Awful.

Today I had one of those training sessions from hell. I was forewarned by my trainees yesterday that the group I’m training today is going to be difficult. But man, I had no idea!

They WERE in fact VERY DIFFICULT not to mention quite ANNOYING that I had to bite my tongue several times just so I could save myself from uttering something rude. One of the trainees owns her company and she was the most difficult and frustrating of all of them. I had to constantly tell her “Left click on the plus sign” where she would proceed to do something else entirely different and then me having to tell her again, “No, left click on the plus sign” and on and on and on went like this until it came to a point where I was practically standing beside her the entire day, training and pointing things to her at the same time. I understand she’s not quick on technology and she had actually told me to, “Oh don’t mind me…I’m not going to use it much… worry about them… just go on…” and when I do proceed, she’ll suddenly say, “Oh hold on… I don’t get it… where am I? How did you get there? What am I supposed to be doing?…” It drove me nuts!! And she kept saying, “you can continue…” and when I do continue she’ll interrupt me again! What got me ticked off was that she suddenly blurted out, “You can just move on at a much faster pace… don’t mind me” And I had to try REAL HARD to stop myself from saying, “Well, if you just shut up then maybe I can actually talk and move on!” Kill me.

I seriously, seriously considered hanging myself.

Rambling

Every morning when I am struggling to get our of bed and get ready for work, I tell myself that after work, I am going straight home to eat dinner and then go to bed really early. That way, I get plenty of sleep and feel refreshed the following day.

Yeah… that NEVER happens. I always end up staying late everytime and then kicking myself in the butt the following morning… it’s a horrible cycle. I am always so groggy in the mornings and I always feel tired.

I realize I complain about work a lot. More so lately since I’ve been feeling increasingly stressed and worn out. I wake up thinking about work, I go to work and stress about it all day, I write about work, I talk to everyone about work and at the end of the day when I’m about to go to bed, I am still thinking about it! People always tell me I care too much and that I should learn to just relax and let things slip once in a while. How the hell do I do that?! Is there a class on how not to care too much about your job like “Screw –It-I’m-Here-For-The-Money-And-That’s-It 101” that everyone else seemed to have attended? If there was one and I missed it, I would like to know where the hell I was because I sure needed it!

There’s a popular saying that goes, “Before you enter the house, make sure you leave your work at the door..” I used to think this was easy to do but now… well… I’m not so sure. It’s darn hard to not think about it especially since most of our time revolves around our jobs. It’s something we like to take pride in doing well and it’s what allows us to buy the things we need. Of course it is only rational that I’d care.

Sometimes I think to myself whether I still like what I’m doing or if it’s becoming detrimental to me. As much as I like most aspects of my job, I can’t help but feel like I ought to be doing something else. Sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on some career opportunity. Then there are times when I think that maybe I’m in the wrong field altogether… and that’s when I start freaking out a bit. It’s really bizarre sometimes.

I think that maybe it’s just a matter of growing… maybe with time, I’ll eventually learn to ease up a bit when it comes to my professional life.

Bwiset.

I’m having one of those days where I feel like jumping off a building.

The problem with helping people out is that sometimes most of the time, it’s not enough to give them instructions on what they need to do… they actually want YOU to do it FOR THEM because they really WOULD RATHER NOT deal with it THEMSELVES. I gotta tell you, it’s very annoying especially when you’re at your wit’s end with your own crap and then have to deal with other people’s crap on top of it. Ain’t it craptastic?

Pardon for me for ranting… I must be am tired…

Busy bee.

It looks like I might have to travel to Calgary again for work. I was just looking at my calendar earlier and realized that holy crap, I travel to Calgary every year!

Funny enough, I don’t travel anywhere else for work. It’s only been clients in the GTA and the Calgary trips. I was telling my co-workers how it’s ironic that I keep coming back to one place and one place alone when I want to travel to BC and I never get a client that requires me to go there. Go figure.

A big part me just wishes it doesn’t even go through. I would hate having to go to Calgary in the middle of winter because it gets so very cold there and it would be such a hassle having to travel, carry my luggage, a laptop, and a winter coat, and then go through airport security and all that. And it would be really awful if the city gets hit by a snow storm while I’m there.

It hasn’t been confirmed yet and in the meantime, I am wading through work, frantically trying to get everything done while emails pour in faster than I can say “I quit”.

I make it a point to listen to a bit of music, chat a little and post in between so I can keep my sanity.

The struggle

After about a week and a half off work for the holidays, we returned on Wednesday to a ton of…well… work. I already expected it to be as such but I couldn’t help but feel extremely worn out by late afternoon and all I wanted to do was go home, lie down and sleep.

I actually slept a lot during the holidays… going to bed late and getting up later the following day so having to wake up early for work has become quite a challenge again. Since coming back to work a couple of days ago, I find myself tired but unable to fall asleep and end up staying past midnight and then struggling to get my bum out of bed by morning. Ugh.

Speaking of work and being extremely busy, I noticed that my patience is not quite as much as it normally is. One of our techs has been popping in and out of my office, asking questions and I find myself always waving a hand while silently mouthing “sorry, just on a call… be with you in a bit…” and when I finally am able to talk to him, I am always rushing and a little irritable and I realize that to him, I must seem rude. I don’t mean to be rude… I just don’t have time to dilly dally. He’s a bit new to the company and I know he needs help every now and then until he gets the hang of it. I remember being new to the company once upon a time too and how confusing everything is at the beginning and I remember all those times I, myself, asked my boss for help.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed especially since we have lot on the go, we don’t have another trainer, and we lack tech support reps and this puts an awful lot more on my plate. I struggle a little to keep up with the things I need to do and I’m trying my best to remember everything on my list of tasks. I hope I don’t miss anything important or let something fall through the cracks.

