Work Matters

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Oh Snap

It’s midnight. I’m trying desperately to finish a project that’s been in the works for months. And by “finish a project” I’m talking about writing. It’s been A Day, which means that three thousand little unexpected messes popped up and needed to be resolved immediately, pushing back my Time of Uninterrupted Writing to now.

My husband and I enjoyed a nice dinner together. We watched two episodes of Property Virgins and one episode of House Hunters, and then agreed to go our separate ways so I could work and he could study.

My fingers are flying over the keyboard… I’m Getting Somewhere, which feels good… And Being Done shines like a beacon in the distance. I am vaguely aware that my husband has stopped studying for the night and is doing the dishes.

“Should I run the dishes?” my husband asks.

“Is the dishwasher full?”

“Well, not really… I couldn’t fit both pots in there. And the top is pretty empty.”

“Can you fit the smaller pot in the top?”

“Hmmm….”

I go back to work. I move four paragraphs to a blank page – they just don’t quite say what they need to say. But how to start again?

“I got it to fit!”

“That’s great…” Aha – this is a good angle… Now I need to look up a statistic to fit into this paragraph… And what comes next?

My husband comes over to me and kisses me on the head. “I’m going to bed.”

“Okay,” I say, distractedly. “I just want to finish this – I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I refocus on the work. What’s the best way to present this information? Do I spell it out, or just hint at it?

“So… How is the work going?” wonders my husband, resting his hand on the top of my head. This gesture that I normally find sweet and loving irritates the hell out of me.

“Not super,” I say. I’m trying to figure out how to phrase something – the correct phrasing is there in my mind’s eye, a little fuzzy… I do a mental squint to see it more clearly…

“So… How much longer do you think you’ll be working?”

“I have no idea.”

“No idea, huh…”

“Nope. I’ll come to bed as soon as I can.” I’m trying to be firm but polite. But inside, I want to scream, “Leave me alone!”

Now what was I going to write? I struggle to gather my thoughts – I’m so close to getting this done…

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my husband approaching. He waves a sheaf of papers at me. “Should I just put these here?”

“Yes.”

“Hon. Right here?” he insists, forcing me to look up.

“YES. For god’s sake! I already told you yes! Just put them down right there!”

I can feel him recoil at my tone. But I just need to finish the goddamn project.

Listen, this is not about my husband. He’s a kind, thoughtful man who loves me. He wants attention, like anyone does. He wants me to focus on him when he’s speaking.

I get that. He’s not to blame for my frustration. He did nothing wrong.

And yet… I snap at him.

With every tiny interruption, I’m growing more and more irritated… My attention on my work is becoming more and more splintered… My inner voice is screaming, “This man has known me for NINE YEARS. Why does he not yet understand my writing process?” And my temper is quickly reaching its boiling point. By the time I lash out, my patience has been stretched thin.

But my husband, I think, is unaware of what’s going on in my head. (Big surprise, right?) While I feel like I’m being clear – “I’m very busy and I need uninterrupted silence right now” – I think he feels like I’m responding to him normally.

The obvious answer is to stop and tell him, calmly and specifically, that I need to not be interrupted now.

But that doesn’t always work – maybe because he doesn’t think a few tiny questions are that big of a deal… Maybe because so many minutes have passed since his last question that he doesn’t connect them as a long string of interruptions… Maybe because he’s not a writer, and he doesn’t understand the immense inner concentration required to craft a perfect sentence or capture the ghosts of words and phrases flickering through your brain. I don’t think he knows the feeling of being tapped into some different level of consciousness, where whispers of ideas swirl all around you, and you have to reach out and grab hold of them and fasten them to the page before they disappear in a wisp of smoke.

Again – this really has nothing to do with him. This tendency to snappishness is my shortcoming. And I don’t know how to fix it.

Truly, I can be a very patient person. When it comes to coworkers, clients, friends, random strangers, bad traffic, airline delays… I can be – at the very least – outwardly calm and collected, if not genuinely unperturbed.

But when it comes to my poor husband, it seems that my default is impatience and snapping.

I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the prickly wife who snarls unprovoked. I don’t want him to edit himself, just in case I might bark at him. I don’t want him to start to dislike me. (Because wow – snappy people are NOT likable.)

