Just upgraded. Aha, that was easier than I thought it would be…

So/Allora!

Happy New Year/Buon Anno!
Happy New Blog/Buon Nuovo Blog!

No, not me.

Work is a strange conundrum to me these days. Ever since I turned in my resignation, I’ve had mixed feelings. On one hand, I don’t care anymore. This is a huge relief as I believe that during this job I developed some sort of anxiety disorder. Because all my work is so time sensitive and goes to “high” people, it needs to be perfect. Well at least that is how they make it seem. I literally feel like I’m suffocating every time someting goes wrong.

On the other hand, I still want to be a good worker. There’s an innate competitiveness in me in academic and workplace settings. Yes, my bad, not-so-perfect and perfect co-workers, I am as good as all of you, if not better. And I will prove it by being superwoman.

Besides wanting to be superwoman, I have nitpickers in every corner. Because of the “high” people involved, every little email of mine is checked for typos. And I am required to send lot of emails. That’s a lot of checking. Because the titles of Press Releases have to be in title case, yet come to me in uppercase, I have to convert them. Of course I am not the best person to be doing all this. I am not a copy editor, nor do I want to be! And I did not sign up to be one! (Calming down…) It was all just too much that was not me at all and I was beginning to be irritable all the time. I was being superwoman, but turning into someone I didn’t even know.

This had an adverse affect on my relationship with my Italian. Because I needed to be superwoman at the workplace, other areas and things suffered. Most of all my Italian. I was a mess… complaining all the time and working late. It was inevitable that he would get fed up about it. He is relieved to know I am leaving this environment. He was in fact, my strongest supporter and no one needs to wonder why. As the person closest to me, he got the bulk of the abuse. I’m very very sorry honey.

Of course, on the other hand (yes the first hand!), I don’t care about work anymore, right? Sort of. My resignation has suddenly made me realize that if I make an error, the world won’t end. I swear, they made it up to pressure me! I have no clue why it took me so long to realize this. As a result, I’ve been more easy-going about my work. My Italian was liking this and we took a five-day vacation (three work days nestled around a weekend). However, my work is not put on hold when I leave and it piled up. I’ve just returned and the entire rest of the office decides it’s their week, so they are on vacation and I am left filling in for at least three people. This is very different than when three people fill in for one person (like when I was away and hello, my work STILL piled up! Filling in for me, sure.) This week, I must be superwoman again.

This is why this conversation had me worried:

Him: hi Tiff, can I pick you up at five today?
Me: Umm, that’s cutting it a little close. Can you come later?

(long long pause - like an hour long)

Me: hi honey!
Him: hi!
Me: have you eaten dinner yet?
Him: yes, I had a snack an hour ago.
Me: Oh ok, well, I’ll just cook something for myself when I get home.
Him: Sorry, I was angry.

(Red lights going off in my head. Is he feeling neglected again?!)

Me: Why were you angry?
Him: Because, I didn’t have lunch and I was starving!

(I’m already thinking he’s mad because he didn’t get to eat with me because I am working late. We’ve had this conversation before - after a solid week of me working late.)

Me: Well, I’m sorry, but why were you angry with me?
Him: oh, I meant hungry.

(Oh, the relief I felt)

Wow, what a long preface, so my sixteen-line story would make sense…

I’m sure this has been done before. By many people. I am no exception.

Here are the other reasons for my hiatus: I simply didn’t feel I had anything interesting enough to talk about. I love to read expat blogs. Not that I don’t like to read about their daily lives, but many times “living in a foreign country, look how weird/great it is here” encroaches upon the daily life that is 1-2-3 for the rest of us. It’s interesting. 1-2-3 rarely is, unless the person has some other “not-your-everyday-life” thing going on. Examples: moving to another country, having a kid, having a mid-life crisis, terminal illness, political movement/views, social movement/views, enthusiast etc.

I feel I’m a pretty weird person myself. I like languages and love linguistic debates. I like to sing. A lot. I like to design, but am not sure how any one else feels about my work. I like to write, but haven’t really sat down and written anything for years now (does the blog count?). I am addicted to being a good mommy for a child I do not have and am likewise obsessed that this child will be bilingual (linguist habits kicking in). I am also a very social person (which sometimes means loud), but I’m always have one identity crisis or another. Yes, there are many many times where this is about being Chinese, or not being Chinese or being fat or being short or being… something. I hate spiders… and bugs in general and even though I know they could never hurt me as I am 10,000 times their size, I still will not touch them with a 10-foot pole… or any pole for that matter lest they climb up it.

Ok, this should probably go in the “about” section at this point. But my point is: who wants to read about that? And why would I want to put my weird likes/dislikes/habits on display (ok, so I already did… some)?

Sometimes I think I want to move to Italy to fulfill many of these desires: my love of languages, a great environment to raise a child to be bilingual in, being a foreigner by choice, slow down and write a book, and finally to have something interesting to say!

I wish everybody the best for this holiday season!

Auguro a tutti un buon Natale!

Rant//

Is anyone else still peeved that it always costs more to ship the box than to buy the gifts inside? I am! Next year, nothing that can’t fit in one of those padded envelopes! We’ll send gifts one by one if we have to.

Job Offer: Designer with a Design Firm specializing in Digital Design.

My search was actually not terribly long or hard. Because I didn’t look for this job. That’s right, they emailed me. I highly recommend being a resume pimp. If any of you care to search, you will probably find my resume at at almost every major job site. Monster, hotjobs, career builder, creative hotlist, craigslist - yea, I’m probably there. And guess what? While the offers don’t pour in, I get a new offer every three months or so. Most of course are not exactly matched up to me. Since my resume is more programming oriented, I get more programmer-related offers. I do after all have a degree in Computer Science, mi sono laureata in informatica per gli italiani. But this is proof that it can pay off - look at the offer I got this time!

I was starting to feel suffocated at my other job. It was just not want I wanted. I did not want to be copying and pasting press releases for the rest of my life, or posting product advertisements. I did not want to edit the QuickViews of Datasheets till I grew old. The person who did this job before me is incompetent. She was demoted, but acts like she requested a “change of scenery” and I am constantly cleaning up her messes - past and present! This would be so much easier if she just admitted her mistakes, but no, she has to get defensive and try to cover her own ass at the expense of others - including me! And let’s not talk about the fact the design I was able to do had to be “squeezed” into not more than one day a week - if I even had time for that with all the other stuff they had me doing.

I told them good-bye two days ago. It’s a huge relief, since I can finally tell people about it. I gave two and a half weeks notice, so I’m not gone yet, but these final weeks are just to tie up any loose ends. I don’t want to burn any bridges or leave them stuck.

Deborah, thank you for your kind words of inspiration. I’d also like to thank my Mom and Dad, my Italian and my sister. I understand you worry about me, but thanks for understanding (and even encouraging me) that this was the right direction for me. My Italian is beyond happy. He’ll no longer have to hear me bitching about this everyday after work. Well, two more weeks hun.