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| I am, in general, a pretty negative person.
Or rather, I love ranting, so my xanga persona is very negative. My xanga is me and not me- an interesting dichotomy.
I think I'll always be a little angry at what the Company did to us. A lot of the time when I run into snafoos I just blame it on the fact that I'm not supposed to be here in the first place, anyways. But recently I was thinking- well I guess it's not so bad, I can use this situation to make all those dumb mistakes that everyone makes (or so I tell myself) when they first enter the professional world and have to deal with people on a professional level. Then come January, I'll leave behind the mess of angry people and ruined relationships. Like starting over without getting fired. And having been so traumatized by some of these blunders, I know (or seriously hope) I'll do better next time.
With that in mind, I started making this list of things I learned this year. For your edification, I will now share some:
...keep emails short and concise, and not too many. Have a lot to say? Too bad, don't say it.
...don't talk over people, even if they're blabbing about irrelevant things. Be patient.
...don't be a know-it-all. Nobody wants to be taught something by a young whippersnapper. Even when you can help someone, sometimes it's better not to, or be really careful how you phrase it.
...don't be a know-it-all, part 2. Be careful how you correct people. Don't be didactical.
...present a united front. No blaming the boss. Defend the boss. Defend what the boss says, even if you disagree.
...behave during meetings. No need to assert yourself- people do not appreciate your pointless comments if you have nothing real to say. And be careful about shutting people down... before you gleefully point out the holes in their idea, think about how you'd feel if somebody gleefully pointed out the holes in yours.
...if you mess up, most people (note: MOST) respond well to apologies.
I know you're all sitting there now trying to convince yourself that you already knew all these things, and haven't unknowingly made any of the blunders I've made. haha. (at least that's what I'd be doing). Looking at these, I guess I'm pretty arrogant, eh?
Must squash ego... must squash it like the squishy frog it is!
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| My mom's visiting me for Labor Day, but she's proven quite difficult to entertain- she seems to express no preferences at all and is lukewarm about all the tourist spots I try to take her to. By the end of yesterday I just didn't know what to do with her anymore.
But she HAS been talking about how this friend of hers used to go to Chinatown every morning to get bread and $1 coffee. So I decided to take her to Chinatown for bread and $1 coffee breakfast, and do my grocery shopping while I'm at it (I love the Chinese veggies I can only get in Chinatown, plus the fruit is cheap and great... but Chinatown's so far away I usually just bite the bullet and go to Whole Foods).
So first I dumped her off at Taipan bakery where she bought her bread and coffee... plus about 3 other breads and about 9 蛋塔 s (to be fair, 6 were for my brother). Then we went grocery shopping and I asked her to pick out my veggies since she knows more about Chinese veggies.
Next thing I knew it, she had 3 big bags full of greens and mushrooms and tubers and was busily ordering meat (many many lbs of many many kinds) from the butcher and grabbing packages of tofu and other perishables from the fridge. I have *never* bought meat from Chinatown, heck I'm so antisocial that I've never even ordered meat from the counter at Whole Foods. But apparently my mom thinks I'm meat deficient, which may have explained the... large quantities of meat she decided to buy for me.
Anyways, so mom got really excited and bought so much stuff, I think even the butcher was laughing at us. And I was just standing there with this -___- expression that would have made an anime artist proud. Then she dumped all her meat and other groceries in my bag and made me carry it. (To be fair, yes she had a heavy bag too... there was a lot of food.)
So we're trudging back and she went off in search of a pot to make soup for me, while I *finally* got to buy my fruit. yay fruit =) So I went and bought the biggest bag of grapes I could find (trust me I can eat about a lb a day) and I got some little oranges too and some pluots. Then meetup with mom, who's still buying stuff for her soup.
