Level Unlocked

This has been an eventful week. My weekend (which, for me, is Sunday and Monday) were rough. Had to cancel an event I was looking forward to enjoying and then forgot something major, which is one of my biggest warning signs of mental collapse. Spent Tuesday morning in a panic attack, swearing to myself that I wouldn't fall back into the hole.

Thankfully, work and strategy meetings quickly turned that around. I am very blessed with both my job in general and my immediate supervisor.

Hibiscus at Night; the plant has recovered so well after I almost killed it!

 

 

 

My supervisor was under the impression that I was complaining about my hours on the phone and the difficulties in upselling because of actual dislike for the challenge. So, when he told me that he'd gotten my sales calls reduced, he anticipated that I'd be pleased. When he saw that I was disappointed instead, he called a coaching, we discussed the miscommunication, and we kept at the discussion into we solved the problems.

So, the fact that I lost the consistency in my metrics as I added projects that took time off the phones is now offset by this new metric, introduced recently, that I hadn't understood in terms of my particular needs. Without that metric, I don't have a way to see where I am in relationship to my goals or the company's goals. With it, I have a way to recognize and improve upon my own success.

Since the new metric is still new, it doesn't go out in the daily report. Therefore, my supervisor volunteered to give it to me daily. That helps.

The other problem is that, with the other projects, I do lose time on the phones, which means I fall out of practice. I dislike losing skills, but I really enjoy those other projects too, so... I don't know what that means, exactly, but we agreed to find a better balance for project time vs. phone time.

On his side, he hadn't realized that I do see challenges as things that bring interest to the job, so I'll need to work on communicating that better.

The truly fun part of that meeting, though, is that he let me interrupt him with my own ideas and frustrations and corrections. I say "interrupt" because that's how it would have been interpreted when I was a kid. If I did it to my parents, they would have rebuked me right then in front of everyone. If I did it to someone else, they'd wait until the other person left and then rebuked me. These days, though, I've come to realize that it is a normal part of the ebb and flow of conversation. I'm going to need to come up with a description for this that defines the difference between real interrupting and the kind that I'm talking about here. I know there has to be one, but I might have to leave analyzing that for another day.

Anyway, it leaves me feeling a lot more fulfilled and able to take on the challenge.

One of the things he said was that he hopes I'd be willing to speak up and correct the assumptions if I saw that he was misunderstanding something about me. I took this to mean 'you should have said something sooner,' instead of what he really meant which was more 'in the future, please understand that I'll listen." We got off track a bit as I defended myself from the attack that didn't happen, but I recognized the disconnect before we ended the talk, which is a definite sign of improvement for me.

So, that's two communication goals that I was able to fulfill; standing up for myself in the moment and recognizing a miscommunication in the moment. My processing speed is finally starting to be where I hoped.

Other goals accomplished this week; meeting one on one with a relative stranger, swimming ten laps in the community pool, running 4 miles in three intervals including one of 2.25 miles, and standing up to an acquaintance who keeps using pity as a weapon. No doubt that last one is going to have further repercussions, but now that the die is cast, I think I can handle it. We'll see.