Category: 2017

The subtleties of time management

I did want to mention, in reference to my long post about my first week, that my one-time client did pay me after all – which is great! I’m very appreciative of that. There was nothing I could have done if she hadn’t felt like paying. Totally my mistake for failing to bill her ahead of time. I’ve certainly learned that lesson the hard way – several times – a lot of years ago when I was a newbie coach.

Then today I just realized I hadn’t billed another client who’s got a session tomorrow. I need to get my act together here! Since my time is going to be tight with a full-time job and this many clients, I need to stay organized and structured. Typically I bill everyone at once, but these were both new, incoming clients and they came in after my regular monthly billing date.

It’s interesting being this busy. After I quit my last job, it seemed like I started doing a lot of waiting for John to get home. And calling him and leaving messages. I was definitely doing the vast majority of the “bids for interaction” as they say in relationship theory. It didn’t help that I was doing a lot of things like the remodel and the purchase of rentals, that needed input from him. So it’s not like I could just tell myself to just leave him alone and focus on my own stuff. The dynamic of trying to get his attention, or his input on decisions, wasn’t a good one for me. It’s so nice to just be able to go to work, and get my own work done, without having to constantly try (and fail) to bring John into it.

I had an unusually high number of clients last week, and I’m not settled yet, so I’m still running around trying to make sure there’s food in the fridge and other basics. So John was the one calling and leaving messages. It was kinda nice for a change. And then he was clearly happy to see me on the weekend!

When people are apart, it’s not just about being apart – it matters who is the one who is gone. Usually, John is gone. And he doesn’t notice his absence because he’s busy doing stuff.  This time I was gone, not noticing my absence, because I was busy doing stuff. And he was sitting at home with the dogs. I think it had a real balancing effect.

 

Casual Fridays

I wore jeans out of habit on Friday, without even thinking about it. It’s good to be back in the swing of things.

 

Update on the townhome purchase

Everything’s going great! We had our inspection on Friday. The house is in great shape. There’s just a few little things we’ll be asking the seller to either fix or provide credit. But very little.

(credit, xkcd.com)

I’m buying a bunch of stuff right now because we’re setting up a second house. (Two toasters, two pairs of slippers, another surge protector, another coffee grinder, etc.) So I feel like I’m blazing through money. But the reality is, the amount I’m spending on a second toaster and other misc. items is so small compared to the amounts that were flinging around with the sale and purchase of the rentals and the townhouse, plus the remodel, that it’s hard to keep everything in perspective. I was trying to save $12 on the dang toaster, but I’m not even paying attention to $1,000 more or less on the house purchase.

Sitting Pretty

Our well-trained Kai sits at attention when he wants something. Now what could he be doing sitting there, nowhere near his food bowl?

Yep, there’s something on the counter he wants.

John brought me a little stuffed toy, “Sandy the Lab” from our Sandia labs credit union. (Har-har, punny! Get it? Sandia lab.) He gave it to me for my office. (So I can always remember Sandia?) I didn’t even realize the dogs noticed the exchange. But Kai knows it’s up there. And he thinks it must be for him!

Kira’s oblivious, she’s like, “Oh! We’re sitting for pictures? OK!”

sad news in the neighborhood

Remember when I posted recently an article about what it’s like to inadvertently kill someone?

Well, this very sad thing just happened about a mile from our house. We are a small, rural, tight-knit community, so this is going to affect everyone.

http://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/women-killed-when-sheriffs-deputy-backed-into-her-was-helping-to-investigate-burglary-neighbors-say/4619466/

On nextdoor.com there is a “blame the victim vs blame the deputy” debate among our neighbors. Why do we always have to blame someone?

First week at the new job

Now it is time to post about my new job!

The best thing so far about my new job is all the great people! Also it’s good to just be back into it. Even though this particular job is new, so much about the office environment is familiar, and I definitely have been missing it. I feel like I’m part of a team again.

MONDAY:

The first day was somewhat stressful because I had to meet everyone, and I promptly forgot all their names. Not only did I forget all the names, I couldn’t even remember who I had met and who I hadn’t met. “Did I meet you already? No? Ok. Hi, I’m Kristina.”

Monday evening I had two clients scheduled, but one requested a reschedule, so I had just one client. A good thing, because it had been a long day!

TUESDAY

Woke up with a mild migraine, took my meds right away and was fine the rest of the day. Whew!

Second day was lots of HR stuff – signing millions of documents. I got my badge – but they put the wrong name on it! I had to go back and get another badge 🙂 There’s a separate card to unlock the building, but mine doesn’t work.

Oh, and they gave me a hat. And a t-shirt! Here I am in my new hat. Now I’m official LOL!

One great thing about working for the state is I can take pictures of things for this blog (you can’t take photos at Sandia).

Two clients on Tuesday night. A busy day!

WEDNESDAY:

For the rest of the week my whole department has training. The training is being held at a different location than our office – about a mile away. It’s a very fancy building. Wouldn’t it be nice to work here everyday?

