AVERAGE BAD DAY FIX :: tanna

Today was an average bad day.  Stress and anxiety abound at work - non-stop teenage tears have been flowing in my office.  Many of these are the usual crocodile tears of kids that think they can play me, but some tears are unaccompanied by coherent explanation.  These are the ones that worry me.  If I can't get the child to articulate the problem, then I can't even begin to work towards a solution.  All I can do is stay calm and patient, and hope that I said the right things to the right child at the right time.   

And let's not even start on the topic of the parents crying in my office.  Usually it is the mothers, but I am no stranger to the sight of grown men in tears.  It used to make me very uncomfortable, but sad to say I am used to it now.  I have to keep piles of napkins on hand because we constantly run out of tissues.   When I leave the sanctuary of my office, and my very wonderful staff members,  I find myself dealing with entirely too many individuals that aggravate me.  It is difficult to tell if they are truly incompetent, or just uncaring, but the end result is that I am constantly explaining the same procedures over and over and over again.  When that fails, I end up doing the work myself, because otherwise nothing gets done.   Very frustrating and exhausting.

There is no less stress outside of work either.  Despite my good intentions (which by now have paved much of the road to hell) I'm in my usual mess of ridiculous over-commitment.  It's like a sickness.  I think I need therapy.  Just yesterday, despite being in full panic mode over the amount of tasks that I need to accomplish between now and the end of April, I accepted yet another project.   Why?  It's a venue and situation that I've never been in before, I'm impressed by the personality and professionalism of the musician that made the request, and I just could not say no.   Making matters worse, I was terribly sick last week which put me even further behind.  On the family front, today I discovered that my mother had minor surgery last week (she "forgot" to tell us!), and one of my sister's dogs just died.

On a positive note however,  Scott Schuster was kind enough to lend me a wonderful book titled "Getting Things Done", and I have faith that once I implement the suggested actions I will be able to function more effectively.   Of course,  I started this implementation process during the week of Christmas, and I still have multiple piles of papers spread out all over my living room floor.  Still, I really think this system will work for me, and I am not going to give up.

So what do I do to try to put myself in a better mood and get other people's drama and emotional garbage out of my head so that I can get some work done?  I look at my flower photos!  Or in this case, my autumn leaf photos.  I love to get shots from inside the tree, with the sun shining down through the leaves and intensifying the vibrant colors.  Looking at these photos also makes me smile because my baby brother was with me while I was taking them, and he always makes me laugh.  Many of my habits irritate him, but for some reason he gets particularly annoyed by my picture-taking.  Some of these trees were along Forest Park as we were walking to our aunt's house, and he was mortified when a city bus rolled by while I was busily shooting up into the tree.  I told him that if I was the strangest sight those bus riders had seen then they can't have been in NYC for very long.   

                      

Comments

[Blanca]

After reading the title of this blog I was expecting some margarita recipes... you're such a good Tanna!

[tanna]

LOL! Yes, a medicinal cocktail or two can certainly smooth over a bad day. I'm not a margarita fan however. Perhaps a 7&7, or a mojito...

[jerome]

Trust me, these bad days are'nt permanent
and they blow ower soon enough.
But a medicinal cocktail and rock & roll
full blast and for an hour or so
could'nt hurt.;)

fortinjack77