I am thankful for the holiday break that we were able to enjoy… I just kinda wish I didn’t have to deal with so much work when we got back. Yeesh.

Holiday Rush

I did the last bit of my Christmas shopping last night and boy, I sure am exhausted (notice the use of the present form “am” as opposed to “was” because I am still very much exhausted even though I got 5 hours of sleep last night… I was so tired I think I barely moved in my bed). As usual, shopping at the very last minute during the holidays is a bad idea as the mall is always in such chaos and totally jam packed.

I wanted to get my parents some really nice stuff so I did a lot of walking, checking stores and prices and making sure that I was getting them the best present while still maintaining our budget (my brothers and I have decided to pool our money together). I knew my dad wanted this one sweater from Roots which he mentioned to me in passing the other day but I couldn’t find it (I think they ran out of it already) so I had to look for something else. The very small number of male-oriented stores in malls doesn’t help when you’re looking for a nice Christmas present for your dad. Then I couldn’t decide on what was a better present for mom and then when I finally decided on what to get for them, I had to get them wrapped. I must’ve gone back in forth through the entire mall atleast twice.

Then of course I had to carry them all the way home in the packed subway train and then outside in the cold and by the time I got home, it was already past 10 pm. I was thirsty, hungry (I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch) and just about ready to pass out. I was so hungry that I filled the entire plate with food, warmed it, and gobbled it all down in just 10 minutes. Whoa!

After rinsing my plate, putting it in the dishwasher with all the other dishes and running it, I began working on my Christmas cards (good thing I have green and red pens handy for the Christmas season).

It was past midnight by the time I slipped into bed and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was gone.

It’s amazing how much stamina and determination I have for shopping and yet have no will power to go to the gym. LOL.

Holiday Shopping.

I’m exhausted.

I decided it was about time I took care of some Christmas shopping so I passed by the Eaton Centre on my way home from work. I thought that I would be avoiding the crowd by going on a week night. It really didn’t make a difference. It was packed and there were long lines everywhere. I know, I shouldn’t have procrastinated on it.

It was a good thing that I already had an idea of what I wanted to get so it was a bit easier rather than going through the entire mall not knowing what to get. It was still a little painful weeding through the crowd and standing in line to pay but what can I do? It was worth it in the end because I got some really great gifts.

One thing I noticed, during this time of the year, a lot of men are carrying yoga/gym mats and doing a lot of shopping at Lulu Lemon. Of course I am assuming it’s for their significant others. I just find it funny that all men seem to have the same idea for a gift. I must admit, it’s quite endearing to see a guy in the subway carrying a pink mat.

There’s still some holiday shopping left to do but I just have zero energy to do all of it this evening. I can only assume that the next few days won’t be any better.

Misleading.

Someone had sent the company boxes of Laura Secord chocolates which are now sitting in the kitchen for anyone who wants some. It’s one of those boxes with assorted chocolates inside and a small leaflet telling you what each kind is… it’s quite nice except that when you take a bite of the said chocolates, it never turns out to be what you expect it to be from the leaflet. So freakin’ annoying. I took a look at the leaflet and decided on a piece that was supposed to be white chocolate with pistachio inside. I took one bite and instead of a nut inside, it was cream! I read and re-read the leaflet and it clearly said pistachio nut.

Very misleading, indeed.

Shrunken?

Weird.

The other day I was going through my closet looking for something to wear and found some of my older sweaters from last winter. I tried them on but for some reason they’re a lot shorter and a little tighter. I don’t think I grew taller and when I weighed myself, it looked like I didn’t gain any weight either (unless the weighing scale is rigged).

I also noticed that none of the clothes I brought with me from the Philippines fit me anymore so I might as well give all of them away. My dad said maybe my clothes shrunk but I doubt it (after all, there were clothes I had never worn since I moved here which means they never went in the dryer so they couldn’t have possibly shrunk unless clothes shrink when they’re kept in your closet too long).

It’s about time that I did some closet-cleaning anyway. I need to sort my clothes and take away those that I won’t be wearing anymore. It’s getting too crowded in there.

I have made a resolution to stop spending (I know, I’ve said this a million times before) so older clothes will have to do. I really NEED to save MORE.

Skin woes.

Some people have allergies.

Others are more prone to getting things like colds and the flu.

I, on the other hand, have VERY sensitive skin.

I don’t remember my skin being so sensitive when I was little. But as I grew older, my skin just became…well… picky. I always have to be careful about the products I use like soap, body lotion… almost anything that touches my skin. I even have to be careful about the hair products I use simply because the tip of my hair touches my back.

What’s even weirder is that there are certain clothes I can’t wear because my skin doesn’t like the fabric or there’s something in it that just causes irritation. For example, wool and I don’t mix. Back home (in the Philippines) I owned these pair of dress pants that the doctor told me to stop wearing because I’d get rashes if I wore them. At first, we thought it might be the laundry detergent that we use for washing our clothes that might have been causing it but it eventually came down to the dress pants. Isn’t it ridiculous?

Lately, I’ve been having a sneaking suspicion that I am developing some kind of irritation towards the tights I wear during winter to keep my legs warm. I could stop wearing them altogether but then I’d be cold outside. What I don’t understand is that I never used to have a problem with wearing them and now it seems like my skin doesn’t like them anymore. Bummer.

Another reason to go see a doctor I guess.