back from vacation

So I just returned from the best trip home I've had in a long time. For real. I flew out Wednesday morning and returned Sunday night. The perfect amount of time. One day less and it would have felt too short, one day more and it would have felt too long. My mom and I had a great time and hit the perfect balance of wedding productivity and tv watching laziness. The weather was perfect, with the exception of a little rain on Wednesday afternoon.

I got a ton of sleep, the really good kind of sleep that comes when you know you don't have to appreciate it because you have many nights in a row of not having to go to work the next day. I read a ton too, I don't remember the last time I read for the entire flights (cuz there are multiple flights when you're headed to Central California).

But there was a catch. In order to maximize my time at home, my flight didn't leave until 2:45pm and I didn't land in Baltimore until after midnight. Adding in shuttle time to the car and drive time to my apartment, it was a long day and morning came really fast. I now have this bizarre feeling of being very well-rested, but still dragging in the morning. Strange.

Overall though, a great vacation! Now, to get H2B safely out of the field and out of the Army! Only 49 days to go!

The Blessing/Curse of Scripps College

Towards the end of the day yesterday, I found myself in a very interesting conversation with two directors in my division. Our conversation ended up on the topic of whether the work we do here at Hopkins is on the philanthropic side of the spectrum, helping consumers be more aware of how and where they can get quality health care or if it's all about profit for the Institution.

My boss (Director 1) used to work at Big Bad Insurance Company and is on my side, the side that says "At the end of the day, we do good work here." Yes, we get paid to promote the services that make money, but it's not all about profit margin. (Director 1's boss at Big Bad Insurance Company used to say "If there's no margin, there's no mission").

Director 2 has worked at Hopkins for a really long time and is more on the business side of things. Not a bad thing, for sure. She does her job very well and promotes the clinical departments on a fee-for-service basis, so the margin has a huge impact on the work she does and vice versa.

My point here is that I'm glad that, when our division split, I ended up on the side with Director 1, promoting the institution as a whole and our affiliate businesses. I go home at night feeling good about what I do during the day. I prefer to think that promoting our service centers throughout the Baltimore area helps people who live toward suburbia and are scared of ghetto downtown Baltimore be more aware that they can get the same, Hopkins quality care closer to their homes. They don't have to choose sub-standard care so they can stay in their comfort zone. I prefer to think of it this way, rather than the ugly truth that we make more money when people go to one of these clinics than at the main hospital downtown.

Baltimore is not my friend

Well, it's official. I've been working at JH longer than I've been at any other job and even longer than I was a full time grad student. Which also means I've lived within the Baltimore city limits longer than any other city. I have really mixed feelings about this. At the end of the day, I like Baltimore. The parts I don't like aren't really Baltimore's fault though. I hate the winter weather, which is much worse in a lot of other cities. People here can be super rude, which again could be worse (NYC).

Over the past couple of weeks, however, Baltimore has really pushed me to edge of hating it. First, my neighbor hit my car and then did not leave a note. Hello! Did he think I would notice?? Then, over this past weekend, my iPod was stolen out of my car. And after several days of warmish weather, we're back to cold with snow/slush in the forecast.

My mom would tell you that February has never been the greatest month for me. An interesting theory, that I didn't always necessarily believe, but I'm starting to come around on it. Only 11 days until this cursed month is over...

And yes, I'm aware that this is not positive or optimistic, but happy thoughts can only take you so far. However, in keeping with my resolution, I will end on an upswing: work is going really well after a several week downturn. Yay.

Alternate Thinking

Just one day into my "be optimistic" plan, I slept through my alarm. Okay, fine, so I hit snooze for an extra half hour. Whatever, same thing. I'm sure I broke the record for speediest shower/makeup/getting dressed and out the door in history, or at least for the past year of my life. Normally, I would have said to myself "It's okay to be a little later than usual. half the office doesn't get in until after 9 so even if I'm 20 minutes later than usual, I'm still technically early." However, this morning I had a 9:00 meeting to prep for. Granted, it's only my weekly status meeting with my boss, but still, I like to be prompt and prepared.

