Category: Self help

When unprepared for class – regressing back to high school.

I woke up early today for my 7am zoom class, I was very tired. I got home from work the night before at 9:30pm and after walking the dog and decompressing I ended up going to sleep pretty late. And yet, when the alarm rang this morning I crawled out of bed and made myself a strong cup of coffee and logged into my class. Up to now all sounds good, except when I logged in I realized I forgot to submit my homework. Me, the mom who always yelled at my kids when they forgot to submit their homework , actually forgot her homework.

My fight or flight response kicked in and  I felt back in school. In one  moment I regressed back  40 years to a 15 years old me,  waiting for my parents to be called because I didn’t do my homework, except that I was a nerd and always did my homework so this was worse. 

Many times I can talk myself out of situations, but when it’s a language class and you’re a beginner it is not that easy. After my first freak out moment, I calmed down. I remembered that this class is with all adults who do have work and other commitments and is full of curious people who are taking the class to enrich their lives and not from a need to gain a grade, certificate or advancement in the workplace.  Did I like joining class feeling unprepared? Nope, definitely not. But I can guarantee that I will not forget to do my homework again, at least not for this class. I will start on my homework at some point today or tomorrow and will even submit.

What I found amusing is that even as an adult when you are not prepared you regress back to your highschool self, being called to the board and having no answer. Luckily I can also laugh about this and make fun of myself. 

Next I am going to review the quadratic equation in case I am ever asked, no, not really!

When the Temperature “feels like”

The temperatures dipped this week in California and we are cold, real cold and not the fake California cold. We keep getting blizzard warnings, snow at the Hollywood sign and rain, lots of rain. When we actually get weather we check out the weather channel to see how many layers of clothing we need  since a sweater and jacket will clearly not be enough and we will need to wear a warm coat, that’s if we even own one.  But the temperature report does not only consist of what the thermometer says, they also include information about what the temperature feels like, feels like to whom?

That’s what made me wonder- when they say it’s 46 and feels like 42 degrees, Who is the person that works for the forecasters and tells everyone what the temperature feels like. What if that person’s internal thermostat is broken and they run cold or hot. Today it said 42 degrees but feels like 41, now really will I be more cold with that extra less degree?

If there was a 10 degree difference , I might feel it again depending on the circumstances. Let’s say it says 70 degrees but feels like 80, I would. But if it is  10 degrees formally but they say  it  feels like 9 or 11, I believe I will be freezing cold regardless.

So my mission now is to find that person that reports the “feels like” aspect of the weather report, find them and see if that person’s internal thermostat is accurate and then go find the people who report the temperatures and ask them if really anybody cares about this and does it really natter.

My dislike of 10 best lists

The internet is full of lists – 10 things you should not buy at costco, 10 things you should, 10 things you should or shouldn’t buy at trader joes, target or whatever store you go to.

As much as I love lists like any other person (I hate lists!) These people who write the lists either have too much time on their hands to go from store to store or they must enjoy the constant travel from store to store and forget to add the shopping time or the gas as a cost.

My time is limited and even if I love a great deal and really I do,I have to also  account for my travel time and the time it takes me to go from one place to another to find the bestest deal. Driving time comes at a cost. Many of us discovered that when we moved to work from home when tha pandemic closed everything that without driving we had time to play with our kids, cook and even give the dog an extra walk. So even if I am on the hunt for my next great deal I have to calculate my driving time. What will I miss if I spend more time in the car plus in some cases the cost of gas adds up. 

Not to mention that we all value our products differently, what I see as a great bargain or the best product ever, does not mean anything to someone else with different preferences. There is a reason I buy a specific brand of  toilet paper despite an article telling me that a different brand is better, better for whom I ask?

So read these lists, take what you want from them, But don’t let them rule your universe as at the end of the day you have your own list.

Resenteeism or hating your job

Read an article  this weekend about work resenteeism as in resenting our work, I started laughing, apparently I love humor columns. They coined this as a new term and a new  danger to the work environment.  However, some of us have resented or hated our jobs for many years without having a great term to define it, we just called it hating our jobs. That’s why you see so many people going drinking after work in TV shows or in the movies, at least in my opinion. I on the other hand do not drink at all, maybe I like my job, maybe not.

