Destiny Skywalker

Well, I'm pretty sure I am blowing up my career next week. Someone stood up for me for someone taking credit for my ideas, and the response is probably going to be taking away a leadership role from me that I've worked hard for. If they happens I am going to be moving fast on an exit strategy. I'm so mad. I thought I was going to get my big break, and instead I'm pretty sure it's time to admit defeat and leave.

I want to get rid of front lawns. They're the stupidest things ever. I would totally go for a victory garden in a heartbeat if the HOA wouldn't cry about it.

Double post. I miss admin powers.

Driving in Italy is the most terrifying thing I've ever done. If you have 2 lanes they will pass in between the lanes. We were driving on a highway and there was a sign that was literally a rock and an arrow pointing at the rock. We said what the hell does that sign mean? 2 seconds later we almost ran into a giant Boulder that was parked in the middle lane. My husband downshifted and changed lanes just in time. I love how instead of breaking up the Boulder and removing it, they just made a sign that meant Giant Fucking Boulder Ahead.

I have the final exam dream when I'm anxious. It's been a few years, though. I've had the dream about teeth falling out, probably twice. Honestly, the most frequent dream I have is that my husband has decided to leave me/us. He is furious at me for something and won't let me apologize to fix it. He's just done and cold to me. So after I had kids, I mostly stopped having dreams, or at least dreams I can remember. Honestly I think it's a protection thing. I can remember one dream that I've had about my son, and he was running around the car and definitely in danger and not listening to me. I think my brain knows that even dreams would traumatize me.

Our relatives from Ventura complained it takes forever to get anywhere in Seattle. But they're always the same ones who tell us to fly into Burbank or Santa Barbara instead of LAX.

Today I am running Ragnar Northwest Passage. There is a lot of poop soup here too.

I'm finding people will get away with what they can and hope you don't call them on it.

I'll be real, it feels like the American Dream has been a total sham all along, and it's pretty disappointing to realize we are not "the greatest country in the world" like we were told growing up. (Not saying Russia is great, either.) I'm moderately successful and looking around asking wtf is wrong here and why am I letting myself be a cog in the machine that just let's rich ***holes get richer. Let's just say I'm not jumping to SpaceX or Blue Origin any time soon. Any pay increase wouldn't be worth the stress of working for those nutjobs.

That's great about the new job. I was wondering about the details. I think a shorter commute will help. And I hear you on the burnout. I think I am burning out at work too from the lack of organization and frenzy of supporting multiple programs. I feel like some days I just sit there and stare at the screen and nothing happens because there's just so much to get done and I can't decide what needs to get done first.

So I have always prided myself on being organized and generally having my "isht" together. I'm not sure if it's COVID or if it's society in general, but lately I'm struggling because everyone around me seems to be disorganized and its making my life a hot mess, and now I'm doubting my own abilities. So in the past week, we've had: - A package containing my in-laws' lifetime National Park pass (which is apparently not something you can get anymore) not getting delivered to us before they left town. We spent probably 6 hours on the phone with FedEx over 2 days getting this package re-routed, and along the way no one gave us the same answer twice and it was generally a disaster. It once again missed them at the 2nd vacation house because they sent it back to Memphis instead of putting it on a truck to drive 2 hours east. - We were assessed late fees for our daughter's first tuition payment due 7/1. A month ago, the school announced they were transitioning to a new payment system and please go sign up by a certain date. I did, and even have a confirmation email with the details of the payment plan, which checking account number they were pulling from, etc. It turns out they auto-signed my husband up a few days later and decided his account was the primary, which had no information for payment nor a plan selected. We are not the only family this happened to. Apparently they've waived the late fees but they still want me to use this rogue account that I never set up, and meanwhile, I can't access the account that I set up, because the school never approved it. - We are having air conditioning installed today. Yesterday when we were in Central Washington, a 2 hour drive, an electrician rang our doorbell saying he was there for the pre-work. We had people come out to our house 2 weeks prior to check out the installation and this was never mentioned, nor would we have agreed to it because we already cut our vacation short to get back in time for this instead of having to wait until November. Prior to this, we initially contacted the company in January, they came out in February, gave us a quote, we said yes we will take this option, and then radio silence for months while I tried to contact them to ask them to send over paperwork. The front office asked me to contact the guy who came out, and then when I called a month later to say the guy still hadn't been in contact despite reaching out via phone, text, and email, the person we talked to admitted the guy had left. Then they said they couldn't get us in until November as we were ready to sign on the dotted line. When I pitched a fit because our Costco membership is going to expire in August, and we specifically upgraded knowing we were going to drop a bunch of money on this during this year, they found us a cancelation for this week, but we had to leave Central WA last night at 9pm so we could be here for the 9 AM install. Yesterday no one would call us back to tell us what the plan was today since they said they had no electrician today. I called back the person who called me at 4pm to ask if they had a status update, but the girl said this was her personal phone and she wasn't at work anymore, so call the office. So I left a message, no response. This morning an electrician rang the doorbell at 8:30 AM. Super nice guy, but he also said he had no pictures and no information about our unit, and didn't even know what gauge wires to run, so he's coming back later today. But on the bright side they are here and it looks like they are getting it done, although they've run into a few issues already because it sounds like the estimators don't know what they're doing. I think there's one more but I'm just so exhausted I can't even today. I just feel like everything is a disaster lately, and I'm exhausted by it. I don't have time to triple-check everyone and nag everyone along. I took on a lead job at work almost 2 years ago, and even though this is the 3rd time I've done this, it's so overwhelming because once again, I feel like no one has their crap together and several people seemed to expect me and clean up the mess without addressing the systematic issues. So I've just given up and told people I'm not a babysitter or a secretary, and I expect grown men to be able to adult. And with all of these issues, I feel like all these people/companies are trying to gaslight me and tell me they contacted me and told me this or that and they did not. Or they refuse to do what seems like a simple ask. I get it, no one wants to work anymore, which is really no one wants to take a crappy job for crappy pay and deal with irate customers. But I feel like society is angry and falling apart and taking me down with it. Am I the only one feeling like this or is this happening everywhere?