I still had time to stop at 7-Eleven for my customary diet coke. It's just not a good morning if I don't get my "good morning sweetie" from the nice couple that run the store. Of course, since we had freezing rain last night and it was still raining this morning, traffic was a little heavier than usual. And of course I got stuck behind slow people once off the highway. And of course once in the parking garage, I had to stop and wait for a pedestrian to s-l-o-w-l-y get out of my way instead of mowing her down. As I sat there waiting, I was reminded of something my mom told me. Now, while I would love to give her credit for this philosophy, she actually got it from one of the social workers at the place where my dad got his chemo.

Here it is. Are you ready? Okay. When you're running late, or in a hurry, or just plain cranky and stuck behind a slow poke driver on the road or held up by an elderly person slowly crossing the street, remind yourself that this person is keeping you safe and your car undamaged by forcing you to slow down. Pretty good advice huh?

My personal addition to this is that in all honesty, you aren't going to get where you're going any more quickly if this person weren't in your way. I can't even count the number of times I've seen some jerk cutting people off and swerving in and out of traffic while I patiently waited in the lane of my choice, only to find that jerk face and I arrived at the same place several miles away at the same exact time.

Back to my optimistic and positive morning. When I arrived in the office at 8:40, I checked my bosses calendar and it turned out he was up at the hospital for a meeting and hadn't rescheduled our meeting. "Oh well!" I said to myself. Now I can take my time, eat some breakfast, catch up on e-mails and be even better prepared for our meeting whenever it happens.

Yay me! Go optimism!

Home is Where the Heart is

But what is you have trouble figuring out exactly where that is?

H2B and I spent a week in California, which was great. But as we boarded our plane yesterday to return to Baltimore, I had this feeling that I was going home. This isn't an unusual feeling; I've had it ever since I returned to college after that first Fall Break. A big part of me, though, felt like I was leaving home at the same time.

It's a strange feeling to feel like you have two homes. On the one hand, no matter where you are, you're always home. But on the other, you always miss home because you're never there. There's a sense of never really belonging anywhere and a constant feeling that I'm always waiting. In Baltimore I'm waiting until the next time I take time off from work to "go home" and when I'm in California, although I love being there, I still look forward to "going home" to get back to my life.

I really do love the life I've made for myself here. I have a great apartment, I love my job, and I have made some good friends. I simultaneously can't imagine ever leaving and look forward to a time when H2B and I decide to make a change.

I suppose this is better than a constant longing to be someplace else, doing other things. It's still pretty weird though...

Reason #87 California is better than Baltimore

Okay, I admit that it's not really fair to compare; California is a whole state and Baltimore is just one city. But today, I'm mad at Baltimore and you know what? It's my blog and I'll do what I want!

So here's why, for today, I dislike B'more so much and yes, these are generalizations that have exceptions. People here are r-u-d-e RUDE! I understand that I grew up in a friendly town that was part of a friendly state and that not every stranger I pass on the street is going to smile and say hello to me. I have come to accept that.

HOWEVER, when you work in an office of less than a hundred people, and you pass someone in the hallway and not only do you not say hello but you don't even smile OR make eye contact, that's rude. I understood when I was the new kid in the office and maybe these people didn't know my name, but I've been here awhile now, you know me, fucking smile, okay? It takes very little energy, it makes other people happy and guess what? Studies show that even if you're in a bad mood, smiling will actually improve your affect.

AND if you enter the kitchen to get your morning coffee and someone else is in there getting a lovely beverage or snack, pretending you're all alone in there and going about your business in silence is RUDE. We are coworkers, we see each other 5 days out of 7. Even if you are a miserable, self-centered human being (one of many in my office these days), maybe putting forth some friendly gesture of a "good morning, how are you today?" will improve the workplace and therefore make you just a smidge happier. And if you're worried that I'm going to suddenly tell you my life story because you said "how are you?" get over yourself, most people will give you a one word answer such as "fine," "good," or maybe if it's a Monday "tired." Humans are social creatures, we need human contact. It's normal. Being rude is not normal.

