Adventures in Management - Finding out the Truth

I had a great laugh last week that I have to share with you.

My manager, J, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. In fact, some days he just downright drives me nuts. I really want him to go so I can take his place. He's been looking at some other opportunities, and because of that, there has been some churn in the Team's gossip mill going on the past few weeks about what would happen if he did move on to something else.

So last week I was sitting in my cube working when I overheard J. on the next row over talking to one of our project managers (another person who I don't especially trust). "XXX, you have to see this power point I made. You are the queen, I thought you'd appreciate it!" he bubbled over at her. She ooh-ed and ahh-ed over it and finally pronounced, "It's so manly!"

I choked a bit on the diet Coke I was drinking, stifling a laugh.

After he bounced back to his office, floating on the complement, I sent her an IM.

"Manly?? LOL!"

"Yeah, but I'd rather have him for a manager than KK." she wrote back.

I paused. Reread it. Yup, she said that, obviously thinking the IM came from someone else.

"Nice. LOL!" I wrote back, laughing to myself. Honestly, I know she doesn't care for me and what she thinks doesn't change anything.

You could hear the air suck out from that side of the room. The IM box disappeared. Then I heard frantic typing coming from over there.

"OMG, my face is so red! I'm really sorry!" She wrote in a new IM box. There was more, but I don't remember what it said.

"No biggie, XXX. It happens." I laughed over the cube wall. Seriously, it was funny. The downside is that she was holding up my departure to head to happy hour with some girlfriends.

To her credit she came over a few minutes later and sat down to talk about it. She fears for her job if I was her manager, which surprised me. She thought I didn't like her, but I figured she didn't like me. Life is a mirror. What you give is what you get, right? Who knows where that started.

In the end, I still don't trust this person much, but I wouldn't fire her by any means. She's bright, but she does what she can to get what she wants. I see through that and I think she knows it.

Gotta love the IM, huh?

Adventures in Flight - Love in the Air

I love flying Southwest Airlines, not just because I work there, but because you can just interact with some real characters.

I was coming home from a conference in Connecticut on Friday evening. It was a week-long course and I was exhausted from all the learning and of course, the evening adventures as well. When I'm tired, I like to choose a seat near the engines for the sole reason that people are less likely to talk in that area because it tends to be noisier. It was a full flight so there were folks all around us.

As we prepared for landing, the flight attendants made their usual announcement for everyone to put their chairs and trays in the "full and upright position". They breezed through the cabin looking for offenders several times. On one such pass, one of them stopped to ask someone behind me to comply.

From behind me I hear a loud, upper-Midwest accent, "Jack put your chair up. Jack, your chair! She wants you to put your chair up." Obviously the man couldn't hear well because each time, she got louder.

"Jack, push the button!"

I started smiling to myself and the lady next to me was doing the same thing. "It must be longtime love," she said, and that made the situation adorable. I nodded in agreement with a big grin.

We landed and this older couple got even more adorable. I asked her what part of Minnesota she was from (I have dear friends up there and just love the accent.) She smiled and told me that she was actually from Wisconsin. Then with a twinkle in her eye she added with that nasaly twang known in that area of the world, "Kenosha, Wisconsin. Home of Hanes Underwear and Snap-On Tools."

This couple is a widow and widower, I found out later from the passenger who sat next to them on the flight. I assumed they'd been married for years. It turns out, they've been living together "in sin", as she called it, for over 20 years and are still very much in love.

I hope to be that wry and that much in love when I'm in my older years.

Spiraling

The past two weeks have been draining, mostly emotionally, but physically as well. I've felt so out of control and lost.

About 3 weeks ago, I stopped swimming until I could get my shoulder and neck worked on by the chiropractor. Little did I know that it would be the last time for several weeks. It was feeling much better until the fall off my bike where I really injured it again. Since then, the only exercise I did was getting on a spin bike later that week.

To top it off, my house is under major repair where it's literally torn up. It's created such an uncontrollable chaos and mess, it's disconcerting.

The spiral continued. I haven't slept well at all, partly because of the chaos; partly because that shoulder is the on the side I sleep most nights. I wake up for an hour or two every night and can't get back to sleep without stewing. I try to read for a while and sometimes that helps. Because of this pattern, I've been shutting off the 4:45 alarm and skipping workouts. It's a nasty cycle. I miss workouts, which makes me more grumpy, which makes me not sleep enough...you get the picture.

