Sunday, May 13, 2007

This was not what I planned

The first week semi-on plan has been a disaster in so many ways. Work was horrible- and although a lot of great things happened, the whole week has been completely poisoned by the first few days, and by the remnants of a project that just keeps coming to haunt me. There is nothing like being reminded of a disaster over and over and over again. I am not a big crier- over my first two years in my job, I cried twice (and once was when I had food poisoning and had to work with a very difficult person for 15 hours without food or sleep). Over the last two weeks, I have increased my total cries to five.

I feel like everyone is looking at me- the ones who are my age look at me with pity, with relief it's not them, and with a sneaky pride or schadenfreude. My disasters allow them to rest back and hold onto some quiet superiority. They've never been tested, so they don't know if they'd be doing any better, but they can still think "Poor Kate- she's having a tough time with x/y/z. I'm glad I'm not in her shoes. But maybe it's just something about her- maybe the problem is her."

My superiors look at me with concern. Burning out newbies is not in their best interests. But their concern is almost worse for someone like me than their ire would be. Being ripped to shreds would make me defensive, and I'd know I was strong. Concern- well that just proves that I Cannot Hack the Pace. If you can't stand the pace, get off the f*ckin' treadmill.

My Plan has not entirely been a disaster. But it certainly hasn't been great, or even the best I could do. Running has been my haven. There's always time for a run, and my time on my feet has been my 3-4 hours a week of happiness. I can ignore the sick feeling in my stomach I get when I think about everything else. Music prevents me from using my run time to reflect- I think about hills, and songs and pace. About my gait and about races to come. But at the end of the day, it's not really enough. The high I get during the run wears off immediately afterwards.

I hope next week is better.

7 comments:

Alison said...

Work woes suck. I'm so sorry.

Anonymous said...

things will look up. just keep running and coping however you can. everything passes...

Unknown said...

Sorry you're having a bad week. Does it make you feel any better to know that I had to look up "schadenfreude?" :)

Wes said...

You will endure! That's what we do. There is no other choice, and you are strong :-)

Mike said...

.... and I thought I had problems at work ... You will get through it though ... sounds very depressing at the moment but I'm sure you'll come out the other end much stronger

But what do I know :)

Keep running long!

Bruce said...

woo, sounds like that was a tough week, hope this one goes better. At least you're still running.

Janet Edwards said...

Sounds like times are tough. Thanks goodness for some running time. Things will brighten up soon and this will only be a memory.