And another thing, throw away your trash! Is it that much of an inconvenience to just hold on to your soda can, newspaper, sandwich wrapper, etc until you walk past a trash can? Do you realize that you are contributing to this city becoming more and more of a shithole than it already is? AND if you're at the gym, put your towel in the laundry bin, not the floor. You have to walk past it to leave the locker room. Who exactly do you think is going to pick that up? There is no towel fairy so do it yourself.

Hurry up and wait

I feel this is an ever present phenomenon in several aspects of my life at the moment.

The wedding plans have come to a screeching halt. After about six weeks of drowning in a sea of to-do's, I finally relinquished control to my mom. Unhindered by a 9-5 job in cube-land, within ear shot of dozens of colleagues, she managed to book all remaining vendors and thus has become my hero for the bazillionth time. The thing with planning a wedding is that you scramble to book venues and vendors nine months to a year before the event. However, once you've done that, you sit back until a couple of months prior at which point you scramble to choose whether you want white or yellow daisies, what font you should use on the invitations, and if your first dance should be a cliche, cheesy ballad or something you both actually enjoy. Hurry up, then wait. Repeat.

Things at work seem to be going the same way. Clients come to us frantic to get a brochure printed or web site built by next week or some other insane timeline. So we race around getting cost estimates from photographers, designers, printers, mail houses, etc only to wait a week and a half before getting approval to move forward. We then get the first draft of XYZ project done in record time! Hooray!! But then we can't get the clients to respond for WEEKS!! Hurry up, then wait.

Chaos at work!

So yes, I've been AWOL for a couple of weeks now. Life's just been too busy. Instead of trying to catch you up on everything that's gone on for the past two weeks, here's what happened yesterday.

My office has been using Groupwise for e-mail since I started working here over a year ago, and for probably a long time before that. Until yesterday, when we migrated to Outlook. Chaos ensued.

For some of us young professionals, the migration was no big deal and to some of us it was even welcomed with open arms. Being a part of the generation that job hops, most of us have used Outlook before and are aware that it is a better program. Others in our office have been here for years and years, long enough to have either never used Outlook or to have wipe all memory of it from their minds. The day was almost a total waste. Even for people who knew what they were doing, it was still an adjustment, plus adding in time to answer questions from everyone else like "How do I get rid of the reading pane?"

Not only did we switch e-mail programs, but we updated to Office 2007. I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to "Save As"

I like to think I'm pretty flexible and learn knew programs and processes pretty quickly, but even I was frustrated yesterday. I can't wait until our requisite office fuddy duddy who can't handle change will take all of this when she returns from vacay on Monday...

Become a chauvinist, you'll make more $$$

One of my Scrippsie friends sent me a link to this article from the Washington Post this afternoon. All I have to say is wow. In case you are too lazy to click this link, but aren't so lazy that you're going to read this post, here's a quick summary. A study published in the September issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology found that men with "traditional" views of gender roles (a.k.a. men should work while women stay at home to cook, clean, and have babies) make more money than men with "egalitarian" views of gender roles (the idea that men and women can be successful in the work place and can share, equally, household chores like parenting, cooking, etc). Both groups of men, however, still make more money than women. Just so you can get the whole picture, here's the spectrum of average salaries, from highest to lowest, of people in similar jobs, with similar levels of education, and a similar number of hours worked per week: Chauvinist Men, Good Guys, Career-Minded Women, Stupid women who feel they belong home.

It's really no secret that I tend towards the feminist end of the spectrum, so it should come as no surprise that I have some thoughts about this. Now, I try to be fair and give the human race the benefit of the doubt on most things. So as I read through this article, I began trying to think of reasons for these disparities. The only one that seemed remotely plausible was that men tend to be more assertive and aggressive and therefore can probably negotiate higher salaries.

