Category Archives: jobby job job

I’m now officially a project engineer/assistant project manager. Which means I get to order new business cards – which makes set #4 that I’ll have ordered in the 1 1/2 years I’ve been here. So far I have had cards for the mahwah office, for the edison office, and updated cards with my PE on them. I’m so glad I just put “engineer” on my notepads! I’d hate to waste them.

of course, now my coworkers are trying to figure out the best way to let the disgruntled senior engineers in the other office know about my promotion. you know, just to shake some cages and rattle some chains. I think I’ll just call up my buddy and let HIM know. he’s a chatter, he’ll probably spread the word pretty nicely. I feel so awkward about it though! there are people who have been working for much longer than I have, and who are not being advanced like me. partly it’s because I’m good at promoting myself and have an advanced degree and a license, but it is still a little lopsided. What can you do? I must remind myself that I worked hard to get this promotion, even if it did seem to go by “all in a days work.”

after all that rumination I did about my job, and after being so successful and being told about the raise/promotion, I accidentally almost got another job on monday:

there is an annual labor day street fair in my town and the hackensack riverkeeper had a booth. I stopped by to introduced myself because I want to help out – I mean, I am cleaning up the environment right now, but it’s for these industrial clients, mostly, not for the Common Good. I want to help the people! and the earth! I’ve been thinking about volunteering with a local eco/community organization. I said that I am an environmental engineer and next thing I know I’m talking to The Riverkeeper. He started to tell me all about the organization and who does what and then about how he’s looking for a policy person and as soon as he gets funding he’ll be hiring and I was like WHOA NELLIE! and I told him that I would LOVE to volunteer with the organization where ever I can fit in for now and that sustainability and policy and wetlands are, like, my VERY FAVORITE THINGS. I’m going to call them this week and see if I can stop by soon to see what they’re working on and how I can help.

it’s not just me, either – my friend kathleen was with me and as we walked away she said “that guy was going to offer you a job!”  seriously, in every angle of your life: when you’re confident everyone wants to work with you or be with you.  Amazing!

It’s a funny situation I find myself in lately: I do, actually, enjoy my job. it’s challenging in a way my old job never was. (the old job was most challenging in situations like: BITING TONGUE so as not to offend boss with direct and powerful honesty.) The work is totally different and not necessarily at all what I thought I’d be doing with myself (esp. after that sustainability masters) but it IS effective and interesting and enjoyable. I love my coworkers. I love my fancy new notepads with my name and P.E. on them. And most amazing, I see potential here for real career development and growth. When does THAT happen? I see a corporate ladder that is scaleable, and I see a consulting company that isn’t half bad. they’ve even noticed that there aren’t many women in the board rooms. they’re giving me training, and they value me as an employee and a colleague. It’s pretty amazing.

The funny situation is that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I still have not committed myself 110% to this career path, and I guess that’s just fine. I mean, I still want to succeed, and I’m not unhappy at all, but I am in a very weird place where my employer really likes me, I like them just fine, I’m doing a darn good job and am recognized for it, and I just don’t know how much excitement to expect. I’m back at that “fun hobby or career path” dilemma – I heart alternative fuels and would love to call up mike bloomberg and tell him that in order to solve potential blackouts before they occur he should make like Aurora and outlaw the incandescent bulb. but I just don’t know where to go with that.

And then I find out that I’m getting a promotion and the seemingly wildly huge raise in the 10s of percents. Which is, honestly, pretty great in an industry that doesn’t refer to annual raises that are 3 or 4% as “standard of living” increases, even though they are obviously NOT a real raise, but just keeping up with inflation. Suddenly it seems like I really MIGHT be on the right track, and that maybe I am doing a very good job, and maybe this IS one of those things that I’m decent at.

I think that maybe because I’m *not* unhappy here I find myself questioning if I’m trying hard enough to get what I want. When you’re unhappy the best path is much easier to find. it’s when you’re satisfied that you really have to look around to decide what you want. And then there is that whole gifted child thing, where I want badly to do well, but not badly enough to actually work at it, and if something seems like it’ll be hard I have to talk myself into going through with it because the fear of failure is hard to overcome. Ironically, I will say that the older I get the less afraid I am of failing. it might be that I am more secure in my abilities, but it might be that I am more confident because I know I’m good at lots of things.

anyway. I guess I’m doing something right, despite being out of the office for 7 days this month. maybe someone noticed all the late nights I’ve been putting in? maybe they haven’t noticed how I am very strict about comping those late nights as vacation time? whatever – I’ll take it!

Number of hours by which I misjudged my departure from work (so far): 3 and counting.

