Back to Reality

After being in Cambodia and Thailand for 3 weeks, I'm back to the States. I came back home to a room full of boxes and suitcases and, lo and behold, my beautiful bed. The moving process undid everything in my room, except my bed. I left it untouched and undisturbed, so that when I came back from an incredible journey across the world, I would have a little sanctuary of what life was like before Cambodia. I couldn't wait to hide under the covers and snuggle my head into my pillow and disappear for a few hours. My sore bones and muscles relaxed after 48 hours of travel. I slept hard, not dreaming on the trip I just had, and not dreaming of the move I'm about to have, but I dreamt of my bed. I drifted into a blissful awareness of nothing but the comfortable mattress, blankets and pillows. And then I woke up in the middle of the night, ready to start my day. It's going to be interesting in Eastern Standard Time.
I've got so many memories from my trip, but I'm not exactly ready to share them. I've been hounded with emotions of harsh realities that I didn't see as fact before. My opinions have changed on issues that I didn't know existed before. My heart has been broken and healed so many times. I've fallen in love and to speak so quickly and candidly of that love would seem to make it trite and temporary. I need to settle and daydream about my love before I tell you about it. But, all I can say is that my life is changed forever. I've got little reality from before that is staying with me. My reality has shifted and it will continue to shift until I recognize little from who I was.
I may be exaggerating a tad, but it's too poetic not to think about.

End of an Era?

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Time Warner. Sorta. They want me to come in two days next week to check in on everyone and make sure the girl replacing me is doing fine. How did that happen? How did I become the person who needs to check in? I'm actually going to be in Chicago next week, meeting with my potential new boss and finding an apartment. Right now, compared to Time Warner, Chicago is definitely my priority. Cambodia is before that, and does anyone at work realize that it takes time to prepare to leave the country for three weeks? Next week, they will be lost without me. Is that conceited of me to say? No. Because it's true. The area manager thinks it. Our maintenance guy thinks it. I know my catering clients think it. That really feels good. I feel important and needed.

Time off from work is heavenly

Right now, I'm sitting in a coffee shop. It's 10:42am. At work, they are furiously getting getting for a cook out. I woke up at 9am. Even though I woke up with a text from my boss on my phone asking me how to hire a temp for the day, I woke up with a smile on my face. I'm not tied down by a hellish work environment, at least for half a day. I can't take off the whole day, that would just be insane. But, as I sit here, researching family crests, Alice in Wonderland and children's bookstores in the area, I find myself breathing deeply. I'm breathing in the air of freedom. I'm allowing my body to regain the life I once had. Am I being overly dramatic? I'm only taking off 6 1/2 hours. I'll be working a full 4 hours still today. No. Once I realize that my usual work day is 10 1/2 hours of non stop, on my feet, action, training my boss how to be the manager, and getting grief from my coworkers when my management isn't flawless, even though I'm doing all this without any training myself. I realize that I'm not being dramatic enough. If only life were a musical, I could sing my joy and dance with a whole company behind me about how heavenly not being at work truly is.

Fortunately my mind is elsewhere

I woke up early to the sound of rain falling hard. I snuggled deep under the covers for a few more minutes of slumber before I reminded myself of the harsh reality that is my job. I got up and looked forward to the trek from the backdoor to my car. The air was fresh and clean and full of water. I walked quickly to sneak into the shelter of my car and thought about how tent like cars can be. Everywhere except for my little canopy was soaking wet, but I was safe inside. I drove, not thinking about my destination, but imagining myself waking up in a tent to weather like this. (In my head, my tent was super waterproof, since it was quite rainy.) I thought about the plans I would have made to get up early and start hiking. I smiled just like I would have in the tent when those plans went out the window. If I woke up to the sound of rain hitting my tent, I would have smiled and snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag, letting the sound of the rain lull me back to sleep.

My creativity level is at an all time low

I've been working diligently on a story that is close to my heart. I have put myself into the characters and my best ideas into the plot. I've been more dedicated to the outline of this story than I ever have of any term paper for school. If I worked this hard at school, I totally would have gotten all A's. But, last Saturday was the first time in over a month that I've written anything on it. Even then, I only wrote a couple of paragraphs. My main character feels more like a stranger than a close friend. Her strength is fading and she's the hero! I need her to be creative and strong. But, how can I expect that of her when I can't bring any of it to the table. I feel her flittering around my subconscious every now and then. She wants to be let out. She really wants to fly. It's cabin feverish in my brain and that really doesn't feel good.
Bleh...even this blog post feels a little sluggish in the creativity department. It'll have to do for now.

It's all finally paying off, I hope

I've worked overtime everyday at work for the past three weeks. I've learned more little annoying details only managers should deal with in that same time than I have in the 8 months I've worked at the cafe. I've dealt with moody men, childish customers, and jerks for HR people. I've had to give direction to the managers filling in for my boss who's baby decided to come into this world three weeks early. And now, someone is seeing all the work I do. The Columbus area manager gave me a huge compliment today by asking if I could clone myself. He saw how hard I was working to keep the cafe afloat while he looked for a new manager. He now knows how long I work each day and he saw me handle difficult situations. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I rock and now people know it.

My work environment reminds me of Haiti

How harsh does a work environment have to be to constitute me storming out? I wanted to storm out of the kitchen a couple of times this week. I am not an overly unkind person. I would never leave my boss with all my work, the extra work I'm picking up because of my lazy coworkers and all her work. Not only because she's 9 months pregnant or that I'm trying to ask for a raise and a transfer and a month long leave of absence, but also because I like her and I think she deserves good employees. If two out of the four employees she's got are unreliable, moody and really unskilled in the kitchen, I'll step in and pick up the slack. Men don't belong in this industry anyways. We should just fire these two men. The three women there really do all the work anyways.
If that wasn't quite enough, I had to deal of the corporate portion of this job today as well. Nothing says "Leave this company as quickly as possible!" as a surly HR manager who has no people skills. So, as soon as I find the time to step away from my tasks big enough to tackle 2 1/2 large men, I sit down with the Columbus regional manager and the midwest regional HR manager. We need to discuss my possible transfer to a cafe in Chicago. The gist of this conversation was her telling me why I couldn't make it in Chicago without her coming out and saying, "You can't make it in Chicago". Should I tell her the reason I'm limping is because of the shin splints I'm getting from running around this ill designed kitchen? No. Should I explain to her that I'm working with two punks who can't tie their shoes without me telling them where their laces are? Should I say I know more about this kitchen than she does about her prestine HR office, but she'll never see it because she's middle management and her life goal is to make people feel smaller than her? Never. I say nothing and like a pansy, I let her tell me that the pace in this cafe is quicker than I've ever seen, that the areas in Chicago I'm looking at are too expensive for me and that I probably won't get a raise big enough to live in Chicago. What a punk. I should've let her know how I deal with punks in the kitchen. (which really isn't much, I just ignore them until they notice, but I like to think I'm tough)
I've got agencies that would pee their little pants to get me to work for them. I don't have to deal with corporate punks and kitchen punks. I think it's time to cause people to pee for me.