Hi, I might just want to work here. Or not

Forgive my ramblings, but putting this to words make things seem a little more distant and just less depressing, even if for a while.
Since things were getting worse at work ever since our new shareholder introduced this imbecile of a Managing Director to take over company’s wheel, I’ve started to look for a new job. Tweaking a CV is a feat on its own – time consuming and somewhat even depressing as I really hate being in a position of job seeker. But the real challenge arises when it’s time to go for an actual interview. On the one hand, I have to sell myself for a possible employer, on the other hand, I have to gather enough information on them to decide whether I’d like to work for them or not, and there are no real guidelines for that just your gut feeling. Luckily, I have a good gut feeling, and in most cases I’m able to make the right decision. It has never been wrong yet, though in some cases I’ve landed myself in a job instead of a JOB. The difference between two of ‘em is that in the first case you do your job and do it well, get your salary, but somehow it’s just that – it just somehow does not get under your skin and does not become a really important part of your life. In the second case, the Job is something you really love and enjoy doing, you feel content with what you do, and take pride in it.
My current position just until recently used to be the best Job in the world. I loved everything about it – people (still do), tasks, challenges, etc. But the dynamics of the company has changed so dramatically since, that going to work is now a real torture. And I’ve thought I had met the worst boss when I was working at SEM some 4 years ago, alas SEM manager was tame and really like REALLY competent (though this tale of my own about the Boss from Hell could make a separate entry at some point), if compared to the one we now have at VESL. And I know firsthand that working with incompetent fool degrades you too. And I’m not going there again. Not again, thank you.
So I’m out looking for the Job, and hopefully I’ll land with one soon. Fingers crossed.

The worst enemy

A human mind is a complex and tricky thing, it can make one make wonders, but it might be the fiercest gun of destruction as well.
When I was a teenager I, like so many of others, suffered from a low self-esteem, and my shyness did not help to improve matters at all. I was never that girl in the center of everyone’s attention, but rather the one just too often  regarded as fatso, though looking back I’d say I was never one – I wasn’t a wisp of a girl, but I could have done to be a reed of a girl. Anyway, with time I’ve grown myself a thicker skin, made some really good friends, and trained myself to, if even by quite conscious efforts, to be more easy going with strangers. I constantly had and sometimes still have to remind myself to step up, to speak for myself, to take charge, and not to go into my inner shell when ‘under fire’. But there was a time when I failed and almost went under water without me even realizing I was drowning. At that particular time in my life due high stress levels at work (I really tried to bite too much just for a ghostly perspective of making some career, duh), combined with some serious and piling up problems at home and in my personal life made me lose control at some point, and I’ve become what I was so often called, and what I so much feared at the time  – a fatso. Denial, anger with myself and with the whole world did not help, but spiraled me even more down that way, until I stopped caring myself. It took me one lost job (not through my fault or anything), a rather long time of unemployment, and too much time to kill, that made me finally look at myself for real and accept the truth – I was no more in control of my own life.
It’s hard to be ostracized or feel excluded by others, but it’s even worse when you make it to yourself all by yourself. My own worst enemy is me, and only knowing the enemy I can stand up to it.

Small wonders

This winter so far was like a ride on some swings – either it is freezing like hell, either it is all rainy/slushy/murky weather outside. After a couple of weeks of cold treatment, the last week was one of them mild ones, so by the weekend snow everywhere was either gone, or all gone black and yucky, so waking up on Sunday morning to a white winter fairy tale was a real eye candy. All the trees were covered in white robes, and the fresh snow on the ground was just this perfect type for making some good ol’ snowmen. I went for my usual weekend stroll to a nearby forest (I was feeling too much preoccupied with capturing all this beauty around me to call that a jogging session), and just as I was about to wrap it up I could not help myself and just had to built one of them myself. This is just the kind of winter I love, but I already wish for spring to come faster, and as birds in the forest sing more and more with everyday I take in this snowy perfection as just one last stretch on a way to a blossoming spring.

