ITS NOT BIRDO ITS NOT ITS NOT ITS NOT
I usually keep things in my life running smoothly. I'm happy with who I am. Life has been going great. Everything's been fine.
So why am I so stressed out? I'll give you a summary.
AT&T wireline and certain parts of wireless may go on strike (the unions CWA & IBEW). If they do, they have a whole slew of positions to backfill. Earlier in the year, we all had to fill out these "skills profile" things online. I filled mine out honestly and listed anything I'd ever done. Well, later I found out that most everyone else just put "Word and Excel" and left it blank, and laughed that I'd actually filled it out.
Fast forward to a few months ago when they start picking people to backfill the on-strike employees. Well, guess what? Anyone who was dumb enough to fill out the skills profile honestly got picked. But since I had previous experience with Verizon Wireless, they figured "oh hey this guy knows how to do this job that he has absolutely no clue how to do". So they decide to post me in Santa Rosa and ship me to San Leandro for 12 days training. In this 12 days I'm supposed to learn 10 years of job experience. Stress starts piling on.
I get to the class and it's not as bad as I hoped. They know I don't know anything and start training us. It's extremely fast paced and in a learning style which I actually do well in, because most learning programs go over the same material over and over until they're sure you get it. This one hits stuff once and moves on. We literally covered 10 years of job experience in a week and a half. All sorts of stuff, climbing telephone poles, driving aerial lift trucks, toning cable pairs down 40,000 feet of wire, measuring all sorts of ohms and noise and ratios and whatnot with all sorts of equipment. The instructor told us about a time he was on top of the Golden Gate Bridge installing a new switching module, and stories of his colleagues having to work on backbone lines while suspended from a helicopter over mountains. It was a crazy week.
I was at Jack-in-the-Box a few miles away from where all the Oakland police officers got shot, almost right when it happened. What a great city to live in. I literally went to Walmart and bought shitty clothes to wear because I was worried about getting robbed walking around in what I normally wear (the first day I was in downtown Oakland, several people commented "nigga you lost?" or "nice SHIRT son."
I flew Sam out for the weekend and we spent it running around San Francisco. Lots of fun, it made up for the whole trip sucking. I also got an email from the CP09 (contingency planning 2009) department, telling me they had reassigned me to a fiber tech position in Salt Lake City. This is great news, because now I won't have to go to Santa Rosa for who knows how long if ATT really decides to strike.
So why am I so stressed out? At first it was because I hated the idea of having to do a job that I didn't know how to do; I hate not being good at what I'm doing. I despise it; I will do whatever it takes to make sure I'm good and can do what needs to be done and that I'm never the one not holding up his end of the load. Throwing someone into a job to backfill an on-strike employee is not my idea of fun. If I knew how to do the job, sure, it'd be fun to do a different job for a day. But I can't stand not knowing how or even having a way to prepare.
The job's in SLC now, though. So the stress of having to leave everyone is gone, but the stress of not knowing WTF I'm doing is still there. I think the training I got will help, but I don't know how much. I don't know why this bothers me so much. This career with AT&T is the best I've ever had. I've worked my ass off for the better part of the prime of my life to get where I am today. I really shouldn't be worrying so much about having to do a job during a strike that might not even happen.
So where is this angst (for lack of a better word) coming from? I have very few problems in my life. I'm not a drug addict, I don't have the Mafia or bill collectors after me, I don't have problems paying rent, I don't have cancer or self-esteem issues or epilepsy or diabetes or depression, I have awesome friends, I have a solid living situation, I have a great girlfriend (which I'm sure causes some stress, but ironically enough, the stress with my girlfriend is all about her and her sister, not me and her), I have a great career, everything is coming up Nait. So what's the fuckin' problem?
I'm not sure what it is. Anytime I get a really good, content feeling... it always gets pervaded by thoughts of something might be wrong, or I'm forgetting something terrible, or SOMETHING. I can never enjoy a genuine great feeling for more than a few minutes. Which doesn't make sense at all, to me. It'll be like, aw sweet, I'm drivin my car, feelin great, blastin music, feelin great! UGHHHH WHATS WRONG SOMETHINGS WRONG I KNOW IT WTF UGHH. Every time! I've moved past and grown out of the bad habits I used to have. I don't do the things I used to anymore, I rarely do much or go out at all anymore. Why can't I enjoy feeling great?
Maybe the problem is that my mind hasn't quite accepted that I've grown out of being wild and reckless. Sometimes I think about the times of days past, of me and Dylan racing up Logan Canyon at 100+ in the 3000GT and Corvette, or any of those nights sitting in a bass cabinet crosseyed at a rave, and I don't see it as "just 6 years ago". It seems like another lifetime.
I don't think I'm an antagonist. I try to keep the peace in all areas of my life, I'm fairly tolerant, I can put up with a lot before something really gets to me, I deal with all sorts of shit every day from all sorts of angles, and I keep my cool. Running lolutah, while it doesn't sound like much, requires a hell of a lot of tact and diplomacy when you consider that goddamn channel IS the entirety of our social circle. I try to keep everyone being friends. Maybe it gets to me. I don't think it does, but I'm not a psychologist.
