From Bad To Worse

Let's face it...today was just one of those days. Not sure how exactly it turned into one of those days...it definitely started off harmless enough. I had the wisdom, or foresight, or something, to switch my Thursday afternoon appt w/ my gynecologist to this morning at the very last minute. Thank God I did so, because tomorrow is going to be insane! The appt went smoothly enough, but once I got back to work, I think a few little things just gradually sent me down the path to a really bad mood. Little things, that in isolation aren't a big deal, but all combined in the same day make for kind of a tough day.

It may seem a little strange, but days like today sometimes cause me to reflect upon a company I worked at in the past. I can still remember to this day how I felt when I went on the interview...it was the most "exciting-looking" place I had seen before! There were foozball tables, pool tables, television sets, and even a cool looking small library that we all had access to. The ceilings, walls and floors had the most eclectic, cool looking modern tech designs and colors!! We had free soft drinks (which was a big deal for me at the time!) and the workspace just looked extremely "new millenium" even though the turn of the century hadn't occured yet. Over the first few years there, things began to unravel a bit. We gained a new parent company and almost immediately lost access to the floor of the building which contained all of the fun, extra-curricular items that had been bragged about as selling points for working at the company during my interview. We moved to a plain-Jane, vanilla, workspace eventually that had no character in itself at all. Many of the really nice people that kept things fun and exciting in the beginning were let go (or sensibly quit) over time. I watched the huge dip in morale gradually occur, and wondered what I had walked into. By the time the dotcom bubble burst, we were all stuck at the company anyway (NO ONE was hiring and the economy was struggling at the time). So it became an "employers market", which meant that if you're an employer, you have "carte blanche" to some degree over your employees, because they're not going anywhere since no one's hiring. This is the time period where silly rules start being created and enforced. This is also the time period where morale is so low, that over time you're left with a bunch of miserable, cynical people who are all complaining about their jobs. Bad days on the job spill over into bad days at home, and the cycle just repeats itself over and over day after day, week after week, month after month.

So it is on days like today that I reflect on something told to me by a colleague from the company I just spoke of. She was much older than me, and had TONS more life experience. Whenever we would get some type of bad or unfortunate news about a "change" of some sort, she would always remind me to just be patient because In six months, there is guaranteed to be, yet, another change that would make this one not seem as upsetting anymore. Sometimes that would mean that things would get even worse, but it usually ended up meaning that our worries/attention would become focused in another area, so the initial point of worry or bitterness isn't even relevant anymore. After 12 years in corporate America, I can definitely say that my former colleague has been right....every time. I'll do my best to keep my chin up...if I can get through the rest of this week unscathed, it will be nothing short of God's grace that got me through it!!