I don't think there are words in the English language to describe this past week. It was so good, I branched out to French, Hungarian, and German.
For almost a year I have been dealing with an odd constellation of symptoms that my primary care doctor couldn't pin down so I got a referral to an endocrinologist. My personal theories were PCOS or hypothyroid. Back in March I did a big series of blood tests and a 24 hour urine collection. I had to reschedule my May endocrinologist appointment because work became crazy. I finally had my appointment this week and everything was ruled out except a medication I am on. Plus the endocrinologist said, "At least it isn't a tumor." So, unbeknownst to me, that was a possibility!!!! And I cancelled the May appointment with a possible brain tumor. I am so glad this is news to me when it isn't a tumor. The up side is I don't like the medication I'm on so titrating off would be a relief. Yeah, anti-convulsants suck, hello SSRIs!
Monday, with the help of Super Boss, I was able to figure out how not to be upset about a couple errors I made last month. The key is to put it in context. Super Boss caught the mistakes and just let me know with zero judgement. All the judgement was in my head. So he shut my office door, sat down, and talked me through my crazy. I remembered what was going on when I made the mistakes. Four errors out of everything else I did right in the midst of the shit show around me, is pretty much a win. Huzzah conquering a big psychological hurdle! It's all about perspective. When I thanked Super Boss at the end of the day, he said I've done the same for him. Yup, propping up each other's sanity should be put on our resumes. I think mistakes should still bug me but not to the point where I get so upset I doubt myself.
We have an Analyst II on our team who started mid-May but she is still working her old administrative job since the whole department is so understaffed. I'll call her Baby Analyst. I really love her and when she is able to help us out or sit with us to learn, I can see how overwhelming it is for her but she is picking up a ton. It's also a lot of fun for me because I enjoy training people and she seems to enjoy learning from me. This week, she seriously stepped up to the plate work wise and saved our bacon. I have tried to pass along her frustration over being half an analyst to Super Boss. He got LIVID when I told him that Baby Analyst got roped into covering the front desk for lunch. I think that being a teacher isn't just passing along knowledge, it's also looking out for student/trainee. So, when Baby Analyst got upset about making a mistake, I passed along perspective. 1 mistake out of thousands of data fields with both of us not catching two inverted digits. Walk it off.
Wednesday, there was a huge process deadline that affected thousands of employees. Three departments were involved in testing Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was all in production. No pressure! At around 7:00, there was a huge issue discovered but since Super Boss and I were the only people left at work, we couldn't get it fixed immediately. But thanks to Super Boss asking to make sure that all the work I was doing was in production not test, I came up with a solution for that night. I was clutching my head laughing saying, "You do not ask me if I'm working in test at this time of night" If I had spent hours adjusting thousands of employees in the wrong environment, men with nets and a straight jacket would be called! We worked until 9:00 and Super Boss offered me a ride once we got back to his place - saving me a dicey walk to South Station in the rain and getting me home earlier. Super is the same in English, German, Finnish etc. So Super Boss earned his pan-lingual super status!
He has a really nice condo and I got to meet his wife again. The embarrassing thing is one of the side effects I mentioned above is really bad sweating and that night was 100% humidity so I had beads of sweat running down everywhere while I stood in his nice home chatting with his wife. Maybe some of it could pass as rain drops? I discovered that Super Boss has horrible sense of direction. He lives one town over from me and grabbed the GPS. I said, "Oh you just need to hop on 93." Super Wife shook her head and leaned over stage whispering, "He's horrible at directions." Ha! Since Quincy doesn't have a hospital, Super Boss randomly announced "Erectile dysfunction" on the drive. There are signs posted everywhere for the Emergency Department that is the leftovers of Quincy Medical Center. Very weird and funny tangent.
Thursday everything was done and every goal was met. I have a mason jar in my office that has about a dozen green decorative stones. Each stone signifies a win. Something we're proud of or something that went right. I feel like this huge process going well deserves something more than a green decorative stone. So this weekend we'll grab a stone from wherever we celebrate the Fourth and put it in the jar. We did extremely well this week!
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