The winds of change

While I was away in the States, my friend, who is also my colleague, had good news to share with me. We had a quick call as I was driving over to the arena to see a hockey game.

She had landed a project manager job in a different department. I was thrilled for her because she has expressed wanting to be one in the past. I did say to be careful. She would have a manager who was toxic towards me and enjoyed trying to sabotage me. She was unsuccessful.

Well, on the weekend, my friend said that there was an abrupt change. She ended up resigning. Wow! I was not expecting to hear that statement from her.

We are getting together later on today. She said that she'd explain everything to me. I have a feeling that perhaps this toxic woman did something that made my friend quit. We'll see.

Fizzled chat

I think that my recent chat with a potential dating interest has fizzled. I'm oddly not upset by it.

On Friday, he said that I am always busy with work. I pointed out that it could be a potential problem. He took an early retirement. Already, his remark made me feel guilty for not being available for him.

I need to work. There are bills to pay. I am not at the stage for early retirement. Deal with it.

He apologized. I text him while I break at work. It doesn't seem like it's enough.

We have not chatted since I sent him messages on Saturday morning. He has seen my messages. He never responded to any of them.

It's better that we stop now, rather than getting serious and realizing that our career phases are out of sync.

New job opportunity closer to home

I haven't been actively looking for a new job these days. Often, recruiters will contact me.

It happened again. A recruiter contacted me through e-mail. This time, it's for a position that targets a few skills from my past. I also get complete control of how I want my department to grow.

More importantly, this company is located in the same city in which I reside. It would take me fifteen minutes to get to work.

Should I get this position, I wouldn't have to commute on a toll highway for nearly an hour. Wow!

I decided to go ahead with submitting my resume. I have a phone interview on Monday. I need to find past and present samples of my work.

I'm optimistic. A change may be what I need these days.

Job analysis and prospective interview

On Thursday morning, i had to give a presentation to my entire team, which consists of over twenty writers from four different locations.

My presentation went well. I had a couple of technical issues. Otherwise, I was pleased with how it went.

I train folks and meet with students so often that speaking in front of groups doesn't rattle me like it used to. Sure, I still get a little nervous. To me, that's normal. It simply means that I care about what I am doing.

I ended up with an odd acknowledgement from my manager in our team meeting later on that day for whipping together a high-level process description for something that I do often. He normally doesn't make such an acknowledgement in front of the team. It was sweet that those in the room clapped. Perhaps my manager realized how valuable I am as an employee.

I am the longest-serving writer in our group and am the overall team lead for it. It has taken me a while to build up to this stage in my career.

With the job interview on Friday, I assessed whether I would be happy in that position. I wouldn't be a team lead. I wouldn't be coaching other writers. I wouldn't be training students. I love all these aspects of my job.

Sure, I would be saving in highway toll fees, travel time, and gas. I would also be taking a pay cut. It's interesting, but money has never been my main motivator. It's how I feel about the job that makes me happy.

All my development work, meaning writing to support our software products, will go to two other writers. I will focus on a migration tools task, performance statistics, and process work.

I have wanted a change and a reduction in my workload for a while. I will continue training students, supporting my team, and more. I like this change.

I made the difficult decision to decline my interview on Friday. It feels right. The recruiter was understanding. It is the first time in my life where I have declined coming in for a job interview.

I let my guy know. As usual, he is supportive. Whatever makes me happy, makes my guy happy, too. As usual, he is his sweet self.

Work frustration, but comforted by a sore bottom

It has been a while since I have ranted about work. Unfortunately, the cycle has restarted.

Back in November of last year, we hired two contractors. My manager fired the male contractor a month later, as he was highly unproductive. The female contractor showed promise. She was eager to learn and was hard-working.

She and my manager do not get along. My manager insisted that she start work with the rest of her agile team. She prefers to start work at 07:30. Only one other person is in the office at that hour and that person does not work directly with her. She didn't compromise with my manager. Instead, she still comes in at the same time, but takes more breaks and leaves work half an hour later.

My manager has set up team lunches every Friday, so that we can all bond. No team member is obligated to attend all of them, but these invitations caused stress for the contractor.

Late on Monday, my manager forwarded an e-mail from this contractor, who essentially resigned and said that this week would be her last with the company. Frankly, I don't think that she can give less than a week's notice. It's just not classy.

I had suspected that she would jump ship. Being sick for a week was my tipoff. On Monday, she cited getting her basement attended to in the morning due to flooding. She was adamant that she would be away in the morning, but would resume work from home in the afternoon. I have a feeling that she knew that she no longer wanted to come into work.

So, my manager has yet again asked me to step in and take over a departing writer's tasks. I am frankly sick of bailing people out. One writer goes on vacation and I am the only one who ended up subbing for her. Another writer quit a year ago. I picked up her slack. What about last December when two writers could not get their act together and do their jobs? Another writer and I slaved away to get the job done under tight deadlines.