According to the latest articles there are several reasons for resenteeism, being underpaid, overworked, feeling like you missed the boat on getting a different job with all the layoffs going around, not feeling appreciated and undervalued by your company. These are all valid reasons that have been around forever and will most likely be around forever. However for most of us, we don’t always need to find a reason why we hate our jobs and yet stay at the job we hate. Most of us stay in our jobs because we are responsible, we have family obligations, we need to  put food on the table,  we have kids in college, a mortgage and the need for health insurance. Maybe we should all  start drinking.

The weird things I like to read in my local newspaper

My local newspaper publishes a  list of restaurants that have had health violations the previous week, each week I think to myself do I check the list or do I not. Do I really want to know? And yet every week I go to that list and read it, hoping and praying that I did not go to any of these places. It’s like a traffic accident that you see is about to happen and you can’t turn your head to avoid looking. 

There really is no point in reading  that a restaurant I went to last week or two weeks ago had a cockroach infestation or no sufficient hot water and yet I still read it. Maybe its a form of self torture, who knows.

There usually have some normal and reasonable closures, but when it said the closed CVS and only allowed prepacked foods at this particular CVS I started to wonder what exactly they sell, we have several CVS’s close by and none of them sell fresh food or ice cream. So I went to the official county website to see if there is any further information but alas there is none.

What should we do with the information about health department closures,do I go to a place that was cited and closed with the belief that it is cleaner now, with immodium in my purse just in case or do I avoid going to a place I like as they frequently have issues. This is going to be a tough decision!

Valuing your time as a patient

I had an 8 am doctor’s appointment the other week, the office called to confirm and requested that I arrive at 7:45.  I have been a patient of this doctor for more than 20 years, in those 20 years my appointment has never been on time, I love this doctor and he usually runs late as he takes time with each patient and really listens so I don’t mind usually but as I am aware that he runs late I try to be his first appointment of the day, hence my 8am appointment. But even me being his first appointment I know he will be late as usual, this time he saw me at 8.25am.

I did not arrive at 7:45 as I am very aware he takes his time, I arrived at 7:58am and with me all the medical staff arrived as well. I was even there before the nurse arrived and felt like I should turn on all the lights in the office as well. I was not called in until 8:10am.

So why do these schedulers not value  our time? If I had actually been there early, that would have meant almost 40 minutes of just waiting there. Shouldn’t there be an appreciation for the patient’s valuable time as well as the doctor’s time? 
Sadly, this doctor’s appointment was actually one of the most efficient ones. I had another appointment with a different doctor lately that  had me waiting for 30 minutes in the waiting room and another 45 in the exam room, when I asked his medical assistant if he was running late today, she looked at me in wonder and goes no, he is on time, to which my reply was really, I have been waiting for an hour and half already. I have canceled all future appointments with this practioner as this was the second time in a row that I was left waiting for hours and will be shopping around for another doctor. It seems like some medical practitioners overbook and value their own time but not their patient’s time. Yes, if the doctor has had some emergency this is expected, but most cases this is not the reason for leaving us in a waiting room in a paper robe cold.

So who’s time is more valuable? CVS just announced that their pharmacies will have less hours and will close earlier in the day. Those who need to pick up their prescriptions will have to go get them in the middle of the day or during lunches or wait for  the weekend and delay taking them,again the focus is not on the patient. When did the medical field change from being patient focused to being corporate focused.

 Every one’s time is valuable, us waiting in a doctors office to be seen for hours or running to the pharmacy instead of eating lunch as well as the service providers,  there must be some middle ground and respect between everyone’s needs.

Listening to your body

We always say that we don’t have time to be sick but truthfully no one has time to be sick or really wants to be sick. That’s usually when the universe finds us and shows us how much it really cares about our time line. This week it’s my turn, I postponed going to the doctor  and gave myself many excuses of why it’s not a big deal. Of course I ended up with antibiotics and even more medical procedures that will take more of my  time this week. I should have known better and  listened to my body, for sure. I am after all a grown adult.  

But I guess even  I don’t listen to my own advice. My first inclination was to be upset with myself as  I just postponed the inevitable or probably made my condition worse . I actually did make it worse and my dr was  not very happy with me. So now  the question is what have I learned from this week? For starters I need to Listen to my body  and commit to taking better care of myself. Not only for me but for my family as well. I should also practice what I preach.

