve ever been great at unplugging, but I’ve muddled through by being very consistent with my meditation practice. That way I get at least 20 minutes of turning my racing thoughts off nearly every day. I’m glad I’m one of the people who can use meditation. I know some folks can’t.

Just relax and go to your happy place, in this case the bird sanctuary I help with.

But I’ve always been “too sensitive” and always felt a lot of empathy for people who are struggling. Combined with a drive to always occupy myself with work, volunteering, and knitting/crochet left me with little downtime and no time to unplug. Heck, I always worked on camping and condo trips. At least I worked with good scenery.

Good scenery is everywhere if you just look. Still I’m glad I live out in the middle of rural Texas.

I didn’t know how to listen to my mind and body and give them a rest when needed. I just made sure I had good anti-anxiety meds and took the right vitamins/supplements to support that busy brain and body. Not altogether healthy, huh?

My mind and body fighting each other, as depicted by Carlton and Penney.

My last trip to Hilton Head in April was the first time I ever really unplugged. I didn’t watch or read the news, I took lots of long walks, and I quit constantly writing in my head (I do that, like I’m my own narrator, which is truly annoying when I realize I’m doing it).

“I’m walking down the road heading to our house, thinking about how thick that giant cane has grown,” says Narrator Suna.

I found out I don’t keel over and the world doesn’t stop if I take a break from making contributions. I don’t always need to be mothering or mentoring. It’s all right just to BE sometimes.

Unplugging gives me time to slow down and notice like a shed grasshopper exoskeleton.

The past few months of not working for pay have helped me relax and taken a lot of pressure to succeed off me. I must confess I had a job interview Thursday and it went very well. I’m a sucker for helping an organization maximize their use of that darned software I’ve supported for so long. But I’ve learned to set firm limits, and even if I do one more consulting thing, its length will be limited.

I’m sure I’ll need to remember how to unplug when that’s over, if I do okay on the second interview. Hmm, didn’t I ask you readers to talk me out of going back to work recently?

Just Teaching Those Grownups

What jobs have you had?

I’ll delay my book report another day, since I happen to have been thinking about my work history a lot today. I was trying to figure out whether I had a career arc or just a series of random ways to make money to live on. Hmm

I started out planning to work in academia, but realized early on that I liked the teaching part way more than writing academic papers. After a couple of years working with the infant internet I suddenly was a web designer (back when it was EASY—I always like to mention that my first few sites didn’t have color, because everyone still had monochrome monitors. There’s more in my Prairienet post.

Once I got my first job at a software company, I knew what I liked to do, which was teach others about software. I loved writing software manuals and editing the work of others. I figured it out before I was 30, which is pretty good for figuring out what you want to be when you grow up.

The arrival of two children sent me on a detour, but not too far. I kept making websites for people, nonprofits and such, while teaching a different kind of adult as a breastfeeding support volunteer. I met so many lovely people and was able to be at home with my children! That was truly the best part of my work history.

I ended up getting a real job with the nonprofit and led their online efforts for a while. I got valuable experience working remotely and creating online communities. While that job had a pretty horrible ending as the organization went through one of its periodic implosions, I got to keep my knowledge and friends. After a good deal of therapy, I recovered (plus my spouse left, I did dumb stuff, and blah blah…).

I kept teaching no matter what. There are many people who knit or crochet thanks to me.

It’s okay, because desperation to support my kids led me to a job writing software training that led me to meet my fine spouse, Lee. The years when we were first together led to a series of software training jobs where I learned to make videos and teach so many people so many things in so many industries from manufacturing to weird mainframe accounting software to telecommunications. It was really fun and challenging.

I got to concentrate on just one thing, project management software, for the past 15 years or so. I even had a “real” non-contract job, where I used every single skill I’d been developing. What a privilege! I loved making training videos, writing help content, designing user communities, and collaborating with smart people!

Now I’m some kind of expert in training this software, and people come looking for me. That feels good, even if I do like this retirement gig. I do enjoy helping organizations do productive work, so I may help out again, just not for four years like I did at my last contract job! That’s because horses and nature are also fun.

So, yeah, my career had an arc. Teaching adults to use software. I’m still doing it for Master Naturalists, after all!

Talk Me Out of This

Oh my. Just as I was getting to think I was going to be okay with not working for a living, I got one of those LinkedIn job recruitment deals. Usually those are fake. I did respond to one a few weeks ago but I literally couldn’t understand what the recruiter said and never heard back after my initial resume (I think I know why now).

Yes, I’m embarrassed I couldn’t understand someone speaking a different dialect of English.

Today, though, the letter was refreshingly friendly and contained details about the job. I may have gotten a solicitation about the same job yesterday, but it was so vague I ignored it. This job is another of those “made for me” positions doing pretty much what I did at Dell.

This is also what I do well, photography of tiny bugs on flowers.

Even though I’m not sure I want to work again, I did do an initial chat with the recruiter. Then I answered their 6 screening questions because well, I love writing about the software I used to support, and I love helping people succeed at managing projects with that weird but powerful product. I went ahead and gave the company some caveats I figured out at that last job. At least I could help a little even if I don’t take a job there.

Anyway, they started sending me all these emails about benefits and 401Ks. It’s sounding pretty serious and fast moving. And I’d make more money. I’ve already got my Medicare, too. No need for other insurance.

I will miss finding these guys if I’m in the house all day again.

Do I want this? Another year of meetings and job aids and individual help sessions? Working on Pacific Time? No time for horses?

Not being able to dress like this every day?

Talk me out of going back to work for a year. Please. Money isn’t everything. Lack of stress is so heavenly.