Can't imagine how bad 2013 and 2014 must have been if they were worse than the constant Dilbert stories you post. Glad you are improving and hope it continues though, always lol at your posts in S&F.

Last day of vacation. I dread going back to work. I have been looking for a new job, though. It's a bad time of year to do this but a few places are taking applications and I submitted my resume at 3.

The writing went really well during this break. If my script were a house, I'd say I finished the framing and rough plumbing/electric. Just gotta keep moving. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Job is a big part of life. About 40 hours a week and often more. It so makes sense to look for a new one, if you are not happy with current. I stayed in my last two years too long and a job change was BIG improvement in my quality of life.

Yeah, I'll probably have a big post about work soon. I think my last job literally sucked out my soul.

Rob just sent me an email. The electrician did some calculations and I will not need a new panel. The more I thought about what we were doing the more I didn't think we would need it. I was ready to push back if he came back and said I would. But, no need to now! woot!

Rob is working on the change order now. Most of it should be fairly minor I hope. Moving some lights around. Adding cans. A couple of marble shelves. Hopefully not too bad.

job rant incoming

I may have posted a lot of this already. Not sure.

When I was younger I mostly worked in a grocery store but did various other construction jobs. I don't think I really took pride in anything but I was always very good at what I did. I'm really good at figuring out the fastest and most efficient way of doing jobs so I was always a top performer.

I was considered for a promotion to management at the first grocery chain I worked at when I was 18. The position was between me and an older woman who had little experience but was "management material". The district manager sat me down and told me point blank that they "needed a woman" in that position. It soured me and I quit.

The next grocery chain I worked at I was also considered for management at a fairly young age. About the time that I was put up for management they chain implemented a policy that all new managers must have a college degree, which I did not. I ended up training many future managers to be my boss. Another thing that did not sit well with me.

I ended up going to college, in part to get a promotion. The closer I got to graduating the more I realized that I had no desire to go back to the grocery business. I ended up with an IT degree because I found it interesting.

I applied for a position at a state agency for a rookie programmer. I found out later that over 200 people applied for 3 slots and I ended up being one of the three. I picked things up pretty well and it wasn't long before I was given systems of my own to develop. I liked it there but after a couple of years a recruiter contacted me and offered me triple my salary for a contract position. I couldn't pass it up.

I worked on several projects at several different fortune 500 companies. I was usually the programmer that other programmers went to to solve difficult problems. I ended up being the lead everywhere I went.

I saved up a bunch of money and didn't work for a while. But the money was getting low so I started looking again. As fate would have it, I ended up contracting at the same state agency that first hired me. They knew me and had an opening so it worked out well.

I did a lot of different things there. They had a large project going that they were writing in Java. Nobody at the agency knew anything about the language so they hired some "really smart" guys to implement it. I could see the future and I asked if I could learn Java could I work on the project and would probably be able to stay there longer. They agreed. I got certified and they put me on the project. Things weren't going well (standard on a project this size) and they kicked out the smart guys and put me in charge. I asked for a few guys that I knew were good programmers but did not know Java. We all learned together and got the system in on time.

They gave our team several other projects through the years and we always delivered.

The biggest reason for our success was the manager of the programming staff. His philosophy was "just go do it and if you hit a roadblock come see me". I can't tell you how motivating this is to me.

About 10 years into this that manager retired. His replacement came from the private sector. He micromanaged everything. And he implemented several new layers of micromanagers - none of them with a programming background. My day became dealing with project plans, status reports and constant questions of "where are we with this". We almost stopped delivering software. Everything took 10 times as long. Our users weren't happy and we sure weren't happy.

I asked my consulting company to get me out of there. But they are never motivated to do this. I stuck with it because the money was good. After about a year the manager decided that they would have no more consultants. He told me that I either needed to be a permanent employee or have to go. They offered a pretty good salary and I already had state service and could get a pension if I stuck it out long enough. So I took it.

Things continued to deteriorate for me. I just resented everything about the job more and more. I detested the manager and the team manager he hired over our team was even worse.

The worst part was that I knew (and know) how to do this job properly and these guys were destroying everything I tried to do.

The resentment consumed me. It really just broke me.

I probably went through some mini-depression episodes but this was full blown. I began to question everything I had ever done in my life. And I mean everything. It was exacerbated by the fact that my sister married a super successful guy. Where did I go wrong? Why am I in this situation?

I also met my girlfriend while I was going through this and that relationship fell apart. Another failure. Every aspect of my life seemed to meld into this giant depressed black hole.

I'm now in a job that is even worse. I don't really hate it as much because I walked into it. The previous job was so horrible because I spent 10 years doing great things only to watch all of it get picked apart little by little. At least now it sucked before I got there. But this resentment for "managers" that have no clue remains. And the total lack of job satisfaction, which for me is accomplishing real things - not status reports or project plans.

I try to disconnect from my job but it is hard. It is such a big part of the day and as much as I try not to, I can't help but to connect the things I do to some sort of self (dis) satisfaction. I mean, on one level it is just a job. You go to work, do what they tell you to do, get paid, go home. But it's super hard for me to really buy into that. After going through this I'm really amazed at how a job has affected my entire life so much. It seems really out of whack.

I'm somewhat convinced that this is just the state of IT now. They manage projects, not develop software. I'm not a good fit for this at all. But it's not realistic at this stage of my life to try something new. I get paid well, have great benefits and I'm close enough to retirement that I don't want to start all over.