I've heard about a few people having something along those lines so I'm wondering if something is circulating locally. And you're right, shared desks is pretty ripe for stuff like norovirus. I got that once from my kid who got it at daycare and omg never again. It was coming out both ends.

You too? My boss has that. I'm not going near the office this week.

Spending the weekend doing dumb crap like Costco runs and pulling up pavers in anticipation of getting AC installed in a few weeks. I also have to do some coding work because I'm dropping my daughter off at Girl Scout camp on Tuesday and picking her up Friday and its going to blow half the afternoon each time.

A lot of those protocols are designed for neurotypical brains. When Q had her concussion, she totally bombed the concussion protocol and I had to remind the physician that she would not have been able to pass the exam on a good day. I told her that she was going to have to rely more on physical symptoms. Things like responding to a list backwards or put things in a certain order was super hard for her, even before she hit her head.

Found out the teacher I was so worried about is leaving Special Education entirely and going to teach general education. That would've been nice to know months ago. We had a tour of the school. E remembered it but wasn't upset. The principal is still an uptight B who I can tell is freaked out because of his energy level, but I showed them some very simple interventions (Zones of Regulation, advice about how motion winds him up and weight/pressure is calming). Honestly I'm wondering if they were using all the wrong interventions with him because they are so wired to working with kids on the autism spectrum and often kids with ASD find motion to be very regulating. E is the opposite to your traditional autism profile. Speaking of autism, we saw the pediatrician yesterday (new one, I used moving as the excuse for needing a new pediatrician that was closer). He asked if we had any concerns and I said we had been told we should rule out autism. He wanted to refer to a center that I know is hardcore about ABA and wants you to commit to a minimum of 8 hours of ABA therapy during the week for all adults. Not a good match. I told him I needed to think about it. But by the end of the appointment, he told me that he didn't think I had anything to worry about and likely the neuropsych was obligated to point out ANY red flags, whether they concerned him or not. It made me feel a little bit better but I also hope I'm not being blown off. Also if E had been talking about Minecraft he might have had a different opinion lol. But E really did a good job and his big concern was getting a shot or having to show his penis. So I guess also on the bright side, no one is going to be able to get away with molesting him.

Oh I'm so glad they are doing the neuropsych evaluation. You will get some good information there.

ADHD can be pretty impacting to working memory and executive function. I mean, I swear my kids have a 5 second delay between hearing something and processing that you actually said something. Is neurologist going to look into anything further in terms of dementia?

I was thinking about you last night and realizing that you took a pretty big leap with a new job AND a huge move. And yes, that area you moved to is a bit difficult to navigate at first because of I-5 and a lack of through streets that run under it. Ain't no shame in using your phone GPS to navigate for awhile. Shoot I still use my phone to navigate even though I've been out here for 16 years, because I hate traffic and always want the quickest way anywhere. I know how to get to work 3 different ways and still checked my phone for the quickest way yesterday. I will tell you that the people you work with won't let you fail, so if you're worried about that, don't. That team wants people to succeed and won't give up on someone just because they have questions or hit a wall sometimes. A lot of those people actually love to teach others.

I don't think we've heard much from him since. How's recovery going?

Transitions are hard, it definitely causes a lot of anxiety and it's hard to breathe until it's over. We moved in September and even though it was only 2 miles, my husband still doesn't feel settled. I think there are maybe 3 boxes left to unpack (and 2 are pictures lol) but he's not settled yet. Do you guys want to come over for some beers and Otter Pops this weekend?

I am part of a union and they share all of our salaries. They don't put names up, but they break it down by age, type of engineer, supposed experience, etc. It's very useful data. It's also easy to figure out who some people are. One of my coworkers just got a promotion and shared with me what her new salary is because she knows I am next up for promotion, and she wants to make sure I don't get screwed. We both started as the 2 lowest paid engineers in our skill in the union, which was crap because I also had 2 years of experience under my belt and they claimed they couldn't meet my counter offer of like, $3k more. Once we realized this several years later, we teamed up to watch out for the other women in our skill and to encourage them to demand higher pay. I actually want to encourage the union to start breaking down the numbers by gender, because I think it will be a rude awakening.

Oh shit. Hurry and throw everyone into the car and start driving.

Sorry, I know how this goes. My husband can hardly stand to be around his mom because she's a Trumper, and he still considers himself a Republican but he can't stand the party in its current form. And she just wants to argue all damn day about it.

Oh Spam, I am so sorry. Tina fought such a good fight, and you did too, as her caretaker. MRSA is a bitch. I hope you know you did everything you could for her. I remember my own battles as mom's caretaker and you loved her so well. I wish I was there to give you a huge hug. Take your time to rest and grieve.