Hey all,
Just come back from conferencing in Dresden, what a pretty city! And I'm glad to say, my German is getting better. In fact, in the next year or so, I aim to become fluent in at least one language, so German will be my first port of call (with the help of T - see later!)
I was presenting a poster for someone else at the conference. I'd have to say, although it was a great chance to attend the conference, I probably won't go representing someone else's work again. I didn't know enough about it to be able to be an expert in it when it came to answering questions, and it was really demotivating and disheartening, a bit of a confidence blow.
In fact, I've been feeling a lot like that lately. When all came crashing down with O, and I was living in a terrible house in my old village, the only stable thing in my life was my fantastic job, which I've been at for just over a year now and love to bits. But now, my job has started to become more and more unstable as the rest of my life finally stabilises again. Will the scales ever balance?
It started off when I started testing the project I've been working on for the last few months. I've always been more analytical and theoretical than practical, so I was dreading it. In fact, I started testing on the same day I split up with O, so it's been just over three months now. I've had many stresses since testing, which involved my project not actually working for some unknown reason (which I eventually figured out and was very thrilled that I had finally done so, as it wasn't due to my mistake!) to basing my method of testing on someone who had, shall we say, "tweaked" the results of his project to his liking, which had confused me greatly as I couldn't get the predicted results that way for mine! Luckily for me, my hero, my work buddy A taught me a method of testing that I understood a few weeks back and love him for it! My results are now as expected and I've got our placement student working hard on extracting them for me (poor guy, he gets all the repetitive jobs once I've decided something!) I just feel sick as I've wasted so much time...
Secondly, my other work buddy J's project isn't working. It's an upgrade from the last one he did, and I did a bit of work to it. It should work...but it doesn't. Although the problem isn't known yet, I can't help feeling that it's because of something I did for his project. I can just about cope with one project not working (as I just mentioned above), but two...That's not a good start!
I've mentioned previously that I work in a male dominated environment. One thing I dread is that the last woman who worked in our department was a bona fide crazy person! I joined just as she was leaving to have a baby. She used to laugh to herself, throw mugs around in the lab and scare our placement student, and generally was a bit strange. She also apparently never managed to get anything to work, and it's that which I dread the most! I don't want to follow in her footsteps and be labelled as the next crazy woman not being able to cope.
The other male-dominated related thing which really bothers me is that I'm never classed as an individual in the real world - I'm always assumed to be someone's girlfriend/wife/lover or someone in HR/marketing and not an engineer when I'm with my work buddies. When I've gone to play golf and we've paid separately, I've got pitying looks and comments about how I'm not being paid for by one of them. When I checked into our hotel in Dresden, they didn't even bother checking me in, they assumed I was sharing a room with A. I've been linked to J, A and my boss, and it's embarrassing! Plus it feels terrible when you're feeling bad about your current position in my job..not feeling very good about it!
One thing which really bothers me is when people say "You should know this" to me. It really upsets me. A did it the other day, but luckily, I told him straightaway how much it bothers me, and as he's a pretty good friend these days, he apologised repeatedly afterwards. Before that, when I had only just started out testing, my boss did it, and A knew about that, so he knew how I felt after he said it himself. I think it bothers me so much as O used to do it ALL the time. It really makes me feel like a huge fake and fraud - I sailed through university at the top of my year for four years running. Actually, that just means I'm good at exams. I'm crap, practically. And I feel soon like I'm gonna be found out and get fired for not living up to expectations. There's a girl who A knows quite well who seems to be superwoman - she can tackle everything and anything really well, and everyone loves her. Why can't I be that good at what I do?
What really topped my fears off off is that M, the guy I used to fancy the pants off before he announced he had a secret girlfriend (still cute, by the way), left me out of his Christmas do organisation. It was a complete accident, but a bit of a slap in the face. Like, "Here is what we'd be like if you weren't here"! It really upset me for a while.
I feel as if I have to work twice as hard as anyone else at what I do to be able to prove to myself that I can do my job. In the next couple of weeks before I disappear to Florida on another work trip (another one I feel I don't deserve) I need to really get finished on the testing front, and do a redesign of my project for remanufacture. The latter is not a lot of work to do, but all my colleagues reckon it's impossible for even them to redesign a part of the project in a fortnight. I feel I need to accomplish both to be able to prove myself. Am I just causing myself unwanted stress? Or is it better to stress myself out now and get it over with rather than letting it worry me in the future if I don't get it done?