Peek a boo or a secret life of words

Ever since I properly mastered my reading skills, I’ve joined the vast ranks of book lovers. Since then I’ve enjoyed so many  different genres and authors it would be impossible to keep track of all the books I’ve read and loved. Every single book brings a whole world complete with unique characters and places to you through the power of words put to paper, which would be just that – words on paper – if not for one crucial thing – reader’s imagination. And it’s up to imagination to make a story great; when the words on paper click with reader’s imagination the story comes to life and spans as if on its on accord, if not – then you just put the book back as boring, etc.
One of my childhood great authors’ was Jules Verne, but the problem with his books was that as an 8-10 year old I could hardly understand some more ‘technical’ parts of his stories. Remember, there was no Google back in the day to tell and show what is what, how it works, etc., and encyclopedias often provided only quite dry explanations which weren’t of much help, so eventually I’ve found it best to let my imagination roam free whenever I’ve come across such a tera incognito, and let it give these words a secret life of their own. Amazingly, in some cases I’d say my imagination would create things so much superior to the actual thing that I’d be even somewhat disappointed to learn that this previously unknown thing is just… this dull and regular thing
Nowadays I have to turn to this reading ‘technique’ mostly when I read books in languages which aren’t my mother tongue. Some time ago I’ve been reading this book set during WWII, and I stumbled upon such a tera incognito – peek a boo hair style. Ah, my experiences readily prompted me with some period appropriate hair styles to choose from, but I could not be sure which one was the right one. Later I’ve found out which one was that, but to tell you the truth the version my imagination settled with while reading the book was SO much better. Add some punkiness and spikiness to the sleek look, mix a ‘boo’ into the equation, and you might get somewhere close to where my imagination took me

A classic peek a boo

And we go down

So the stalling period is over now, and we are all literary setting sails to… well, someplace, some other future.

After like more than month of hesitation our new sole shareholder finally showed up and we got to meet his new appointed Managing Director the other week. Not much use of that, just this change of MDs from good to like the worst IMO. We still do not know what plans are made regarding our company’s future as our new MD and neither shareholder are willing to share them, like we’re just considered irrelevant and some sort of nuisance. Might be that both guesses are right.
After a year long period of being under constant change and on sale, throughout this times we’ve managed to keep all of our tightly knit team intact . More so, even blue collar workers stayed all but few, though high turnover among blue collar workers is almost a canon in our field of business. But who cares about that? So now for a week already we’ve been ‘enjoying’ the company of our new MD, and what can i tell? Change, and selling process, and uncertainty hasn’t killed us up to this day, but this man is going to. If his goals are to make people leave, so that the new owners could cut cost on compensation, etc., he’s gonna get it. He asks a question, you answer in full detail. then like five secs later same question again and again and again. It’s simply impossible even to try to regard him as something else than a joke thrust upon us. Yes, you might think it’s understandable that he does not know the business yet, and in normal situation I would agree. But he at least SHOULD try to learn it, and ask all the important business related question, instead of the ones regarding who has what model of company’s mobile phone. Hello, the last time we’ve got new phones for employees was like 2 years ago and they did not cost us a dime, but were given free to us by our mobile service provider. And that is just the top of an iceberg. The best part is that he does not make any decision of his own. If there’s a problem, he ask for opinion from our responsible team member, then goes out of the office for ‘some tea’ to consult with some secret puppeteer of this freakish show and then comes back with mostly incomprehensible decision made. ‘Our clients must be served,’ he says, but how, if all these decisions already make an impact on our capability to serve them in the first place, I ask.
It took just a week, but I’ve already started looking for a new job, and so does every single one on our team. A dog barks, caravan goes, and this ship is sinking fast. Shit happens, but this time it also hit a fan. If work was about feeling good about what I do, now it’s more of ‘Isn’t it 5 P.M. yet?’ kind.

A simple Thank You

Yesterday I had to run some errands while at work and eventfully drove to this place where a patch of field is used as a parking lot. That field was mostly an icy and muddy obstacle course with many pits every here and there than anything else. I did managed to park my car with no trouble though, but on my way out I’ve got stuck in this pretty deep and all murky icy pit, so that the car would not even move in either direction. Thank gods, there came some good Samaritan and helped me out, even though that ruined his cloths and boots, and all I could give in return was just a hearty Thank You.

Pro tempore

Learning curve. There are some books I can read and re-read over and over again, and even though it seems I know every twist of plot by heart I each time find something new in them. There are also some books I've read once, enjoyed them at the time, but most probably will never pick them up again. And there are also books, which have to be read in their due time, that is there are some books you start reading and put them down unfinished and never go back to reading them again; yet some I put down the first time round, only to pick them up and read them some time later, discovering that a book which at first seemed to be all wrong/boring/not my kind of book now IS. Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde could be a good example of books I once thought were of god damn awful sort, but now have a blast of a time reading them. It's like some things click with you just from the very beginning and stay with you for longer or shorter period, and some must grow right, or you must grow right to enjoy them.