Number of thunderstorms that have rolled through while I sit all alone on the 5th Floor of work: 3, and counting.

at least there is some symmetry in the universe.

edited to add: this is what one looks like after leaving work at 4:45 and returning home to dash through the rain and climb into bed before ones brain catches up from the job and starts to ruminate on all the camping packing that must occur before 12:30 PM the next day.

you know what’s glamarous? working until 10:30 PM on a friday night.

at work they have semi-promoted me to a phase manager of a big ol’ project and I am mildly stressing out. my boss has told me that 1. the project is v. impt and when the project manager says to jump, I jump, and 2. that I was recommended for a mid-year promotion but the big big big boss suggested it become a 3/4 year promotion and also, a promotion contingent on me not screwing up this big ol’ project. Well! so today we had our first deliverable go out and it was the most last minute of last minute affairs because of a late approval from the PM. I didn’t get a chance to adequately review it, so I left a bunch of comments on the writer’s chair. Like, a LOT of comments. Like, lots of blue ink. I shouldn’t have HAD to review it like that because 1. the writer is supposed to be a specialist for this kind of document and also it *had* been reviewed by the PM and by the writer’s boss, but there were lots of uglifying formatting errors and there is NOTHING that makes a client doubt your science like an ugly report, sadly (and irrationally) enough. so now I’m wondering if I should take this up a level and let the PM and the writer’s boss know about the comments, or if the fact that I reviewed it after it went out is too damning to breathe a word of to anyone (except for you, dear public internets).

Outside of that, I am working to Effect Change from Within by sending emails to people’s bosses when they do a really bang-up above-and-beyond job. Like how our office administrator and drafter stayed until 7:30 getting the report together with me tonight and fedexing it around the country, and not only that, but with smiles on their pretty pretty faces. I made sure to send an email out right away and to cc all kinds of important people and to bcc the wonderful ladies who helped so they would know the were having accolades heaped upon their heads. I am a big fan of praise when it is deserved. it makes things so much Better!

best part of getting this report out? one of the copies required a handwritten note with directions as to who should receive it, and I made sure to use my new lovely fancy KarinaJean, P.E. stationary that my silly silly company provided me. Honestly! it says on the left side “CompanyName” and on the right side

“KarinaJean, P.E.
Engineer”

awesome! not awesome enough to make up for staying until oops, 11PM tonight, but shoot, kind of awesome, no?

Today there is an office moving fiasco: last night the rental guys came and took their furniture, and this morning the “new” desks were supposed to arrive and they were going to take my perfectly fine, comfortable, well used desk to another office and bring me an old ratty nasty old desk left over from the OTHER nj office (which moved over the weekend). which in itself is an inconvenience, b/c I had to empty my desk and pack everything away last night. but! but! the building FORGOT to tell us that we’re not allowed to move things during daylight today, so they’ve taken my desk and left me with NOTHING. Nothing!

Normally this would be a nonissue – I’d pick up my laptop and cheerfully move somewhere else in the office and work away happily. But today I am SO inconvenienced b/c my neck and shoulder (the one I jammed between the wall and the toilet when I was laid up b/c of my knee surgery) hurt so badly. something terrible happened night before last and during the day and by last night I was sitting in my mary kay meeting grimacing as my neck spasmed. which means that if I need my giant boxes of papers that are not in my desk, I can’t move them because I’m Really Trying to be good about not lifting things or being unergonomic. maybe I should move to australia.

I presented my thesis to the nywea today. it went very well, except for the part where there were no comments and I don’t know if I 1. talked too fast, 2. did a terrible job, 3. bored the heck out of them, or 4. presented a topic that people don’t know much about, and therefore, will take my word as gospel.

because I’ve gained so much weight in the last 3 years, I don’t have a suit jacket that fits over my, well, boobs. let’s just be frank here. I gained about 10,000 lbs in my breasts. I didn’t want to buy a new one because I am, potentially, slimming, so instead I wore a skirt that I’d made but never finished, a tight sweater, and a sparkly broach. it was great. I don’t think I looked bad!

tomorrow I’m doing the “no suit!” thing again. I’m going to wear a tweedy skirt, shirt, and cardigan. I’m going to a client meeting. it’ll be fine. here’s a secret: while there are a lot more women engineers now than there used to be, people still have no idea how a lady should dress. so I get away with a lot. (case in point: a lady is not supposed to wear diamonds before 5, or a watch after 5. diamond studded watches? are not for the faint of heart.)

So, this page is not the clearest, but according to it, 59% of people who took the CE exam for the first time passed. Wow. I don’t know, I thought it would be higher, y’know? Yikes. Again, I am SO VERY GLAD that I’m not worried about that anymore. sheesh!

and Boy, I hope my buddies and girlfriends did ok/find out soon/etc.

Check me out, I won the PE!