There are balconies off the second story with tables. If I worked here, I would be working on the balcony!

At the training I met a ton more people. Everyone keeps asking me where I’m from. I don’t know what to say to that. Where am I from? Placitas? Sandia? California? Albuquerque?

They also want to know where I’m living (or how long is my commute). Equally confusing. Placitas? My friend’s casita? Buying a townhome? “So your husband’s going to commute?” Uh…no…I needed to have rehearsed simplistic answers ahead of time, because I am confusing everyone and totally failing the “Who are you?” quiz. But there just aren’t simplistic answers. A lot of people commute all the way from Albuquerque, which is even further than Placitas. So I think it seems odd to them that I’m moving here without John. I’m not mentioning my reasons…clients and migraines. In an ideal world, those things wouldn’t reflect badly on me. But in the real world, some people (like my previous boss at Sandia!), imagined I was less of an employee because of these things.

I’ve also discovered I have a certain amount of reluctance to say much about my kids (sorry guys!). It’s not that I’m not proud of my kids! But most people in my new office are a lot younger than me (unlike Sandia, where they’re all old, LOL). Anyway, when I start talking about my kids, pretty soon it’s obvious from the context that my kids are all grown up. And then my coworker’s eyes get big and they look at me like, “OMG you’re OLD!” Of course they don’t actually say that, but that’s what their faces say, and then I really do feel old. I think my boss is my daughter’s age. Not exaggerating. But she is very sweet 🙂

I’m sure I’ll relax after I get to know people. But I was not treated well at Sandia in California, so…once bit, twice shy, I guess. Now that I’m being treated with respect, I’m almost angry about how badly I was treated at Sandia. The difference is stark. It’s like I’m only fully realizing it now because it was subtle (but pervasive). When I first started that job I was very unhappy and I didn’t understand why. Four years later, when I quit that job, I still didn’t fully understand why I was quitting. But now I can’t believe I put up with it for as long as I did.

Two clients Wednesday night. This week is flying by!

THURSDAY:

Woke up with a bit worse of a migraine than Tuesday. So I got up soon as I woke up and started my migraine prevention routine. (This amount of migraine days is typical, BTW, and not due to the new job. Commonly 2-4 days a week, but usually under control and able to continue with my day.)

The casita I’m renting is only 5 minutes from where the training is being held, so I was also able to go home at lunchtime to do more migraine prevention. My new townhome will be about twice as far, but still only 10 minutes; still possible to go home for lunch if needed.

Here’s the other, more fun, advantage of being close enough to go home for lunch. Mmmmmm.

Only one client on Thursday night. She’s a new client, and it was her very first session. Initial sessions can be more of a challenge, but it seemed to go very well. And I kept the migraine under control all day, yay!

FRIDAY:

I just realized that I had failed to collect payment from a recent client prior to our session. I always require payment ahead of time, and I had in my mind that she had paid – but she hadn’t. This session was just a one-time session (sometimes people do just want one consultation). I can bill her retroactively, of course, but it’s highly unlikely she’ll pay now. Plus the session itself was difficult – upsetting for me. Sometimes people – and their lives – are not easy for me to deal with. Ugh, well, I just need to shake that off. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to continuing with my new client from Thursday night. She’s now scheduled regularly for Mondays and I know I will enjoy working with her.

Currently most of my clients are in their twenties, and trying to get their careers going (with their parents paying for the coaching). It’s a hard time of life. But my clients who are a decade or two older and in the midst of everything – children, career setbacks, deteriorating relationships – it seems like that’s even harder.

Particularly the relationship struggles – it’s the same stuff over and over. In our society we do not seem to know – or at least don’t widely teach – how to communicate in a relationship.  There’s some basics that would make such a big difference if people were simply taught. It would have saved me a lot of grief in my own life if I known more, sooner, about communication.

On Friday night I drove back to Placitas. The evening light through the clouds was amazing and it was very beautiful. But I passed the remnants of two recent car wrecks as I drove home. I feel so bad for everyone who has to make that commute twice each day. And I only have to do it twice a week.

After I got home last night, John and I went on a short walk to see the rest of the sunset. The sky was doing crazy, strange things as usual. New Mexico definitely has the best sunsets of anywhere I’ve ever lived.

Globalquerque in the rain

Here’s a few pictures from Globalquerque, which is an annual world music festival held in Albuquerque. John and I go every year. Even when we were in California, we would fly back for it.

There are 3 stages, two outdoors and one inside a big theater hall.

Here are African singers & drummers. In this shot, the percussionists have abandoned their “real” drums and are just using pieces of wood on wooden stools. It worked well!

These next guys are singers & dancers from Tbilisi, Georgia (the country).

The festival is for 2 evenings and we always see lots of great music that we would never otherwise hear. And I always buy at least one CD, and if you’re lucky you can get them signed there.

Lurking in the refrigerator

Laura, can you remind me what this is? I found it in the refrigerator.

It has tape around the lid, which suggests it was moved here from California last year (and obviously not used since).