Where Have I Been?

Alright blog world, it is time you and me have a show down. I know that my many devoted readers are starting to go through serious mental ailments over my lack of posting, and for that, I apologize. I have been a bit busy lately, but that is no excuse. This here post is going to entail an update to my life in case the reader is interested in what is going on.

I’ll start with the least fun topic: work. My job has been rather interesting for the last few weeks. As I have not enjoyed my job in the past, I have been focused on the goal of applying for 2 jobs a week. I kept that up for 4 weeks, but died in weeks 5 and 6. In total, I have applied for 9 jobs in the last 6 weeks, and haven’t really heard back from any of them. All but one of the jobs is the type of position I would love to have and I think I would be really good at, the problem is, I have very little experience in that field. I know I should make a few phone calls to follow up on the jobs, but I haven’t found the time or the guts to actually follow through with that thought. The one position that I wouldn’t necessarily love to have is in the same field I work in now, but pays more and would be working privately for a company instead of consulting. It would be an improvement, but I would still be doing financial analysis and staring at a computer all day. About 2 weeks ago in my current job I had a goals and performance meeting with 2 of the managers in the office. This meeting did not go very well. They are impressed to no end at my Excel skills, but they feel I am not engaging myself well enough into the business. Part of this is their fault because they keep giving me crappy assignments and passing me around, and part is my fault because I am not seeking out better work and stronger work relationships. We laid out a plan to improve this problem and they tagged the plan with a line of expectations of engagement improvement over the next few months or else the next conversation with them will not go as well… i.e. time to hit the road. Before discussing a plan to move forward, I was asked the very challenging question of “where do you see yourself in the future, not in the next 5 years, but by the end of next year.” YIKES! This was followed by a much harder question of whether or not I want to be doing this kind of work with these people. These questions were asked of me 4 weeks into my “apply for 2 jobs a week” goal! I couldn’t lie to them and say “I really want to be doing this and want to dedicate myself to improve,” but I certainly couldn’t tell them “I see myself living in Maryland with a recreation management job far removed from healthcare consulting.” I gave them a really lame answer of “I have good days and bad days,” and moved on with the conversation. Following this meeting, they have greatly improved their efforts of getting me good work and keeping me involved. They even assigned a mentor to me that I am talking to on a daily basis to get through projects and she has set apart specific time to teach me about the industry and how things function. I am now in a touchy situation: I really like the woman I am working with and her projects and tutoring make this job much better, but at the same time I still feel like I should move on and find a job I truly enjoy. I’m not sure what exactly I’m going to do, but in the meantime, I have been working much harder and showing them I want to do this work, while still taking some time to apply for other jobs.

In my personal life, things are moving along decently. I was really starting to get down on myself for a couple of weeks over being tired all the time and not liking my job, but that was interrupted by playing hooky for a day in the middle of the week to spend some quality time with Liz. We had such a great day and I realized that life can be pretty sweet sometimes when you take a break and just enjoy everything around you. I really feel that this day was a turning point in my year to get me back on track. Since then, things are going fairly well. I can’t say that I haven’t had bad moments, but I know things are better. Thanksgiving went well staying home with my family. I know it was hard on Liz not to spend the holiday with her family, but I was thankful to just be home and not have to travel. Liz didn’t complain too much about being with my family and I think she mostly had a good time. The day after Thanksgiving, we went out and got our first Bogaczyk Family Christmas Tree and bought a bunch of decorations for the house. We had a great time cutting down the tree and getting everything set up, and our house simply looks like a cozy happy house. Additionally, Liz and I bought a bunch of candy and built ourselves some gingerbread houses while watching a Christmas movie. Our house looks nice and smells like frosting everyday when I get home.

To summarize, life has been interesting the past few weeks. I’m not sure what lies ahead, but for now I’ll be working a little harder and counting the remaining 2.5 weeks of work I have left before a full 2 week Christmas Vacation. I’ll try to get some pictures up here soon of our beautifully decorated house. Until next time my friends.