You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!

I just found this from a few months ago, and it still amuses me. 

Jennifer: Wait...so who do you work for now? I should have taken a pic of the org chart!

Virginia: I now work for Marisa

Jennifer: Okay. Frank kicked you and Aaron to the curb!

Virginia: It's like kids at a party...any grown up will do to pour the juice or whatever...any manager will do.

Jennifer: LOL! That's true. Marisa seems like a good manager for career development

Virginia: Yes. And that's what I need, because I am bored to tears. A well-trained monkey in a diaper could do my job. Hell, we could potty train a well-trained monkey!

Jennifer: Thanks for thinking of the carpet.

Virginia: Well, we just had the carpet replaced! And, there'd be the added bonus that the monkey could demonstrate Frank's banana-opening theory. 

Jennifer: We'd have to lock the peanut M&Ms up. I hope the monkey likes donuts. The monkey could also eat the rotting leftovers.

Virginia: Do monkeys eat leftovers? I know pigs do, but they don't have opposable thumbs.

Jennifer: We could make a pig pen as part of space planning.

Virginia: All of the zoo animals that interact with the public have a companion animal...my monkey could have a companion pig to eat the leftovers! And when the pig gets old...instant bacon! Or did I just cross a line?

Jennifer: We could bury it in the volleyball court and have a luau.

Virginia: OMG! YOU ARE SO RIGHT! Best idea ever! Let me tell Marisa we need to hire a monkey in a diaper so it can have a companion pig so we can have a luau! And we'll have revenge on the product team that didn't invite us to their party!

Jennifer: Yes!

Virginia: Nothing tastes better than sweet revenge...except when that revenge tastes like pork!

Jennifer: Haha!

Virginia: OMG! why aren't WE running this company yet?

Jennifer: Right?! Give us a little more time and there will be piglets roaming these halls!

Virginia: I totally went to grad school to run shit. I did NOT go to grad school to accrue severance.

Jennifer: Fact!

Virginia: We live in California...people seem to think they can take their dogs everywhere with them. It's only a matter of time before people take their monkeys and companion pigs with them everywhere, too. We just want to be on the front end of that trend.

Admission: I'm on a diet

I'm on a diet.

Without getting into the details, yes, it's brand-name, no it does not involve anything delicious, and yes, I'm aware I'm consuming a lot of chemicals. It's temporary!

I've been trying for a while to lose the weight I gained when, over two years ago, I worked at a job with long hours and a lot of travel. And I've been unsuccessful. I've tried upping my protein. I've tried new exercises. I joined a CrossFit box. (I LOVE my CrossFit box! I am so strong now! But I have some pants I still can't button.) I've tried cutting out drinks (any drinks: juice, coffee, alcohol).

But it wasn't working. So when a coworker had success with this diet, and another wanted to try it, I thought, well, let's see what happens. It's easy in that I don't have to think about what I eat: everything is prepackaged. I have some friends doing it with me, so that helps. And it's been working.

I was hesitant to try this diet because I was afraid of what people would think. I didn't want to be someone who had to diet. I didn't want to jump on a trend bandwagon. I didn't want to feel desperate and fat. I WANT to be someone who can be cognizant of what they are eating and make smart changes to lose weight. But, I'm not that person. Or at least not yet. But then I also realized, I don't care about the diets of my friends: I care that they're healthy and happy. I'm not doing this because it's a trend, I'm doing it for me. And I'm not desperate. I'm still a healthy weight and size. I'm not fat. I'm just not who I want to be.

Tackling the question of who I want to be has many layers. But one of them is someone who is a little smaller.

Almost every female I know has a love/hate relationship with food, or has gotten over a love/hate relationship with food. It's like that boyfriend we've all had--that one where we say, well, I was in this dysfunctional relationship and it sucked, but now I really appreciate the person I'm with because of it. Why do we need that? Why can't we skip over the disfunction and just appreciate? This is probably a topic to discuss with my therapist. If I had a therapist. But that's another kind of "dating" relationship; one that I don't really have time for right now.

Back to the love/hate relationship with food. It's really sad, because food is fuel, and it's delicious and nourishing in more ways than one. Food is socializing with people you care about, food is holiday traditions, food can feed your body and your soul.

But sometimes food pollutes your body and soul.

When I talk to people who have made major changes to their diet and nutritional lifestyle, I'm always amazed by how personal it is. I always thought you just start eating better and less, but that's not the case at all. It's way more an emotional battle than a physical one.

I used to be the person who could eat anything. In high school, I was on two swim teams. That coupled with a fast metabolism inherited from my mother meant I could eat donuts and Reese's pieces every day, in addition to all of the significantly more normal, and decidedly healthier meals my mother prepared. And still be a size 2. And have muscles.

Tragically, I am no longer on two swim teams. I have a job where I sit at my desk. My mother doesn't cook my meals, my husband or I do (mostly my husband, actually). And while I still have muscles (bigger muscles, in fact!), and my pants size is single-digit, I'm far from a 2 (although I have no plans to ever get back to that).