So now I feel like I'm just completely broken. I mean, I'm in a lot better place mentally right now but I feel like I'll never get back to what I was. I never really cared who I was or where I'd been or where I was going. I just lived and it was good. Now I question everything. Did I say the right thing? Did I do the right thing? Why am I here? My brain won't turn off. I'm at a loss as to how to fix this. Intellectually I realize what I'm thinking is not the right way. But I just can't turn off the internal dialogue.

/rant

Rob just called and informed me there is water leaking from the unit above. Ugh.

Not so bad news. I talked to Rob some more and it seems the actual leak is in the pipe in my unit. It is not water, it is the toilet drain (yuk) from the unit above. He just needs me to coordinate with my upstairs neighbor to turn the valve off and not flush the toilet while Rob's plumber fixes it. Not a big issue at all.

You meditate right? Nice read, didn't know all that about you. Have you tried telling the managers that they don't need to micromanage everything?

It is probably not good idea to try something completely new, but may be it is a good idea to put at least some effort in sending out some applications. I just have been there.... And new job resolved a lot of things. I do get that looking for new job is frustrating, and that your current job is not fun but not bad enough. But may be it makes sense to take at least some steps direction better future.

Do you want to get back to what you have been? May be you just got wiser.
I mean to much self-reflection can be counter-productive, but some degree....I think it is healthy.

Have you tried long cardio or yoga to stop the inner dialog?

I was trying to meditate but I sort of let it go. It's one of those habits I didn't form well enough and just forgot. I'm glad you reminded me - I'll give it another shot.

I learned looonngggg ago you can't change a micromanager. It's in their genes.

That is a GREAT point. I've never thought of that before but yeah, there are a lot of things I do and don't do now that are much much healthier.

I have been submitting applications but I've tried to be picky. I sort of flipflop from "gotta get out of this place" to "yeah, it's ok I can deal with it". So, it's not a big hurry.

I've always exercised and been very consistent. I lift weights 4 times a week and run twice a week. I almost never miss a day. I've never been a good runner, even when I was young. It kicks my butt but it sure helps clear my head.

So, in a crazy turn of events..................

My sister and I were/are trying to talk through things. She told me she read this blog. I'm not upset or anything. We both seem motivated to work things out but we definitely need a 3rd party to help us communicate. I've obviously talked to my therapist about my relationship with my sister and she (my therapist) always says these are the hardest when things go awry. The family dynamics are just so complicated.

But it was really good just talking to her. I feel like we'll get through this

I talked to Rob about a few condo things this morning. I actually went out there and so did he but we weren't there at the same time.

Just a few details. He's trying to keep from having too much of the ceiling dropped down for duct work. The ceiling is a bit low as it is and dropping it down really makes things seemed cramped. I'm pretty tall.

We talked about the size of the master shower. It's gonna be awesome - 5' x 5'. Woot!. But he has to order more tile. I hope they have enough that matches.

Then he said he would have to run a return vent for the office right below the TV. Yuk. I asked him if they couldn't put it above the door to the office. Yep, they can.

He moved the bar around some which isn't a big deal.

Apparently the water leak is actually the tub drain of the unit above. I left a note on their door to contact me. I don't mind paying our plumber for it but they need to let him in their unit.

Speaking of which. Javier is the guy doing most of the work. I thought he was the general construction guy (he is) but come to find out he's the plumber as well.

They've done quite a bit of plumbing and duct work. Everything is looking good. I'll post pics tomorrow.

I've had a little time to think about things.

This blog started out simply to chronicle my adventures in remodeling. It somehow morphed into sort of a personal diary. The more I posted personal stuff the more cathartic it became.

Although this is a public forum, it seemed sort of safe to me. I could honestly post what was going on in my head without any judgement or consequences.

This is not true any more. I don't think I could ever post anything here again without having to think through what might result if I said this or that. I'm somewhat sad because this is a thing in my life that I enjoyed.

This is likely my last post here. Maybe something happens in the future to change that. Who knows. Most of you know me from other forums here. I'm not leaving 2p2 so I'll continue to haunt other forums but for now I think I'll let this blog fade away.

Later

Best of luck with everything BB.

Gl, sorry to see the blog end. Any chance of an anonymous LargerYacht gimmick blog? ;-)

Gl with everything.

GL BB

Glad you got something out of it while it was going on. I'm sure many would still love some periodic updates on the condo just in terms of progress and results.

Also, I will keep an eye out for LargerYacht blog along with kokiri, .

Always looked forward to the updates. GL with everything. Post some pics when the reno's done

I had a really long therapy session with my sister and her therapist. It went super well. Super well? Super good? Ok, super good. Anyways, I think I can continue to post what I want without having to worry about anything so, well, that's just what ima gonna do.

I checked out the condo yesterday and although there has been pretty good progress, it doesn't look all that different.

Javier removed a bunch of concrete and replaced a bunch of drain pipes. He's also done most of the water plumbing. The AC guy has run most of the ductwork I think. There has been a lot of discussion on how best to run the ductwork and I think that has taken quite a bit of time to get things right. I'm really happy they've thought through this a lot in order to minimize the area of drop down ceiling. Good stuff. The electrician has not started yet.

Here's some pics.

They had already decided to make this drop down the width of the hall. But since then they decided to run two ducts through there. They say it will help all the circulation.



Not sure wtf is going on here



washer dryer stuff



master batch holes in the floor





Guest bath holes in the floor



They started framing the bar. I think they still aren't sure exactly what the angle will be.