Mistakes

Mistakes are a part of life.  We learn that at an early age, and if we are taught well and listen well, we learn and grow from them so as not to make the same ones again and to guide our future away from them.  I've been thinking a lot lately about mistakes so I decided it was time to wake up my blog again and get my thoughts out on here so *maybe* I can get some sleep tonight!  


Last Saturday night, I was up nearly all night long because I had found out that I had made a small input error on something at work.  It was stupid and turned out not to be a huge deal at all, but I was devastated.  I was in tears on and off all afternoon and evening, I barely slept a wink, I sent an e-mail to my boss at like 1 in the morning to tell her what happened and apologize and ask her help in correcting in, and I still haven't forgotten it even though it has since been corrected and my boss never got upset with me and told me Sunday morning to relax and not worry.  


It wasn't the fact that I made a mistake - I've made plenty in my life - it's just that it was kind of the culmination of things I had been thinking about lately in regards to work and not the type of thing I typically do at all.  I am not perfect by any means - I will be the first to admit that.  However, I am a perfectionist and especially when it comes to work, I rarely make mistakes and when I do, they are simple tiny ones that reusing an old e-mail and forgetting to correct one tiny portion of it which I can easily resend or things like that.  Never something like this that turned out to be easy but really was kind of a big deal (at least in my mind).  


This Saturday evening, I'm on the verge of not sleeping much again and mainly because I have been thinking all day in the back of my mind (and many other days lately) that I made a mistake in taking my new job.  It's hard to admit it and just typing it out and seeing it in writing is difficult.  And yet it's a little freeing to finally admit it as well.  I didn't see it at first, but when the shiny new wore off a few months in, I started wondering about it.  At first, it was this nagging feeling in the very back of my mind that something was off.  But over the past few months it has gotten aggressively louder and has been weighing on me more heavily.  


As you can tell, I don't like making mistakes (or admitting them - ha!).  So to be sitting here 9 months after I took this job and be feeling like I made a mistake doesn't sit well with me.  It's not really to say that I want to be back at my old company because that was terrible and stressful and awful in many ways.  But it was familiar at least - I knew the stressors there and how to deal with them, I was well respected and acknowledged for being knowledgeable and while I wouldn't have lasted much longer there without losing it (ha), I probably could have stuck it out a little while longer until I found something else that was right.  However, I am trying to remember the terrible things there outweighed the good at the end and the quote that you can't start a new chapter if you are constantly re-reading the last one.  


Unfortunately, I think my misery there clouded my judgment and I drank up every word they told me in the interview process. Sure, I asked questions, and I told them flat out why I was wanting to leave my job, so they very well knew the things that I needed and was looking for out of a new position.  And yet it appears that they lied about them (at least a little bit).  I think the company as a whole has the intentions of providing many of the things I was looking for (professional development, mobility, etc.), but either my team or the larger organization that I work within is very restrictive on these dimensions.  


When I sat through my first call to discuss my two employees for their mid-point review and heard the discussions that they were having and how ratings had to be in a forced distribution so if the managers called out too many rockstars, that became the new "average" and everyone was knocked down, I left that day and drove home in tears because I knew what that meant.  My visions of promotions, career development, etc. were a pipe dream for the most part.  Yes, they have praised my work and I've gotten some great feedback in the 9 months I've been there so I KNOW I am good at what I do.  


However, I haven't really been recognized for it in any way and my mid-point review was fine but the focus there relies solely on the numbers I am bringing in the door.  I hate that.  My type of work should be based on relationships, not on numbers.  Yes, we should hit our targets (which I always did and exceeded at my old company), but my individual results were never so targeted as they are here.  It feels more like a sales position (without the commission) and I don't like that.  There is no care for relationships or how you are increasing the brand on campus or how you are elevating how students see the company.  It's all about pushing them through the process and getting the numbers on the back end.  There is so much we DON'T have any control of here - I can't fight for my candidates during debriefs, I can't really even influence the pipeline all that much due to a number of other factors working against me.  


And to top it all off, they have given me one of the most difficult people in the company to work for as one of my school managers (which is TOTALLY opposite of what I had at my last company where I got to handpick my school managers and most of them were people I had hired when I first started there).  It doesn't matter what I say or do - it is NEVER good enough.  I clearly am not smart enough to write e-mails or present him with ideas or anything.  He has to ask 800 other people who he deems better than me (you know people in the business as opposed to me who has 7 years experience in this specific field!) and they have to tell him the same thing for him to get it and then it's suddenly his idea and he acts like I never even mentioned it.  How am I supposed to excel with that?


Or the other school they gave me where they wouldn't even let me talk to that team or the school manager until literally last week and school starts in a few weeks and the last recruiter who had the school before me didn't bother to do much of ANYTHING to prepare for the fall.  Seriously?  In such a forced distribution, required numbers environment, how I am ever going to make it?  


The commute is also getting to me much more than I thought it would.  I now drive over 30 miles each way to and from work.  Luckily, I have been able to work from home 1-2 days a week since about April, but I think that will soon come to an end in the coming weeks so that won't really cut it.  I spend 1.25-1.5 each way in traffic.  I leave the house around 7:20 to take my son to school/camp and don't get into work until almost 8:45 (so I'm sure that seems late to them) and then try to leave around 5:15 most days but don't get home until 6:45.  I'm gone almost 12 hours a day from my house!  The days I work from home I usually end up working 10 hours+ trying to get everything done. Oh and they have shipped me to the corporate headquarters several states away 3 times already since I started (2 of which were pretty useless and could have been accomplished on the phone/web) in addition to traveling in the winter (which I never did before) and now about to have at least four 2 night trips in September and October to the coldest places they could find ;)  


Ugh, I probably sound like such a jerk for just complaining.  I really do.  But I needed so badly to get it out and just admit it that I'm not happy and that I've made a mistake.  I'm not really sure how I'm going to fix it for now, but I will.  It will probably take some time and a lot of tears and frustration in the meantime, but somehow I will find a way to fix it.  In the meantime, I really need to figure out how to try to focus on the positives (time with my beautiful family and friends, working out - have been doing Zumba 3-5 times a week so proud of that, and doing the others things I really enjoy).  I also get to have a week vacation at the beach with my family the week after this upcoming one (can not wait!) so hopefully that will give me more time to reflect and enjoy.  For now, I ask your forgiveness as I vent and complain on here and hope to catch up with my blogging buddies soon.  This just another part of my journey that isn't so smooth but I know there are better paved roads ahead and am so thankful for all that I do have and the precious days we have together.