No such luck, the article addressed that too. It's apparently more likely that "People make others uncomfortable when they disconfirm stereotypes -- we don't know how to interpret them."And that apparently results in a lower salary for men who feel women are of equal worth in the workplace.

The only comfort I took from this is that at least there's a group making less than I, and it's the women who are working, but think they should be playing a more domestic role. I really hope this holds true. I know a number of women my age who openly admit that they are only working until they meet a rich guy who'll marry them and then they can quit, and the first thing they try to figure out when meeting a new guy is how much he makes and how much he has. Seriously?? Are there still women out there like this?? It appalls me, it really does. And it offends me that some of them are my age, with the same, or similar, job title as I have. Please oh please let them be making significantly less money. Wouldn't that just be the epitome of just desserts?

Reflections of the Way Life Used to Be

Every morning I leave my house around 8:00, sometimes 8:15 if I’m running late. I drive about 2 miles before I pull into the parking garage across the street from my office. I get antsy when the mechanical arm takes too long to let me in and about half the time I can hear my tires screech as I rush to find the closest parking space. I pull into the first one I see (sometimes passing by a few spots that are too far from the stairs/elevator), I throw the car into park, yank up the parking brake, scramble out of the car and head for the stairs. I take the stairs mostly because the elevators in the garage are painfully slow, even from the 2^nd level, where I usually am able to park, but I also use it as a pitiful excuse for physical activity on the days I skip the gym. But I digress.

Once I leave the parking lot, I carefully, yet somewhat speedily, make my way across the cobblestone street (in heels, no less!) and head through the double doors of my office building. The stairs are not an option for two reasons: 1) we’re on the fifth floor and I’m not so dedicated to my wedding dress weight loss plan that I’m going to arrive at work huffing and puffing and 2) once I actually made it to the fifth floor, unless someone had propped open the door to get out of the stairwell, I’d be SOL and have to go back down to the lobby and take the elevator anyways. Once in the elevator, I anxiously watch as my fellow passengers swipe their access cards and select their floors, hoping they are all going to the sixth floor and that we won’t have to stop at floors 2, 3, and 4 before I can walk to my cubicle, pop open a diet coke and log in to my computer to start my work day.

This morning, as I was rushing through this process so as not to be late for a 9am meeting (I got in at 8:15, but I just hate being late), I thought back to a simpler time, when mornings were not rushed and were actually enjoyable. When was this time, you may be asking. Perhaps it was in college? Nope, I never had morning classes so, for me, mornings did not exist for those four years. The time I’m referring to is high school.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t go back to high school if you paid me. So much drama, so little time. But back then, mornings were fun. I hated getting out of bed, just as I do now. But once I actually got to school, the routine was much more fun than my current one. I would not say that my group of friends was part of the “popular” crowd, but we had our routines and our habits. Every morning, those of us lucky enough to have our own cars (not me) and those who every now and then drove a parent’s car to school (sometimes me) would park in the north east corner of the north parking lot, leave the engine running to continue listening to music or morning radio shows. Groups of three or four would congregate in these cars (the carless would hop in to enjoy the shelter and warmth on a cold, rainy winter morning). We would sing along with the music, or chat about the various goings on in our lives until the first bell rang and we would scatter to first period.

We would reconvene in our little corner of the Bullard High world at lunch, balance lunches on the trunks of cars to enjoy the sun and chatting and flirting in a larger group. Some people would scramble to finish homework due in fifth or sixth period (not me, I don’t work well under pressure and stress). Everyone knew everyone’s business, because even the best kept secrets spread through whispers or notes between classes and we were all very close for the most part.

Most days, I love my grown up life and wouldn’t trade it to go back. But sometimes, I miss the camaraderie and the daily conversations with my closest friends. Too often I let days, weeks, and sometimes months go by without talking to the friends that I hold most dear to my heart as I rush through my work week and race around on the weekends, doing all the errands I can’t get to during the week.