I'll have to say, by this point, I was pretty grumpy. I was trying to shove my way through all the tourists carrying many many lbs of meat and veggies and fruit. And wondering how we were going to fit this all in my fridge (even if I take over my roommate's space while she's gone in HK for these 2 weeks) and what I was going to do with... well... so much damn meat!! Honestly I'd never bought this much food before, and I buy a hell of a lot of groceries every week.
Well, long story short, we took the subway and transferred to bus and made it home, finally, tired and grumpy (my mom was like, oh sorry when I bought all this stuff I forgot I didn't have a car). Ate some leftovers from my cooking for lunch- yes, the very same leftovers that convinced my mom I was meat deficient!
And then... after lunch... I happily reached into the fridge for my grapes....
...and they were GONE!! No grapes!!
*insert shocked anime expression*
*insert -____- anime expression*
I scoured the fridge. So did my mom. No grapes. I scoured my bags. No grapes. I don't remember putting grapes in my fridge anyways. I do remember that on the way home my number of bags was somehow less than expected.
Anyways so that's the story of how I lost my grapes. I told my mom that I hoped some homeless person was enjoying them. She said most likely it was some happy old lady in Chinatown, but we wouldn't even be able to guess because I have no idea when in the transit process I lost them.
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| Wouldn't it be nice to be eternally young?
I'm obsessively afraid of growing old.
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My career aspirations are like some people's love interests. Many and varied, always jumping around, but each time, I fall hard- I think it's *the one*. Then I get over it and fall for the next one.
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A tough week at work? How about a tough 2 months? I don't know what happened. I guess it started when I first made a big mistake and got yelled at, and then after that there were more mistakes and more yelling by various people, more begging and apologizing, and yeah, I was really having a tough time.
Either way, these past few days I've been looking at grad schools seriously... for about a week there I was convinced that my calling in life was to program video games. Hey, I love playing video games, and I do want to return to engineering. But then... I don't know... I don't think I have what it takes, and I'm not just saying that. Well, I definitely don't have it right now, I'd probably need to go get a masters at least. In fact, if I want to return to engineering, I'd probably definitely need to get some sort of advanced degree, considering that I don't want to go back to experimental labwork and I don't really know much else. I think I can handle a Masters.
The problem is that most schools I looked at only offer Masters en route to PhD. And, I dunno- the thought of PhD actually still makes me want to curl up into a little ball and roll into a corner and shudder uncontrollably. Even if I don't do experimental labwork, if I do say- graphics or AI or something computer-based (not sure if I'd like it, but hey, at least I don't have to sit there wondering why my stuff worked last time and not this time, was it because of slight difference in temperature at any of three stages, the extra few seconds it sat in solution, the distance from the UV light, the air humidity, the thickness of the photoresist which depends on the tilt and location of the sample on the spinner chuck...)- well, no matter what, it's going to be grueling.
And it's always the same story, you work your ass off for something and then somebody else goes and publishes it before you do. Or, you do manage to publish, but nobody else gives a damn except the 2 other people in the world who study this topic. And then you go to a conference and you're like, woohoo, I get to travel, but then you show up and realize you don't care about anybody else's stuff and they don't care about yours, because 98% of it isn't relevant and the other 2% is your competitor.
One thing is for sure, I do want to return to engineering. (Or is that just a fad- my "love interest" of the moment?) But I also do want to travel around first, which I had hoped (and still hope) OW would let me do. But I feel like I don't have the time to do both. Either I apply to grad school now, or... it'll be too late to go back later. They won't want me anymore.
Well, that and the other details, I refuse to apply for a PhD program and I can't find a good Masters program.
Oh, and I'm in love with NY. It's so beautifully cold. It's got the devil's glint in it's eye. Can't say I really fit in with the young professionals, all the bankers and consultants- can't say I ever will. But something in the whole aura of it is just so irresistable. It reminds me of... a gleaming steel sword. I can't leave this city. It'll just pull me right back.
