B is for being me #AtoZchallenge

I have a unique relationship with my manager. We have a respectful employee-manager work relationship. It has also developed into a friendship, which still feels new to me.

Last Thursday, I had my performance review for 2016. Don't ask why it came so late. My company is messed up that way.

When it came down to what I could do to improve, my manager polled a rather toxic individual who naturally gave negative feedback. He hinted that both he and I dislike this person.

I flat out told him how I felt. This person seems to always have something negative to say about me and cannot back up her comments with factual information. She is highly toxic and is probably acting this way because I seem to be a threat to her. I ended saying that I would take her statement with a grain of salt, as she doesn't even know me.

I never asked why my manager asked this individual for feedback. We don't work closely with each other. After saying my two cents, he nodded in agreement.

My performance review was positive. My manager confided in me. He said that there are two writers whom he can count on to meet deadlines and get our work done. I am one of them, which is a nice compliment. The other compliment was that I was the only one on the team who received a comment saying that my work is of high quality.

The younger me would have been upset over the toxic woman's negative remarks. The person writing this blog post now is not. I am pleased with my performance at work. I balance the workload of at least two writers. These days, it seems like three. I will not let one idiot's negative remarks with no factual information to back her accusations up dampen my spirit.

I like who I am and how far I have come. It's good to grow.

W is for wine and whine

My guy and I had dinner one evening at the Olive Garden restaurant. I introduced him to this place when we were both in New Jersey a few years ago. We were both there for work. I was in a two-week training course. My guy was teaching a different course to fellow colleagues for a week.

The restaurant offers free wine-tasting. We both sampled the red wine offered that evening. He took one sip and gave me a boyish I-don't-like-it expression on his face, which included a lot of eye blinks and tongue flickers.

On the contrary, I loved the wine. My guy have me his and I finished it. Needless to say, I am more of a wine fan than my guy.

I playfully whine about how sore my backside is after my guy has punished me. We both enjoy that. When we aren't being playful or intimate, we rarely whine about much.

However, my guy does break out and whine about something now and again. It mostly deals with items at his favourite store, Costco. He only whines about not getting a shirt or wool pants in his size to me. I try to console him and often suggest that we visit another Costco location. This suggestion helped fix one of the two problems recently.

Although my guy doesn't like being referred to as boyish (it makes sense, as he is a mature, grown man), he is. It is who he is. There's nothing wrong with that at all.