I've been on this diet almost two weeks now, and I'm noticing both the physical and emotional changes. Good or bad, here's what I've learned about myself:
1. I miss coffee more than chocolate (WTF?)
2. I don't like to be full; I like to be not hungry.
3. I like eating small meals every two hours, like a newborn.
4. I like eating the same thing every day.
5. It's actually easier on the weekends, when I can DO what I enjoy than on the weekdays, when I don't enjoy what I do.
6. Which means I should probably be looking for a career change. Hopefully it's not located at the bottom of a pint of ice cream or beer.
7. In general, I don't miss alcohol, but I haven't become a teetotaler.
8. I do miss juice, hot chocolate, tea with milk, and pretty much anything else I can drink.
9. I'm more of an emotional-eater than I thought.

I'm not a patient person by nature, so this whole life's-a-journey thing is never really something I've embraced. But, to quote the Cheshire cat, if it doesn't matter where you want to go, "then it doesn't matter which way you go." And I definitely have a destination in mind.

I HATE having to do other peoples' jobs for them

This is a letter I composed to the billing office of the physical therapy group where my husband went for a shoulder injury. I think it was very mature of me to not include things like "Get your head out of your ass and do your fucking job," "the incompetence of your billing department is only overshadowed by it's persistence in such incompetence ."

The name of the group is Synergy Specialists and Captain America wasn't even that impressed by their services. I highly don't recommend them. 

To whom it may concern:

Please check your records. Our HRA has paid both the $107.92 patient portion from Captain America's visit on 3/20/14 (payment #PH4339xxxx paid on 4/8/14) and the $107.92 patient portion from Captain America's visit on 4/22/14 (payment #PH4370xxxx paid on 5/9/14).

UHC has verified that these checks have been cashed, so perhaps they are sitting in your unapplied cash account?

Feel free to call UHC at 800-718-1299 to discuss this issue further. However, as my husband and I do not owe any payments, we will ignore all future requests for payment. 

Be Gentle with Yourself

My life is in shambles. I haven't made it to CrossFit all week, with the exception of Yoga on Wednesday. Yes, this is what constitutes "shambles" for me. Which I realize is highly melodramatic. I mean, my husband and I both have good jobs, we have a nice house, our friends and family are basically happy and healthy. We have really good lives.

And yet, every time I have a week or so of not doing something consistently, especially something I enjoy, I feel like my entire world has fallen apart.

This week, some of the problem has been due to scheduling--I've had a lot going on after work, which is  my fallback position for when I don't make it to CrossFit in the morning. Also, we spent Sunday celebrating a cousin's birthday, so none of my usual Sunday routines to get ready for the work week happened.

It occurred to me while thinking about this post that many people probably have a thing like this--a thing that they enjoy doing that they just haven't managed to get to for a while because there are other things going on in their lives. Or maybe that they haven't felt like doing, even though they also feel like they should be doing it.

This is especially problematic for me because I suffer from (am living with?) chronic depression. I suppose in the whole scheme of depressed people, mine isn't that bad. I've never been in a position where I couldn't get out of bed. I don't know if that's because I'm strong-willed, less depressed than others, or because my depression started in about 6th grade and there was no way my mother was going to let me lie in bed all day instead of going to school.

Anyway, the problem with not feeling like doing something when you have depression is that it's very hard to tell if you don't want to do something because you're depressed, which would indicate that your depression is worsening, or your medications have stopped working or whatever (I'm not a doctor, this is just my experience). On the other hand, I'm sure non-depressed people have weeks where they don't feel like doing something and all it means to them is that they need a break from it.

I had a boyfriend once who, when I was in the throes of negative talk about everything I wasn't getting done, would say to me, when you beat yourself up like this it makes me sad, because you're beating up my sweetie.

While that relationship is long gone, I try to remember those words. Because it's helpful to remember that even when you're not happy with yourself, chances are good there's someone else who loves you just the way you are. Look at yourself from their perspective: do the people who love me care that I've missed a week of CrossFit? Probably not, or at least not in a way that they're disappointed in me about it.  Do they care that I missed out on my Sunday get-ready-for-work routine? Again, probably not (honestly, they probably can't even tell).

We all have busy, messy lives, and I think it's important to remember to be gentle with our selves when we're not doing everything we thing we should be doing, or even want to be doing. Don't beat yourself up
over something you didn't do today because there's always tomorrow to try again, and no one is perfect.

Not enough experience

This is a picture of Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

In the past week, I've had two different sets of disappointing news at work. The first is that I will not be going to India to teach business skills to women in rural villages (how awesome is that opportunity!), and the second is that I'm not being considered for a position in our Finance department because they are looking for someone with more experience.

I understand. I really do. They want someone with 5 years finance experience. I have about a decade of accounting experience. That sounds like the same thing to someone not in the field, but it's really not. It's really actually a fundamentally different way of looking at data.

There are a few things about this decision that trouble me. The first is that when I looked over the job description and talked with the managers, everything sounded like stuff I can do. Because I'm smart. And I have a degree in Finance. And because the accounting work at my last company was both more complex and more analytic-based than what I'm currently doing.

This is a picture of a disappointed boy. I think it looks like Sad Christopher Robin. 