And I don’t want to be someone who can’t control her anger. Especially when it comes to the person I love most in the universe.

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Friday Randomosity: Everyone’s at BlogHer Except Me Edition

I know that pretty much the entire blogosphere is at BlogHer, this very second, forming friendships and meeting their favorite bloggers in person and collecting big bags of SWAG… And I know this because I am NOT there, and am dejectedly hitting “refresh” on my favorite blogs just in case they are updating from NYC.

Anyway. Here’s some randomosity!

* Even though I am pouting – just a little – about not being a BlogHer, I don’t think I could ever go. For one thing, I am hugely awkward in person. For another thing, I am very shy, and would probably spend the whole conference skulking in the backs of rooms and wistfully glancing at the bloglebrities I’d die to meet and then going up to my hotel room and crying.

* My husband and I got into a super huge fight this week. It involved our upcoming vacation. You see, he came home from work at 9:00 in the morning and asked me if I’d had a chance to look at Asheville and Charlottesville and decide where to go on our vacation. I told him I’d only been able to look in Asheville, and I found a really cute B&B called the Biltmore Village Inn. Then HE said that HE’D found something called the Residences at Biltmore that looked really nice. And then he said that he’d also found something called the Inn at the Biltmore that looked really cool too.

Wherein I said, “I JUST told you about the Inn at the Biltmore.”

And he said, “No you didn’t. You just told me about the Residences at Biltmore.”

And I was all, “Are you crazy, man? YOU just told ME about the Residences at Biltmore! I had never heard of that until you JUST NOW TOLD ME!”

And he was all, “Nuh uh.”

And by this point I was in a frothing rage because he was being CRAZY and on top of that STUBBORN, so I screeched, “YOU JUST TOLD ME ABOUT THE RESIDENCES. I WAS THE ONE WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THE INN AT THE BILTMORE!”

And then he went to brush his teeth and we both calmed down and looked things up. And apparently we are both idiots.

The end.

* Speaking of Asheville. THANK YOU for all your excellent advice! You did absolutely nothing to help me make a decision, but you did make me feel a whole lot better about going to either Charlottesville or Asheville.

However… There’s been a vacation… snafu, if you will.

You see, my MIL just informed my husband that she has a week of her time share available. And I’m not going to pretend I understand time share logistics, but it sounded like we could use it for our vacation.

And let it never be said that I am a spendthrift, Internet! I jumped all over the possibility that our lodging could be FREE.

However, there are no places where we could stay in Asheville or Charlottesville.

Hence the snafu.

There are some OTHER places we could go. (And stay for FREE.) But for some reason, none of those places are particularly appealing to my husband. He is SET on Charlottesville (or Asheville, but he is leaning toward C-Ville). And he is fine with not only a) paying for rooms but b) paying a LOT for rooms and c) having a shorter vacation than we would with the time share.

Baffling, I tell you.

* At this very moment I am eating cottage cheese and carrots. And I have the sinking sensation that the cottage cheese has, shall we say, “turned.”

I mean, I smelled it before I put some on my plate. And I checked the expiration date (Monday the ninth). And I even tasted a little curd, which seemed fine. But now that I’m eating big bites of it, it’s got a weird, sour, “off” sort of taste.

I guess if you see another post like this one, you’ll know who to blame.

* Speaking of food poisoning… because it’s everyone’s favorite topic… If the cottage cheese does me in, that will be the second time this summer that I’ve had food poisoning. Also: The second time EVER.

How can one go 29 years without suffering from food poisoning… and then have two bouts of it in the span of a couple of months?

* By the way, in case you were wondering, the second bout with the ol’ FP was far better than the first bout.

That’s because the first bout occurred while my husband and I were out of town. And we were staying with friends. Who only have one bathroom. Conveniently located right across the hall from their bedroom.

So the second bout did not have that embarrassing side effect. Also, I did not have to deal with Sweat Chills, where you are hot as hell and damp as a wet rag but your teeth are chattering.

Nor did I have to deal with Running Out of Toilet Paper When You Need Toilet Paper More Than You Ever Have in Your Whole Life. Which led to me frantically searching under the bathroom sink in my friends’ house… and then crawling (YES. On my hands and knees) down the hall to the guest room where my husband was blissfully asleep and begging him to help me find the toilet paper.