Last night I finally gave up and took a Tylenol PM before heading to bed. In the past, that's helped keep me asleep. It helped a ton. I didn't budge all night and woke up around 6:30 feeling the best I've felt in a while. I actually feel like riding tonight, if I didn't have plans at the ballpark.

Construction will be done (hopefully) on Friday and I can get my both my physical and mental houses back in order by the end of the weekend. The triathlon is less than 60 days away now and I'm getting nervous about this large break in training. I'll finish, but it's not going to be as good as it should have been. I'll just be glad when this is all over.

Texas "hill" training

Living in north Texas has brought me a new appreciation for wind. It's really blows here, especially in the spring as mother nature tries her best to let winter go with a bang. Just north of here, in Denton, there isn't much to break the wind between Oklahoma and Dallas. The wind is definitely stronger.

So yesterday I hopped on the bike with some friends and set out for a 30-ish mile ride. Because we don't have much in the way of hills here, I kind of look at these windy days as a simulated hill. You crawl up these mountains when the wind is right in your face.

I was really dreading the west wind even though I knew it'd be great training. The guy who planned the route said that most of the wind would be at our faces for the first 10 miles or so. Man, he wasn't kidding. There was a bridge running west-east that brought me down to the granny gear in a hurry and I still barely made it to 10mph. We had to stop several times along the way to re-group our tribe of 10.

Another downside to strong, gusty winds is that they get you off balance in a hurry if you don't anticipate it correctly. We were on a great sideroad with no traffic and were turning onto another road. I was yapping, not paying attention like I should have. Sure enough, between a turn, a gust of wind, and gravel, I ended up on my side in an instant. It scared me for sure as I'd only fallen off the bike one other time as an adult, and that was right when I got clips (yeah, you all have experienced that, right?).

This time, it hurt. Though I got right back up and took a breath, we continued on. We were only six miles in, but I thought I could stick it out. Thankfully, I was able to, but the first chance I got when we stopped at a roadside gas station, I downed a couple of Aleve to help it out.

But the great thing about going into a headwind is that a tailwind is sure to follow. At about 11 miles in, we turned east into a tailwind so strong that I was averaging about 20mph and coasting; barely turning the pedals at all! It rocked! We got another one of those bits later in the ride and it felt as if we were flying down the road! It's such an incredible feeling.

The last six miles were on beautiful, smooth pavement and on a road with a wide shoulder. It was right back into the wind again. We continued to just limp through it; at times it almost felt as if we could get off the bikes and walk faster. Granny gears on flats are tough on the ego. :)

But we finished. And we headed to a great pub in the square of old Denton that served us huge burgers. We wolfed them down in earnest.

On the way home, I swung by one of those urgent care places. The shoulder was throbbing from the fall and I worried that something might be cracked, or at least torn. I squeaked in about 5 minutes before it closed. Sure enough, the doc said that I'd dislocated the shoulder, though it'd popped back in place. The tendons near the clavicle (I think) were torn slightly. He gave me a sling and a prescription and sent me on my way. No swimming for about 2 weeks at least and minimal work on the arms. He said that being in good shape helped that it could've been worse. Whew! (By the way, thanks for making me drink so much milk as a kid, mom!)

So it looks like it'll be a week on the spin bike for my exercise since it's the least amount of motion. I'm just thankful it wasn't any worse.

Sometimes an old love calls to you and wakes you up again inside.

The roads have been my partner for about six months now. They're straightforward. Predictible. Safe.

Getting back on the Northshore trail was like finding an old boyfriend from 15 years ago. He's familiar, but changed. You know him, you know his faults, you know his great areas. But still, he's grown, a bit new, yet still comfortable.

There were surprise twists and turns I didn't remember. There were a few ups that made me stop to rethink what I was doing and some downs that were pure joy and fast. The trail wandered around and many times, I really wasn't sure where I was. Then occasionally, I'd come across a spot I'd been before and sighed with relief, only to wind up in another new area. There were turns I wasn't expecting. But the warm friendliess wrapped itself around me.

A calm came over me at times when all I could hear was the wind, creaking limbs, and the occasional critter scampering under the brush to avoid the heavy foot pounding. I could hear my heart and my breath. I could feel the sweat from the warm air on my face and body. It was as soothing as curling up close.

An hour later, I was spent. I was in my happy place. Maybe it's a relationship worth re-kindling.