S.T.R.E.S.S.E.D.

I like to think of myself as a pretty peaceful and calm person, and I am--at home. At work I'm constantly irritated and (internally) crabby. How do I combat being so irritable? Earlier I made a semi-vow to be less crabby, and if you've read yesterday's post you know how well that has worked out for me! I start out the day as my cheerful, regular self and it's not long before I'm crabby and complaining (to myself) about this that or the other thing.

I also got yelled at by the boss, chided by my Favorite Co-Worker, who's also sort of my boss over something she had told me to do for a client, and run ragged by clients--all in a typical day. Can you spell "stressed out"?

Now that I have an office of my own I can occasionally shut the door, but only for a little bit about once a week, they do not like shut doors much here. And I can play soothing music, which is nice, too, and helps. I really need more of a plan to cope with all of this.

Last night I thought it over, like I have so many times before, and vowed to try to remain as calm and cool about it all on the inside as I am on the outside. But I've done that before, and once a typical day begins, it's the same problems and stresses over and over again. I've joked with co-workers about bringing a flask to work! I think that would be frowned upon and a dangerous habit, to medicate those murderous feelings.

Every time I've asked for advice and suggestions you fellow bloggers have come up with wonderful ideas. Any suggestions on how to keep my cool at work?

The writing on the wall

My little widget didn't work so well on the blog page. I was aware of that and trying to fix it for so long that I nearly was late to work. Oh well. I like to read the descriptions of those anyway, and not just the titles.

The Boss called me to come with her a few days ago--marched me off like a little kid-- to point out something that (someone else did) that the Boss didn't like. Did the Boss realize that that particular job was clearly on someone else's (written and distributed to all staff) list of tasks? I hope so.

The Boss had asked me to make a list of everything I did and distribute it at a staff meeting. Apparently nobody, not even The Boss has actually READ the list! Other staff come to me for the other people's stuff yet too and I re-direct them. Yikes! Do I need to enlarge the lists and put them on the wall?

My new dream pet

My last post was pretty cranky. Oh well, it's Friday. I had a series of three cool dreams too. Here are just the highlights:

The first dream was the coolest. We were putting on a show called "Snow Dance" with a group of dancers in white fuffy parkas--well, dressed all in white on one side, and that blue like a shadow in the snow on the other side. Their forearms (on the parka) each had a strip of red, so they could make beautiful moving patterns by using those colors. They all were on short skis to get around. The IT guy from work was the director, and the dancers each had a password that he had to put in, sort of like an animation, but they were real people (well, real dream people!) and the Training Manager was in the dream too. Somehow people were all getting stuck in their cars and I had to break out of the windshield to get out!

In the second dream I was telling the two real co-workers about the first dream! The Training Manager and I were getting dressed in bathroom stalls for a meeting with Headquarters. When we went to the meeting, the CEO was a different guy, I even saw his name in the dream and wish I could remember it. Probably it has some sort of significance. Anyway, he was scolding our department for using up too many of the agency resources, and then all the equipment started breaking down.

In the third dream, just before I woke up we had an aquarium with fish in it. A visiting kid took the largest fish out to play with it and left it on the floor. We adults were upstairs talking and drinking coffee. Soon the fish sort of grew legs and was walking around harassing our other pets. I did scoop it up and put it back into the aquarium where it ate all the other fish and then climbed out again. The fish ate the dog's food and grew bigger and bigger, its teeth got razor sharp and I had to put on these huge fishing boots to go after it before it started eating our pets! I woke up when the fish started snarling and attacking my boots in the dream.

I think maybe I saw a commercial or something that prompted the first "Snow Dance" dream, but have no idea where the last dream came from! Happy Friday to you, have a great weekend!