Y’all. My husband has NEVER – in the entire duration of our nearly nine-year relationship – seen me barf. And I was afraid that Bout One with the Ol’ FP would end that streak. (It didn’t.)

* My, this blog post has certainly taken a turn for the disgusting. Thank goodness no one is reading!

* So, in non-barf-related news, I think the Universe has it out for me. Every time I schedule something that looks remotely like a vacation, ten thousand responsibilities pop up.

So next week, I am going to Napa with three very dear high school friends. (YAY!) I am taking off three days to do so. I haven’t taken an actual, honest-to-goodness full day off since… Um… Hmmm… My wedding? Which was December of 2008. Yes, I’ve taken “vacations.” But up till now, those vacations have been spent either a) working full time or b) working part time.

So, of course, now that I am going to take some Real Live Days Off, I have about 30 projects going on. (Which I am DEEPLY thankful for, please don’t get me wrong.) Plus, my in-laws will be here. And I am giving a presentation in a couple of weeks and need to prepare for that.

So. A lot going on.

To top it all off, my husband will be done with stupid night float the day that I leave for Napa.

* I hate night float more than anything in the whole wide world.

* Except maybe food poisoning.

* Nope. Night float wins.

* Did you notice up there when I said I was giving a presentation? Me. The girl who blushes during BOOK CLUB when I have to give my totally un-scientific opinions on the book we just read.

Now, I want to be clear on something. If you hire me to give a presentation, I will give a kick ass presentation. It will be well-researched. It will be clear. It will be well-organized. And it will not exceed the given time limit. (There’s nothing worse than an overly lengthy presentation.) (EXCEPT FOR NIGHT FLOAT.)

But. I hate speaking in front of people.

That doesn’t mean that I can’t do it. I mean, I was a teacher for three full semesters, people. Of college students. Who were about three years younger than I was. (Read: Intimidating and totally not intimidated by me.)

But I’m scared. Hopefully my blushing and shaky voice will subside after the first five minutes.

* If you are somehow NOT at BlogHer, please leave me a detailed comment or post on your blog. Because I am bored and I feel like there’s nothing to read. Whine whine whine.

* My stomach just gave an ominous gurgle. So I’m outtie 5000.

* * * * *

There you have it Internet! Happy Friday!

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Do or Don’t: Friends in the Workplace

The only real, non-summer job I’ve ever had was a remote position.

Meaning, of course, that I worked remotely. From my living room.

Working from home has its challenges. For instance, there was talk, for a while, of getting a webcam so that I could actively participate in meetings. I fretted about it (needlessly) for weeks, wondering if I could get away with wearing a blazer over my pajamas.

It can be lonely, too.

But one of the big benefits is that you are pretty insulated against office politics.

Sure, people at work may hate you. They may talk about you. They may find you hideously irritating. Or just plain hideous (maybe that’s why we didn’t get the webcam?).

But you will probably never know!

Because putting “I hate you. You’re ugly.” into an email is not quite the same as gossiping about it with your coworker near the water cooler.

I can safely say I’ve never had to deal with the issues that accompany befriending a coworker.

But my dear, sweet friend Marie* has always been the type to forge close friendships with her colleagues.

And recently, this bit her in the ass.

You see, Marie got promoted. Yay, Marie!

She deserved it. And I am saying that based on a) knowing her and b) the comments she gets from her boss and c) the fairly frequent raises she gets.

However, her promotion ended up stepping on someone else’s toes. Let’s call her Assface.

No? Assface is too prejudicial?

Okay. Let’s call her Hairy Buns.**

So, good ol’ Hairy Buns has been with the company longer than Marie has. I’m sure she does a great job and I’m sure she’s a lovely person.

But Marie ended up making a few changes that not only saved the company money, but made the work flow more efficient.

So she got promoted. And Hairy Buns did not.

Hairy Buns is pissed.

Listen, I would be disappointed too. Disappointed that I didn’t get the promotion. Disappointed in myself for not working harder/reaching farther/kissing more butt.

But now she’s taking it out on Marie. Basically by giving her the silent treatment.

(Why no, they are not in fourth grade. Why do you ask?)