The second troubling thing is that I really want out of accounting. Accounting is dull. (I'm sure people in finance might argue that finance is dull, but that's not the point.) The point is, I never meant to become an accountant. I meant to use accounting as a way of getting a job after college, and as a way of getting into a good company so I could eventually do something useful. Well, I've had no problems getting jobs. I'm at a good company. It's apparently the next step that I'm struggling with.

To be fair, I've been at my current company less than two years. It's just that I've been an accountant FOREVER. When I went to grad school, I had no idea that almost 5 years after graduating, I would still have the exact same title on my resume than I did before grad school. Somehow that seems to miss the point of all of those classes (and all of that  money we spent).

As I understand it, the people who don't want to hire me for their finance roles do want to use me for some project work, which is both good and bad. The good side is that they'll get to see how amazing I am and that will hopefully make them more inclined to hire me when another role opens. The bad side is that I'll essentially be doing finance work for free. Sure my hours and my salary will stay the same, but there is a definite pay jump between my level in accounting and the equivalent level in finance.

On the bright side, until they decide what to do with me, I have time to blog at work.

Marathoning, in retrospect

I recently ran a marathon. And it was terrible. It was the worst run I’ve ever had, and it was the slowest marathon I’ve ever run, second only to the marathon that I stubbornly ran despite my torn calf muscle.

A marathon is 26.2 miles, and a lot can happen in those miles. Runners twist ankles, fall, bleed, and acquire new and mysterious injuries. Professional runners die running that distance. Marathoning has become increasingly mainstream in the last few decades, but it is not for the faint of heart.

My running partners and I set a goal of running a sub-4 hour marathon. A sub-4 hour marathon is a 9:09 pace. It’s a good clip, but not impossibly fast. This was to be my fifth marathon, and I felt confident it would be my best. I knew my weaknesses, I knew how to train, I knew what it felt like to push myself, and I knew how long those last 1.2 miles were after already having run 25 of them.

I created a training plan, and bolstered by my enthusiasm and the promise of blueberry pancakes, my friends and I proceeded to knock off mile after mile. We ran up and down hills. We ran in the fog. We ran in the sun. We ran past beach volleyball players with hateable bodies. You know—those tan women with sun-bleached hair who make wearing a paper bag look like couture. Yes, even distance runners hate those people. To be fair, the lone male among us loved running past the volleyball girls.

At mile 14 of the race, my last running partner dropped behind me. I thought as long as she could see me, she’d keep up, but after the race was over she told me she developed severe thigh cramping—something that’s never happened before. At mile 14 I was about two minutes ahead of where I needed to be based on the meticulously plotted racing strategy developed by my sister, who is a 2:55 marathoner. (That’s the insane pace of 6:40 per mile. I sort of hate her, too.)

Two minutes was a nice lead, but not enough that I could sit back and relax. I wasn't worried that I had gone out too hard—my sister and I anticipated this and figured any lead I had was padding for when something unexpected happened up ahead. I just didn't expect it to happen in the next three miles.

By mile 17, I was behind schedule. By mile 20 I was running 12-minute miles. And by the time I saw the finish line, I was just glad to stop running.

My husband and I have a code: he watches me race, and when he sees me, he says “You’re doing great! See you at the finish line!” and I answer “Yes!” This exchange informs him that I’m fine and planning on finishing this run, no matter what. As he says, “You better show up.” Not finishing this race didn’t even cross my mind.

When I look back on this race, all I can say is that it got very hot and very humid very fast. My training was great and I didn’t suffer any unexpected injuries. You can only do so much planning for the weather. The week before the race, my friends and I knew it was going to be hot. We drank extra water every day to stay hydrated. But you can’t train for a marathon the week before the race. By that point, if you haven’t done the necessary work, it is already too late.

It is disappointing to set a goal and not achieve it, but this marathon wasn't a failure. I finished the damned thing, and I did so with the support of my husband, my sister, and some good friends. It was okay that I didn't meet my goal, because my family and friends were still proud of me, and I was, too.

Advice for a college graduate

I recently received the following letter from a friend:

Hi Virginia,

My daughter Tess is graduating from the University of Arizona in May. As a gift I am giving her an advice book, advice from 100 people I respect -- people like you. 

The question I'm asking respondents is: "If you could offer a college graduate only one piece of advice which, in hindsight, you wish you had been offered, what would it be?" 

If interested, please respond by March 30th. 

So far, responses have ranged in length from one word to around 250 words. My suggestion? Be brief, be memorable.

Also, let me know how you wish to be identified: 1) name only, 2) name and title, 3) name, title and company. 

A graphic artist and I will put the book together and present it to Tess on her graduation day. 

Thank you in advance.

This is what I wrote back:

What a great idea and thank you for reaching out to me!

One piece of advice that I think of often are the lyrics to an Eagles song "City girls just seem to find out early how to open doors with just a smile."

But what I would say is:

Do what terrifies you: your successes will be sweeter than you dreamed, your failures will be less than you imagined, and if you end up in the middle, well most of life is lived in the middle, so what are you worried about anyway?

Thanks,

Virginia

What do you think?