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| I went to Cali one weekend, 2 weekends later I went to the Caribbean, 2 weekends later I went to Boston (so yes, my spreadsheet- which has been expanded to track my every expense in excruciating detail, with a plethora of pivot tables to slice and dice the data in any way I please, plus plenty of pie charts and tables to analyze my spend- yes I miss numbers, how did you guess?- is showing quite frightening numbers for these past 2 months) and last weekend I could say I was legitimately tired and wanted to stay in.
This weekend was pretty quiet and I'm restless again.
I wish I had some work to do or something.
You know, when I was in high school, I was pretty insecure... always worried that my friends were leaving me out, they were ditching me, they kept forgetting about me, they didn't think we were as good friends as I thought we were, etc. Now I figure that this was pretty normal for a high schooler.
Not to say I don't still have my insecurities- who doesn't?- but these days, at 23, I'm more over that, because I got my own life and I like doing my own stuff and I don't care if other people are forgetting me because I'm forgetting about them too (hah, take that!) But I think I still have this great fear that I'm missing out on something. Like this weekend... I did manage to find ways to fill it up, but I did a pretty imperfect job of occupying myself, and I feel like I'm missing out. I at least wish I had something to study, so I'll feel like I had filled my time with something worthwhile. Yes, studying would certainly be worthwhile enough to justify missing out on whatever great things other people were doing this weekend that I wasn't. (The problem with that, as I am discussing with a friend right now, is- what were we studying so hard for anyways? In our jobs we don't even use the skills or intelligence that we worked so hard to build up)
But yeah I'm gonna shut up now because people have been commenting (complaining?) that my posts are too long.
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| After I posted that deliciously emo facebook status, people started expecting a xanga entry. I'm pretty predictable, aren't I. The whole day home that day, stumbling numbly through the mobs of tourists in Times Square and beyond, dazed and in a stupor, I had been plotting my xanga entry.
But actually xanga-ing about work stuff is hard. You never know who might stumble on it.
So I ended up ranting to my diary for 4 hours that night and eating half a bag of cereal.
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Needless to say, most people thought the facebook status meant I was stuck at work until late at night, slaving my ass off. Actually, I think I would have been ok with that. Granted, I've never done it, so I don't know how I'd really feel- empty offices do kind of give me the creeps.
It's been a while since I was a student now, but back in college, slaving away late into the night was regular practice, and I derived a certain satisfaction from doing it. So I don't think I would have been so outrageously upset if that were the case (unless I were forced to stay past, say, 1 AM, then I would definitely be pretty grumpy).
To tell the truth, these past few days were hell but I still got off relatively early, usually by 7. What makes it so painful is that my job has become an exercise in harassing people. This is why it doesn't make a difference if I stay late, either. I can only really harass people during the workday.
I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but I really hate asking for favors, and that's all I've been doing- from people very senior to me, no less. I feel terrible about it. I can never be apologetic enough for causing them the trouble, or thankful enough when they help me out.
To top it off, it's like I have a gun to my head. We're under extreme time pressure and- really, I'm running around all day (our pantry stocker said, "I missed you, honey! Haven't seen you at all!" he's this ADORABLE old man who likes to sneak food from meetings for us kids on the floor, or maybe it's just for me and Diana, the little girls), but none of this stuff is really in my hands. All I can do to expedite it is harass people more, and I already feel bad enough about asking them for favors, how could I ask them to hurry up too? I feel like I'm being asked to strain my relationships with people. Before I'm given the chance to gain their respect, I have to beg favors from them and not be able to return them.
Yeah, whine whine whine, I'll stop now. Needless to say, stress is absolutely contagious, especially vertically. There was lots of stress running around and I got yelled at and also said some things I shouldn't have (I apologized, my boss was like- "what are you talking about? I totally forgot about that!") I'm a hypersensitive freak and getting yelled at is absolutely traumatic (I think my boss knows this so she's usually pretty careful about it, but stress trumps all). But I think the hardest part of it was, at the end of the day........ actually I'm just going to shut up now.
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