Finding time for taking time off

It is very easy to delay time off and  vacations, telling yourself you are very busy right now and postpone fun activities. God knows I have found many excuses before – I have deadlines at work, this is not the right time, it’s the end of the quarter or year and many more excuses. But when is the right time really? It seems like when we become adults with full time jobs there  is never really a right time to take  a vacation or sometimes even just a day or two off.

I know some people with unlimited PTO and  from what I hear these unlimited PTO people take the least time off. I have a limited amount of time off, it is not small at all but still limited and I get to transfer only a small amount of vacation days to the next calendar year.

Time off is important, we all need it. We need time to refresh, clear our heads and do things outside of our professional life for ourselves and our families. Weekend breaks are really not enough, at least not for me. 

Although my time off is limited to specific times during the year, times that are not flexible and do not always allow me to get the best rates for travel, I still choose to take my vacation days and have some fun. I even stopped taking my laptop with me as I learned to let go and trust my team to cover for me (this was a big issue for me as a recovering workaholic).

Something happened in the last couple of years that made clear what my priorities should be: family,  friends , health and time off for fun. Health I can’t really control but everything else I can.

I can not only make sure I take care of myself but take care of my work team as well.

And since no time off makes employees burn out, it is very important for us as not only to take care of ourselves but as leaders and managers to make sure our team gets time off as well.

I read somewhere that employees don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. Not sure how true that is for everyone who quits, but having managers that truly care about their employees’ life balance , happiness and yes, their time off is, should be part of managing a great team.

Keeping meetings on track

Today is what I call meeting  Thursday day,  our first monthly all staff meeting of the new year.  I hate meetings.It’s not that I don’t like meeting, I really dislike big all hand meetings. They usually drag on forever or what seems like forever. There is always someone who likes to hear their voice more than actually listen and collaborate and quite frankly they are usually boring after the first 5 minutes.  If we are home on zoom at least we can do something when we lose focus but what can you do when forced to sit in an actual meeting where we can’t hide. Maybe there is something positive for zoom meetings after all.

Thankfully the meeting was on zoom, however I had to present and lead part of it which meant I actually had to  pay attention.  So when we planned this meeting to avoid all the issues  I hate about meetings we decided on parameters- we limited the meeting time to a max of one hour. This forced us to focus on the most important issues and not to wander off. We also decided on the topics ahead of time and put everything in clear bullet points on a shared screen so everyone can see and for us not to lose focus and if we did then one of the meeting leaders would steer everything back on the right track. And the most important for the meeting leaders, we did it just before lunch and made sure to be hungry so we will finish in a timely manner  and we were conscious of other people’s lunch time. I know this might seem weird when planning meetings, but we found that this  helps us with keeping meetings on point. I am not advocating for anyone to go to meetings hungry, I love food, but this is a method that works for us and I am sure everyone has their own guidelines for keeping meetings effective, that is unless they love meetings or the sound of their own voice.

Tales from the left ear January 2023

Just because some of us are different does not make us worse than someone else. There are stigmas for being hearing impaired, we are old, we are mentally challenged, we are not as intelligent and we have selective hearing and these are just some of them. 

Hearing aids come in ugly colors, there are no fun ones probably because the manufacturers think that we want to hide them as well. My hairdresser asked if she needed to cut my hair so no one would see them. I don’t hide my hearing aids, I love my hearing aids as they allow me to function but I do wish they were blue or sparkly purple. I dont hide them at all and wear a ponytail most of the time.  I don’t hide my hearing aid but it is not obvious to the general public as mine are small. So when I talk to new people I explain my hearing aids and that you need to look at me when you speak. 

Sometimes people are weird, I had a person then go to my ear and yell straight in my ear, needless to say that this hurt like hell and most likely I will not interact willingly with that person again. The other response I usually get is how did I lose my hearing and when I explain that a virus attacked my ear, they seem to back away thinking this is infectious. Of course I have those who just tell me how sorry they are for me. Again people are weird. People tell me I am very well adjusted for someone with this loss, but then again I am an eternal optimist although even I have my good and bad days.

I am different, I am not better or worse, just different!