Ironed Out

My work life has been hell. I was transferred to another project a few months back as part of our reorg. Not only am I learning the current processes of the project but I'm also slated to make major changes to how the process works. The business user is very demanding as well, throwing question after question to research on in the midst of maintaining and learning the current process. We have offshore staff that also works on these requests as we receive them but the changes have been coming fast and furious. It's gotten to the point where I'm working 10-12 hour days some days.

Fussy has expressed displeasure in the output he's received from our group so for the last four weeks we've had 6:30AM conference calls every other day with offshore to discuss updates. I'm not a morning person at all so it's been a bit rough. An added complexity is that I've started another Master Cleanse (don't judge me...*LOL*) and on the days I have the 6:30AMs, I have to wake up at 4:15 to drink my salt water. I'll be on Day 7 on Sunday. What's worse is that Fussy has been demanding face-to-face meetings with me on days that I work from home. Unfortunately to accommodate him, I've had to go along with these but in the last week it's meant having to make my limade drinks on the fly and then driving the 50 minutes or so to the job.

The worse thing about it is that he still won't be satisfied and I already know I'll get a negative review next year (in the unfortunate event I'm still working at my current company...you know that four year and counting plan to leave the job is still on...*LOL*). The upshot is that management knows he's demanding. But nonetheless I know I'll need to try and find a way for him to be somewhat happy.

My work situation has been so stressful that it's affected my relationship with Rock. The thing is I don't like talking about work once I'm off the clock. But Rock knows that work is the source of my stress. Since work's been on my mind, I haven't really thought about much else. He expressed concern that our relationship was getting stagnant since we hardly talked about much. We were having a "discussion" over the phone last week on this and I told him that I don't like talking about work because I don't want to come across as whiny.

I also temper the I hate work talk because my friend Sally is still trying to find employment. It's that whole 'I hate my job but I'm glad I have employment' syndrome. Who am I to sound ungrateful when Sally would love to be employed again?

Rock texted me on Wednesday after our "discussion" telling me that he's there for me to vent at. I don't know if it was the cleanse or the fact that I was struggling to answer another one of Fussy's queries but I felt myself tear up. Luckily I was working from home that day...*LOL*. I called Rock in tears confessing to him that I was frustrated at my work situation and feared that the company would have grounds to fire me since I wasn't satisfying Fussy's queries fast enough. I also told him that I'm supposed to be the calm, collected one (everyone at work sees me that way) and I can't fall apart. Plus being a black man means working over 110% and I couldn't afford any perception that I couldn't handle the project. Rock told me he's there for me and everything would be okay. He had to get back to work himself so we hung up. He checked on me later that afternoon to make sure I was fine.

So Hemingway I'm actually going to drive up to see Rock tomorrow. Since I'll still be cleansing I'll need to bring my drinks with me for when I get hungry. He'll also eat breakfast ahead of time since I can't eat any.

It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of me. Will I be looking scary to him? He's never seen me during one of my cleanses. I've done three of them since we've been dating and should be wrapping up this one by Wednesday.

We're going to see Iron Man. He's excited about that since he remembers the cartoon series. He's a cartoon junkie so I'm sure he'll enjoy it. It'll be great to spend time with him. Last weekend he was in Springfield hanging with his crew while the weekend before I was hanging with my blogger crew.

So I'm definitely looking forward to seeing him. It'll be great to take my mind off work for a few hours as well.

Oh well. Let me finish my laxative tea and go to bed. I have another round of salt water to look forward to first thing in the morning.