I am SO THRILLED. So happy I don’t have to take it again, proud and accomplished and excited. After my not sure what to think reaction to the test, my historically gruesome gpa and college test performances, and my almost last minute freakout, it’s so satisfying to have it OVER and DONE WITH.

I can’t wait to get a stamp and to emboss all my holiday cards. Whoot!

(of course, more practically, this is a REALLY REALLY GOOD THING professionally. It leads to a bonus and perhaps a salary increase and a KarinaJean, P.E. business card, and puts me solidly on the project management track. and I think I might be the only lady PE in the north regional offices of MyCompany! and even more practically, how the HECK did I pull this off when I read 14 books the month before the exam?! Interrobang!

y’all might not know, but I have an uncanny knack of chatting up clients and subcontractors. Seriously. I have gotten EVERYONE’s PE exam story, I learn about favorite vacation spots and what people’s wives do for a living and also personal political philosophies. Between this and my knack of non sequitur, I guess at least the client is left equating MyCompany with Friendly Conversation. And best of all, one of our contractors sent us a couple of reports today and tied them up with pink marking tape. I heart them. It was such a nice surprise!

So, I’m totally stressed here. I’m still at work and I have to be here for another hour going over things with 2 people who really need me to tell them what to do (at least in this instance), and I feel like if I had just started studying one week earlier I would have been fine, and I feel like I”ll never figure out how to calculate the total % reduction in volatile solids as a municipal waste water stream passes through a clarifier, and then an aerator, and I feel very taken advantage of, except it’s my own fault that I’m still here working, because I didn’t say no.

All in all, I am so sick and tired of being here working when I have a Very Important Test to take day after tomorrow. All my week long zen moments where I thought of this test as being a PSAT type of thing and at least it would be a good practice experience – no, that’s not the real me talking. That’s me trying to trick the real me, who is screaming you canNOT fail you canNOT take this over again you canNOT go through this stress of working full time and having a life and having personal relationships and trying to study all at the same time.

So, I really really really really really hope I pass. I really hope I can get out of here by 7. I really hope I can go home, get a good nights sleep, and wake up at 6AM or 7AM and study like crazy. I’ve got a doctors appt. at 2:30 and I really don’t want to work hard after that. But I have so much left to do, so freakin’ much.

horrors.

I guess even though I don’t think anyone is reading this except for my mom and occasionally a couple of friends, I don’t feel like updating that often, especially when things are so low. suffice it to say: things are very rough. I’m still blue about work. I’m stressing about the PE. my apartment is a filthy disgusting mess, and there are weird interpersonal things to deal with. I’m hoping everything will work out but lately I’ve been feeling like nothing is easy or right in my life except for my killer guacamole. And now that avocados aren’t in season, what is there? it’s hard to stay positive when the avocados aren’t in season any more. It’s all I had left, that is, except for the lesser known works of louisa may alcott (who is now my only comfort).

This weekend I tried to clean my home so at least I’d have a safe place to retreat to. But I got distracted by other things that were more pressing, and now I’m wracked with indecision:

Do I clean up my whole apartment so it’s all done, unpacked, moved in, and quickly so?
or do I finish painting my entranceway and bedroom and THEN unpack all my stuff and be emphatically moved in?

I’m thinking of a sick day this week so I can paint. I really need it. I need to take some time and clean the apartment and get some little things out of the way and clear my to do lists so all I have to do this week is study for my PE. I will have to take sick days later in the month for that, too. There’s no way I can get it all done on weekends. Gosh. I got some books on tape from the library for my painting and cleaning and unpacking day. It will be awesome.

In work news, it was slightly cathartic to tell the corporate HR guy why I think people are leaving the company in our weird employee retention brainstorming session. But then, I have a tendency to let go of things after I say them out loud, to assume that the other party will hear my feed back and resolve the problems. That probably isn’t happening.

In blog news: because I’m not in pittsburgh anymore I think I’ll have a new blog topic: the eggs benedict review. I love eggs benedict, and have a firm idea of what hollandaise sauce should taste like. It’s something I always get at diners in NJ, and if there’s one thing NJ has a lot of, it’s diners. Much like PGH and her fish sandwiches.

other blog news: I really love the google toolbar spell checker. It’s exactly what I needed b/c the version of word press I’m using doesn’t have that feature.

In spendthrift news: I’m getting an mp3 player. I think it’ll be great at the gym. There’s a lot of radio podcasting things that I want to get in on, and listening to them on the laptop when I am sitting around isn’t the best way to hear things. But I’m not going to get the sleeky, shiny, and bitsy ipod nano, I’m going for the innovative, utiliatarian, multifunction, and bitsy muvo tx fm player. it’s got a radio! and is a flash drive! and is very small! it should be good. plus, I have an internet girlfriend who works at creative so I will get a slightly reduced price. Sweet.

