Thursday, August 18, 2011

New Job, Transitioning and My Mental Health

The new job is fantastic.
Transitioning is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
And my mental health is shit.

So, I started the new job on Tuesday.  Super Boss introduced me as his new assistant, his "new handler" and "the savior".  No pressure at all.  Everyone is super, the Office Manager Dude (OMD) took me to lunch at P.F. Chang's and I made it all the way home on the bus.  BY MYSELF.

But then day two rolled around.  My faithful readers know that I am not one to badmouth anyone on this blog, and I don't generally don't divulge details that may identify someone.  I'm not that kind of blogger.  So let's just say that the person who did this job before me, and now works in another office, spent all of day two "training" me and that stressed me out completely (not the work itself - that's pie), but because it was only my second day and I was downtown and out of my comfort zone and homesick and I didn't even have my car to sit in and I don't have any "buddies" yet and well, I cried on the phone to Todd on my lunch hour.  And then I got home and I curled up with him and cried some more and started to wonder if I made a mistake, blah blah blah.

And then I had wine.  And upon bedtime, I sobbed and cried and vented and wailed to Todd, who understood that I was freakin' the &*$# out.

Gawd bless him.

Despite this complete emotional breakdown, my ass was up at 5:50am this morning, and I made the bus and I got to work 10 minutes early. But then I couldn't do anything but cry.  Super Boss came in, asked how I was, I said fine, and he said "Bullshit.  What's wrong?"

I love Super Boss.

I told him I was just having a rough morning, no big thang.  He said "So take off.  Do what you gotta do.  Take care of yourself."  It's my third day!  Are you kidding me?

However.  I wasn't doing well, so I went in to talk to OMD.  He was wonderful.  He completely understood and said I needed to regroup so that I could give this job my best.  So, I called Todd to come get me and I came home, got in my jammies and slept until 3:30pm.

After a lot of reflection and internal conversations, I've come to the conclusion that I really didn't do much "preparing" for this job.  I thought I could just quit my comfy job of six years where I could wear jeans every day and magically become a high powered downtown Executive Assistant who suddenly commutes by bus and wears heels everyday.

HA!

Guess what?  It's not really that easy.

But now that we know what the problem is, we can start to fix it.

Time to make this job my bitch! 
And you know Rae-rae can do it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That doesn't sound like you at all!! Where's the badass girl I raised? You can do anything you set your mind to. Get out there and show 'em woman. I'm proud of you for even trying and it WILL work out, so hang in there.

love ya, mom

Dee said...

Oh, yes, Rae-Rae can! You go girl!