I think I just need to learn how to truly relax.
So why am I so stressed out? I'll give you a summary.
AT&T wireline and certain parts of wireless may go on strike (the unions CWA & IBEW). If they do, they have a whole slew of positions to backfill. Earlier in the year, we all had to fill out these "skills profile" things online. I filled mine out honestly and listed anything I'd ever done. Well, later I found out that most everyone else just put "Word and Excel" and left it blank, and laughed that I'd actually filled it out.
Fast forward to a few months ago when they start picking people to backfill the on-strike employees. Well, guess what? Anyone who was dumb enough to fill out the skills profile honestly got picked. But since I had previous experience with Verizon Wireless, they figured "oh hey this guy knows how to do this job that he has absolutely no clue how to do". So they decide to post me in Santa Rosa and ship me to San Leandro for 12 days training. In this 12 days I'm supposed to learn 10 years of job experience. Stress starts piling on.
I get to the class and it's not as bad as I hoped. They know I don't know anything and start training us. It's extremely fast paced and in a learning style which I actually do well in, because most learning programs go over the same material over and over until they're sure you get it. This one hits stuff once and moves on. We literally covered 10 years of job experience in a week and a half. All sorts of stuff, climbing telephone poles, driving aerial lift trucks, toning cable pairs down 40,000 feet of wire, measuring all sorts of ohms and noise and ratios and whatnot with all sorts of equipment. The instructor told us about a time he was on top of the Golden Gate Bridge installing a new switching module, and stories of his colleagues having to work on backbone lines while suspended from a helicopter over mountains. It was a crazy week.
I was at Jack-in-the-Box a few miles away from where all the Oakland police officers got shot, almost right when it happened. What a great city to live in. I literally went to Walmart and bought shitty clothes to wear because I was worried about getting robbed walking around in what I normally wear (the first day I was in downtown Oakland, several people commented "nigga you lost?" or "nice SHIRT son."
I flew Sam out for the weekend and we spent it running around San Francisco. Lots of fun, it made up for the whole trip sucking. I also got an email from the CP09 (contingency planning 2009) department, telling me they had reassigned me to a fiber tech position in Salt Lake City. This is great news, because now I won't have to go to Santa Rosa for who knows how long if ATT really decides to strike.
So why am I so stressed out? At first it was because I hated the idea of having to do a job that I didn't know how to do; I hate not being good at what I'm doing. I despise it; I will do whatever it takes to make sure I'm good and can do what needs to be done and that I'm never the one not holding up his end of the load. Throwing someone into a job to backfill an on-strike employee is not my idea of fun. If I knew how to do the job, sure, it'd be fun to do a different job for a day. But I can't stand not knowing how or even having a way to prepare.
The job's in SLC now, though. So the stress of having to leave everyone is gone, but the stress of not knowing WTF I'm doing is still there. I think the training I got will help, but I don't know how much. I don't know why this bothers me so much. This career with AT&T is the best I've ever had. I've worked my ass off for the better part of the prime of my life to get where I am today. I really shouldn't be worrying so much about having to do a job during a strike that might not even happen.
So where is this angst (for lack of a better word) coming from? I have very few problems in my life. I'm not a drug addict, I don't have the Mafia or bill collectors after me, I don't have problems paying rent, I don't have cancer or self-esteem issues or epilepsy or diabetes or depression, I have awesome friends, I have a solid living situation, I have a great girlfriend (which I'm sure causes some stress, but ironically enough, the stress with my girlfriend is all about her and her sister, not me and her), I have a great career, everything is coming up Nait. So what's the fuckin' problem?
I'm not sure what it is. Anytime I get a really good, content feeling... it always gets pervaded by thoughts of something might be wrong, or I'm forgetting something terrible, or SOMETHING. I can never enjoy a genuine great feeling for more than a few minutes. Which doesn't make sense at all, to me. It'll be like, aw sweet, I'm drivin my car, feelin great, blastin music, feelin great! UGHHHH WHATS WRONG SOMETHINGS WRONG I KNOW IT WTF UGHH. Every time! I've moved past and grown out of the bad habits I used to have. I don't do the things I used to anymore, I rarely do much or go out at all anymore. Why can't I enjoy feeling great?
Maybe the problem is that my mind hasn't quite accepted that I've grown out of being wild and reckless. Sometimes I think about the times of days past, of me and Dylan racing up Logan Canyon at 100+ in the 3000GT and Corvette, or any of those nights sitting in a bass cabinet crosseyed at a rave, and I don't see it as "just 6 years ago". It seems like another lifetime.
I don't think I'm an antagonist. I try to keep the peace in all areas of my life, I'm fairly tolerant, I can put up with a lot before something really gets to me, I deal with all sorts of shit every day from all sorts of angles, and I keep my cool. Running lolutah, while it doesn't sound like much, requires a hell of a lot of tact and diplomacy when you consider that goddamn channel IS the entirety of our social circle. I try to keep everyone being friends. Maybe it gets to me. I don't think it does, but I'm not a psychologist.
I think I just need to learn how to truly relax.