Marie – who is sweet and kind and loves to please people and also hates it when people are mad at her – hates getting the Deep Freeze from Hair-Bear. She is miserable.

I think Marie has three possible ways to handle this situation.

  1. She can continue to be her normal friendly, cheerful, efficient self until Hairy Buns gets over herself.
  2. She can return the silent treatment and stony glares until the whole thing blows over.
  3. She can confront Hairy B and try to accelerate the “getting over it” factor.

If I had bigger balls, I would certainly choose option 3. Communication is always good. I mean, maybe Bunsy is just pissed and upset and disappointed, and has no idea she’s taking it out on Marie or coming across as a sour-grapes-eating immature beeyotch. And if Marie tells her, “Look, you are making me feel terrible for my success,” then maybe HB will apologize and be more pleasant.

Of course, it could backfire and turn into a full-on temper tantrum. Apparently this can happen. Don’t believe me? Watch Real Housewives of Anything.

I would steer clear of option 2, even though it’s the easiest and possibly most satisfying. It seems unprofessional to me. Colleagues will notice that the temperature of the office has dropped 50 degrees, and they will notice who’s holding the ice machine. If Marie is pouty and angry, people will think just as badly of her as they will of ol’ Hairy Fairy.

That’s why I am all for option 1. Even though I know being bright and sunny is reeeeaaalllly difficult when you are feeling under attack.

But I think it’s professional to keep your personal stuff out of the office as much as possible. And a fight with a coworker, while work adjacent, is not something that belongs at the office.

I think, too, that option 1 will make Marie shine even more in the eyes of her boss. She’ll have taken the high road. She’ll have proved that doing her job well is more important than some silly office spat.

My thoughts on this topic are heavily influenced by my personal Workplace Policy. Much like the Bad News Policy, this policy comes largely from my parents.

And that is, in a nutshell:

Be Professional at All Times

All my life, my parents reinforced the fact that there is a boundary between work and non-work life. It’s elastic, but there’s not much give to that boundary. You don’t bring work home (okay, I FAILed at that one, as I work from home). You don’t call your spouse/parent/sibling at work unless there is a serious emergency. You don’t take sick days for being hungover – in fact, you don’t take sick days unless you are at death’s door. (I know this one isn’t popular – I mean, hello GERMS.) You don’t talk about your personal life at work (Although there is some wiggle room here – you don’t want to appear as though you’re hiding something.)

Working remotely, I extended that boundary to include “You don’t make friends with coworkers.”

Now, I was always friendly with coworkers. I tried to ask them questions to show I cared about them. I gave small bits of personal information out – like my husband’s name, where I lived, where I grew up. Broad things about me. If I visited the office, we’d go out for drinks or lunch sometimes.

But I didn’t have friends at the office. No one I’d call on the weekends. No one I’d gossip with about the latest episode of Top Model. No one I’d invite to my wedding.

And it worked great.

Yes, I know people form incredible friendships (even marriages) while at work. Some of my parents’ closest friends are people who worked with my father.

But I can’t help but wonder… If you don’t have friends at work, isn’t that better? Doesn’t that make getting ahead a whole lot less messy?

I know I’d feel pretty terrible if my hard work and dedication led to a promotion over a friend. I’d feel even worse about not being able to take pride in my success because it hurt a friend or damaged a friendship. And I’d feel worst of all if concern about a friend’s feelings prevented me from trying to be the best I possibly could be at my job.

I know it would be harder to let a friend know that her work wasn’t up to snuff (if it were my job to tell her, obvs) or to disagree with her on a work matter.

I know it would be difficult to remain upbeat and professional if I were arguing with a friend – whether we were fighting about a work or personal matter.

Seems like keeping your coworkers and friends in two distinct categories could help prevent a lot of hurt feelings and worry.

But I put it to you, people who have worked in Real Live Offices.

Is friendship at the office a no-no?

How do you deal with a coworker who is also a friend?

What would you do if you were in Marie’s delicate position?

The public*** demands an answer!

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

* Identity disguised to protect dear sweet not-Marie!

** I have no knowledge of whether Hairy Buns’s are actually hairy. But hey, if they are, more power to her. We don’t judge here at Life of a Doctor’s Wife.

*** And by “public” I clearly mean “me.”