Make me over . . .

There's such a buzzing, positive vibe going around today . . . and I think I caught it.

This week has been a teensy bit trying as I was trying to recharge without actually giving myself time or opportunity to do so. As much as I try to fight it, I AM an introverted person - I communicate better in writing, I can be more withdrawn in some social situations because having lots of people around physically/mentally/emotionally drains me, etc. I'm not shy, not antisocial, I just need my alone time to energize myself.

So this morning at the office, we're busybusybusy . . . but it feels GOOD, surprisingly enough. I feel like I've caught a bug - a positivity/optimism bug and I like it.

I feel more productive and engaged in my workplace. I feel like I'm growing . . . It sounds a little hokey, I'm sure, but when I'm slammed in a positive way, I enjoy feeling like they're keeping me stimulated and on-my-toes.

Wear Red Day 2010 (or, How I Learned to Write Myself a Note)

Soooooooooo . . . Today is National Go Red Day, to promote women’s heart health awareness, and our hospital’s clinic is participating and we’ve really been pushing it from our office. Well, Gary took us out for breakfast this morning and we just met him at Hobee’s but guess who showed up NOT wearing red? Yup. I forgot. Completely spaced.

So after catching some good-natured grief from everyone else, I get in my car to drive back and grab my badge (on a red lanyard), my nametag holder that Hayley made me (with some red beads) and looked in the backseat for anything else I could pass off as intentional red. I found . . . my rock climbing shoes. Yes, brick red rock climbing shoes. I’m sporting them with jeans and a navy cardigan and they totally look out of place, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

My feet look like this:


I feel so fashionable. LOL. Just more subject matter for that book I end up writing, right?

Snaps, snaps, snaps! :o)

Snaps to me indeed!

Recently, our hospital's monthly newsletter got a major facelift. As the manager of this particular publication, the task was laid before me to learn our new format, including some new Photoshop skills and put everything together in a matter of just a few weeks. My task list looks like this every month:
- schedule photoshoots
- review and assign photos to pieces appropriately
- publish webpages for each story and link to each article snippet
- edit photos for newsletter (both for the individual pages and for the newsletter itself)
- plug everything into our Constant Contact template
- final review with Gary before distribution
- create PDF of newsletter to mail to physicians

All in all, it's not a great deal, but this month was slightly complicated as we tried to get in the Photoshop fun stuff that needed to be done for our photos to work with our gorgeous new layout. Add to this the back-and-forth of one particular piece on which we haggled over wording and it gets more drawn out than it should be. Things came together somewhat seamlessly and in the end, the newsletter looked just gorgeous.

So much so that our Vice President of Public Affairs (my boss's boss) came over to me to congratulate me personally on "a job well done." True, I didn't design it and was only following instructions, but it came together very well and didn't require any frantic phone calls to the designers from under my desk while I remained in the fetal position.

So snaps to me, I guess. :o) I'll take the compliment especially considering who it came from. Below is a screenshot of the top of our new, snazzy newsletter - when it's finalized (i.e. we have this in PDF format and on our webpage), I'll link to the better copy. (But didn't 1185 do a bang up job?! Here is one of our old newsletters -- there really is no comparison.)

It's tricky, tricky, tricky.

(My Run DMC references are over. I promise.)

I don't know why, but I find it difficult to ignore the peevish feelings that arise when my coworkers do things like ask me if I've received email, talk to me from another room, or ask me about whether I've completed a task before I've even gotten to it yet. They tend to crop up in situations where I feel I'm being treated like someone's personal assistant (which I'm not) and for reasons beyond my understanding, my usually cheerful, happy-to-help self is left in quite a state. Can they see the steam coming from ears? Is it seeping out between my teeth as I try to smile and be pleasant? The following is a list of frequently arising work-related pet peeves:

1. Asking me if I've received an email
Generally speaking, my email inbox works quite well. I understand that technology isn't always fool-proof, that there are glitches, but in general if you send me something you can bet that I've received. I may not have had a chance to reply, but I have it and will get to it.

2. Talking to me from another room
Okay, there's really only one person who does this and it's because their office is fairly close to my desk which means I can hear them speaking to me. Of course, they get agitated when they can't see that I have headphones on and can't hear or that I'm ignoring whatever is being said. Maybe that's because if you're dying to tell me something you could a.) send me an email or b.) come up and talk to me.

3. Asking me if something's completed before I've even started
Now, if I were a slacker, this would be totally warranted and absolutely essential to making sure I'm getting the tasks done that need to be completed. However, I'm not a slacker. I'm a pretty hard worker. I also have many projects on my plate. Is it so difficult to understand that I can't publish a web page in under 15 minutes yet? Is it impossible to grasp that your tiny request of making a PDF of a file will be done after I've attended to the urgent project on my plate at the moment? Goodness gracious -- I'll GET to it!



Now, before I convince anyone that my coworkers are horrendously annoying people (they're not - they just have moments), there are two bright beacons of redemption. My boss is always so nice when requesting anything from me. Even when he's stressed, flustered and having a hard time to remember to throw in a "please" or two, he's still polite and knows that he can trust me in finishing what I need to get done in time. I mean, he IS my boss -- and yet he trusts me more than those who do not directly manage me? Interesting.

My coworker Lisa (name has been changed to protect the innocent) is the kindest, most thoughtful person I've ever worked with. She apologizes for interrupting me, she asks me to do something "when [I] have a chance." Just that wording alone makes me more inclined to help her because I think, "Of COURSE! Yeah, I'll take care of that little thing right now while I'm thinking of it."


In all seriousness, do you think Jesus had pet peeves? I mean, I'm positive that he would have dealt with them much better than I ever could and I pray that I will become more like Him in dealing with minor things that irritate me (because they really are minor). But sometimes, that quest to be more like Him demonstrates to me just how far I have to go and reminds me to be humble about my own shortcomings.

Floundering . . .

I feel a bit like I'm drowning at work . . . I feel like I don't have the ability to get ahead of my workload.

Praying for strength, I'm mentally tallying the list of things I need to get done in the coming days since today is once again a short week.