I need to seriously consider finding another job. I feel, yet again, that my career is stagnant. I do not want to be filling in for folks who quit.

Apparently, we have three positions open. I can only hope that they all get filled so I can do what I enjoy doing these days, which is teaching folks how to write rather than being taken for granted as someone who can save the day when we are short-staffed. However, I still need to see what jobs are out there. Perhaps I can find one that is close to home and that I find challenging.

I will continue regularly scheduled fun posts soon. Yes, my backside is still sore from my recent spanking. It makes me feel loved that my guy would spank me after a long day of travel.

Change is coming professionally, with my guy being his supportive self

My guy has been in Seattle on business for a couple of weeks. We have been talking on Skype every single evening except for last Wednesday. He fell asleep in front of TV and didn't wake up until 03:30 my time.

Friday was not a good day for me at work. As far as my workload goes, it is worse now than it was in January. I told my manager that I am tired of doing the same work for over five years and that I am always the one who ends up bailing everyone else. Sure, my pace to complete my work is faster than my colleagues. However, I should not have to bear the burden of having more work because of my faster pace.

Yes, it sucks that a writer quit and I have to fill in this gap. It is sad that I am no longer doing lead writing duties. My career is stagnant.

I told my boss that it's time for me to find another job. He can't help me develop my career goals. The company isn't backfilling the departed writer's position.

I asked my guy whether he could let his boss know that I'd be interested in doing what my guy does. My guy didn't hesitate. He feels that I would be fine, because I am articulate, I know the products, and that I wrote the documentation to show folks how to use them. It would also mean that we'd work in the same department again if this career change happens.

As bittersweet as it is to turn away from writing, my current predicament is the push that I need to do something different with my career.

My guy was supportive on Friday night. He told me not to worry -- that I always manage to get out of stressful situations and handle them well. He also said that the company has plenty of room for me to find another position that I truly love.

He came back home on Saturday. It was wonderful seeing him again. Being in his arms, kissing his sweet lips, knowing that he loves me, and getting a fun spanking meant a lot.

Two months later...

I am just horrible at updating here. In a nutshell, I'll outline what I have been up to since I last wrote.

I successfully completed my first semester of grad school at the end of April. I did well and am quite pleased! I was so thrilled that I had to find an excuse for G to spank me. So, I suggested that getting an A in a graduate course means that it's essentially a perfect mark (that is, 100 percent), so I should get a hundred smacks. I went on to reason that I had taken two courses, got A's in both, and should really get two hundred smacks on my bottom.

Cutting to the chase, G agreed with me. Over his knee I went. My pajama bottoms were pulled down and the first one hundred smacks were administered over my panties, which didn't completely cover my backside. So, my bottom was starting to smart halfway through the count. The next set were administered on my bare bottom, with G casually pulling my panties down and continuing to spank away. He didn't seem fatigued at all. I was, though. Let's just say that I could feel the heat generated from my spanking and that I had to rub my cheeks afterwards. No complains from me, though... well, other than my playful whining about how G had hurt my bottom in an unfair way. =)

On Friday, I submitted my letter of resignation at work. By the time I leave, I will have been employed there for nearly seven months. The job isn't a good fit for me, particularly working with someone who has been there for nearly thirty years, does not believe in hearing other people's opinions (his are correct and mine are always wrong), and that he likes to work in "criticize mode," which "works well" for him, as he explained to me and my colleague on Wednesday.

I saw the light at long last on Thursday, when he wanted to use his measurements for a Word table that I had created (he liked 6.5" as the table width, whereas I had 6.25"). Wow. Huge difference. His pickiness, along with his liking to criticize a lot of what I do, was not the healthiest environment in which to work.  Frankly, I am probably not as confident as I was before I joined the company as far as the quality of my work goes.

So, out of the blue, a human resources person from my soon-to-be employer saw my resume on monster.ca and asked if I was interested in a job posting she wanted to fill. One thing led to another. I did well in both the phone and in-person interviews. I got the happy call on Wednesday. I accepted the job offer.

I do like where I currently work. The company is terrific. I just don't like picky guy and the job itself. Averaging four hours of meetings a day is unproductive. I'm not passionate about what I do there. The new job seems like a better fit, so I'm taking this risk and am trying something new. I hope everything works out. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm having a panic attack.

Changing the topic again, G's birthday is next month. I'm once again planning out his birthday spanking. My birthday is a week after his. I'm thinking of a different spin this year. Perhaps he should spank me on his birthday and I should return the favour on mine. I still have over a month to think this through, but it would be different. I'd also like to use a slipper as a spanking implement for our spankings.