In apartment news: I’ve been meaning to have a lot of things framed, and the framing store in my little town is having a framing special: 16×24 for $30, 24×36 for $40. I don’t know if this is a good price, but I’m going to look it up. I have a LOT of things that need to be framed!

There. Not too blue, but a solid list of things that are going on. mostly, I’m crazified. Mostly. Hopefully it will be better soon. I anticipate post-october, for sure. Perhaps earlier. PERHAPS.

I’m feeling awfully Blue lately about work. I’m tense all the time and working incredibly hard and it’s like running up a slippery icy oily mountain. Everything I do seems to be an insurmountable task. Everything I try to organize or coordinate seems to go wrong in some small way. I can’t figure out how to work smarter and faster and how to anticipate all the problems that are coming up.

Worst of all, I have a vague general feeling of constant failure. My clients are grouchy, my supervisors are busy, and I don’t get any kind of positive feedback from anyone. Which wouldn’t be bad if I weren’t getting negative feedback from some people. But negative feedback + 0 positive feedback = feeling crummy. I need something to balance out the bad! I need someone to say “hey, karinajean, you are working hard/getting things done/always there when we need you/quite a gal.” Just throw me a bone, already.

I know I’m holding it together very very well, considering I didn’t have a comprehensive training program, and in the last 6 months I’ve had to learn a new career, a new company, and how to be a task manager complete with financials and corporate structural issues. I know I’m responsive to the clients. I know things are getting done. I just feel like I’m not doing ENOUGH, and there really isn’t any time to do it all. I need someone else to task-manage some of these projects for me. I want new, clean, not under-bid clients to work for. I want to work on projects that have a little design. I want to be able to feel like I can close my computer and go home, if not at 5, then at 5:30. SIGH.

I am blue.

This week I’ve been really trying to get it together here at work. I’m so unproductive it’s embarassing. This is why I find myself at 8:20 updating my blog. Because I am unproductive, and even though I want to BE HOME the most productivity seems to happen between the hours of 4 and 6 and honest, that’s no way to live.

Anyway, I read Getting Things Done by David Allen and have been spending a fair amount of time getting set up. I piled all kinds of things into my inbox and made a bunch of slips of paper with actions on them (I dumped my brain. It was great, and freeing, and my stack of next actions was about 1 inch thick). I printed out selected pages from the DIY Planner, and spoke to my admin point of contact about getting a dayplanner to customize. Last night I sat on the couch with the DIY planner pages and my little slips of paper spread out all around me and worked out a system that I think will be really useful. I don’t have the planner yet, but I am trying to work it from my binder clip (it’s just harder to go from page to page, and that’s kind of a hassle. Today at work I got my inbox vaguely sorted out into what they call “tickler” folders, which is supposed to be an organization system that you refer to constantly and that helps you achieve things. I ended up setting up things for invoices to approve, invoices to mark up and give to secretary, items to schedule, POs to complete, and task manager misc tasks. I hope I can keep things filed and get them done quickly that way.

The two things that seem most attractive about the Getting Things Done system are 1. it’s geared towards handling a job where you have things tossed in your lap constantly, and some of those things are on fire, and 2. it involves making a lot of lists, which I LOVE. It’s a bottom up system (unlike the Franklin Covey system, which involves setting goals for your whole life and then working towards them).

But then this morning I thought: is this new drive to organize just the best way of procrastination that I’ve ever come up with? Could be, grasshopper, could be. Know thy enemy, know thyself, indeed!

Anyway, here’s the system I’ve started to set up (and hope will be effective)

I’ll probably update more when I get around to it. If anyone is interested in the GTD system, there are a bunch of blogs and wikis out there. Good starting places are DIY Planner and 43 Folders.

I had a really marvelous time on vacation. even though I had to stay until freakin MIDNIGHT on the friday before finishing up things before I could go. boy howdy, that wasn’t cool. and then I got back and all the things I thought would get done while I was gone? not done. and also, a client was upset. and also, it was all my fault b/c I was working too hard on everything else and this one client (naturally) felt like I wasn’t helping them enough.

y’all may not know this about me, but I have a tendency to beat myself up. big time. I am not nice to myself about stuff sometimes, and when I’m disappointed I blub. I’ve been doing a great job holding it together at work despite the internal review to avoid this situation again and to develop an action plan to prevent another big screw up. My boss told me I need to learn to say NO when I’m overloaded. um. I may have to rethink my codependent-as-consultant analogy. it didn’t work out.

I’ll post later today, hopefully, with some real fun details and also pictures of crap demolition, and the mighty wayne-van in action. I’m not so blue anymore, because the specter of immediate wrath and disappointment from upper management has pretty much blown over. hopefully.