So when it came to talking about someone else's project at this conference, I was forever stumbling over. I cannot blag about practical aspects of projects as I'm not strong enough in that field to do so, and together with my lack of explaining skills, I muddled myself up completely. I got pretty upset, so had to take some time out in the loos for a bit whilst I shed a stressed tear or two.
I was beginning to think about quitting my job as I didn't think I would ever be good enough to be able to keep up with the guys and the practical aspects of it. But I know if I was seriously thinking about quitting, I would have done so by now, and that deep down, I love my job.
Then I pulled myself together...This is SOMEONE ELSES project. I'm not expected to know everything about it. J's project will not be my fault until proven so, and the current thinking is that it's a manufacturing related problem. My testing is getting done, and if I put a couple of lates in this week coming, I can probably get the redesign done and become Superwoman myself. A's comment and M's leaving-me-out were both complete accidents, and I shouldn't let them affect me. I think my problem is, I'm my own worst enemy. I'm the one putting such strong demands on myself to perform. It's not a bad thing, but it is causing me unnecessary stress when I still have a heck of a lot to learn about my job. The Florida trip is for a course, and I do deserve to go on it, as I know that the course will help me out loads.
Still, despite the mild stress I've put myself through, I ran an event last Thursday with three others which ran effortlessly smoothly and was a huge hit. Perhaps I should be in HR after all!
Luckily, there's someone who understands me and isn't going to make me feel worse than I already do by telling me I should know stuff. T.
I "unleashed my crazy" on his (see Scrubs for a definition) and told him all what I've just told above, which I assume is normally taboo in the beginning of relationships (yes, I said it! Relationships 
Not much longer til I'll be in one now). And T listened! He listened, and he understood! I used to unleash the crazy on O back when we were together a lot, and O was a good ear, but I've never met anyone who listened AND understood before. T's been in the same situation as me, we're so ridiculously similar - he wasn't claiming overtime like he was allowed to do even though he was working stupid hours (9 til 9 for example - I eventually convinced him to start claiming overtime), as he thought he should be getting the work he was given done in work hours and wasn't feeling good enough to be where he is. On closer inspection, it also turned out that T had also flown high at uni with 84% overall (just like me), so it was so nice to be able to see myself in him. I told him I didn't want to burden him with my woes like I used to do with O, but he said it was OK, and he would say if he didn't want to hear it. What a sweet guy.
I'm also finding out some more VERY sexy and gorgeous things about him which make me want him even more. He's a quarter Belgian (Flemish? I dunno what you call someone from Belgium), can speak German pretty fluently (he loves his Belgian gran, who goes from English to Flemish to German and back again...aww) and is so polite (he thanks me for calling him, brings me dinner and doesn't let me pay for it!). I'm getting extremely close to moving from "seeing each other" to "boyfriend" now, I'm just waiting for the time to be right. I can really see myself falling in love with him. I'm probably looking too much into it, but T's turned from "luvsya" to "lovesya" in the past week or so...Ha, yeah, I'm probably looking too much into it!
The more I discover about him, the more I want to be with him. He looked so good at the event I organised on Thursday, I just wanted to grab him and kiss him all over! Work buddies and fellow graduates especially are starting to pick up on us as an item now anyway - apparently, there's been rumours said to T (that I cannot figure out who they originate from!) that T has been a bit of a romeo recently (hint-hint-hint-hint, nudge-nudge-wink-wink), T's workmates are rooting for him to go for it with me, and after the event, when he was holding my hand under the table, I'm sure we were spotted by my workmates. I don't really care if we're found out now, and I told T this. I'm really happy with him, and I'm almost certain we're going to give it a proper shot.
We've got another social event at work to attend on Halloween, and I'm fairly tempted to out ourselves as being an item then. I haven't quite decided yet though! I'm going away in less than two weeks time now for a fortnight, and I'm still really really enjoying my single-girl time at the moment (currently, I'm sitting in bed tapping away on my laptop, with pink pyjamas on, a pink hoodie and thick socks listening to Deadmau5..not very "I'm at the beginning of a potential relationship"py!
Nehoo, on that note, it's time to get up. I need to find an outfit for said Halloween! T's going as Borat, and I'm going as Bridget Jones!
Take care,
FPB
