Many Good Things, Little Sleep

The past four weeks have been a whirlwind of STUFF HAPPENING. The biggest impact is a co-worker left my analyst group so I inherited her duties and her office. Having an office is fabulous - I've been stuck in cubicle land for ten years so I feel like I have arrived professionally. That's the positive of my co-worker moving on. There have been several downsides to her departure such as:

1. She did not do any work for the past several months.

2. She broke entire reports by keying over linked Excel formulas.

3. She did not file, just shoved paper into drawers.

4. She alienated an entire department thanks to her shitty attitude/work ethic.

The first week without her was the slow dawning horror of the above. But there is an up side to all this. The alienated department is so happy to be rid of her, they have been going out of their way to help me. My fellow analysts are aware of the massive cleanup I need to do and have been very helpful with tasks and allowing me to freak the fuck out. There's just three of us so it feels like wartime bonding in the trenches.

My boss has been quite simply amazing through all this. We spent nights in my office going through "files" getting frustrated, speechless, then slap happy with stacks of unpaid bills and dusty procedure manuals. I was in tears at a couple points from being overwhelmed and he helped by talking through what we could do next. That is a very important pronoun - we. He tries to make sure - I - get credit for accomplishments. But if there's a crisis or question, - we - tackle it. I also got a really great mid-year review with helpful feedback. I love one of his suggestions. With my learning quirks post brain damage, sometimes I reach an upper limit on information I can absorb, anything above that limit is static so my thinking gets stuck. Super Boss suggested having a word so he'd know what was going on and how to help. I asked skeptically, "What? You mean like pistachio?" He explained what he meant so our word is pistachio. It's odd enough, a good laugh could jolt my thinking back into gear. Having a boss who values my work, my thinking, and supports me has been transformative. Despite the workload, never ending cleanup, and the long hours, I am engaged and happy at work!

In the midst of all this, I am looking for a new apartment. I've toured 5 places. I applied to 1 place but I didn't get it due to timing. I'm looking any place that is near a commuter rail station that gets me to Boston under 60 minutes. I really liked Lowell. Attleboro looks horrible but it's so darn affordable! Taunton is also affordable but heroin. Weymouth would be nice but I haven't found anything within my budget. Luckily, I just need to give 30 days notice to move - month to month lease baby!