I’m too busy thinking of… other things… to come up with a better title

My dearest blog readers!

I trust that most of you are back at work already (if you’re not, enjoy it while it lasts…)

I started working again last Thursday (I’ll admit that I checked & responded to e-mails a few days in advance, obsessive-compulsive and all that), and so far, things are… well… crazy. That’s as good a word as any.

I’m not entirely sure if that’s crazy in a good or bad way, sometimes it’s actually both, but it is kuh-raaaaay-zee nonetheless.

As ever, I have many figurative face-palm moments when dealing with people who come across as incompetent, stupid, petulant… the list goes on and on. You try staying all helpful and happy while explaining to someone how to find and apply styles in Word, saying the same things over and over and over again – perhaps there is something to that old saying that patience is a virtue!!

It’s all right, though. I manage to stay very calm during the day, addressing problems as they arise (the ‘joys’ *cough* of Project Management) and working for (more than) my money’s worth. Then I get home after a long day and prepare supper – some ‘quiet time’ while my Significant Other is busy working… a good time for contemplation…

Those 50s housewives had the right idea

Yip, nothing nicer than taking your aggression out on whatever you’re busy whisking/ stirring/ whatever and finding your centre as you think about the things you’d like to say to other people (or, yes, the murder you want to commit – we’re all mad here…) A kitchen is as good a place for thoughts of malice as any, don’t you think? I’ll start brewing a storm in a teacup and see where things go from there…

So if you see me on an extremely crazy-busy day, and I’m calm & ‘relaxed’ & smiling (vacant, borderline-psychotic expression optional), you know what I’ll be thinking of that night!

[That’s probably also why I enjoy baking and have taken many treats to the office – a sort of, “here you go, enjoy, I imagined your face as I was beating those g*ddamn eggs into what could possibly be termed a stupor”, the grin never leaving my face… If I ever take the time to bake you some treats, you’ll have to decide what my intentions were for yourself.]

Anger Management

What do people mean with ‘anger management’, anyway?

Is it about getting yourself to calm down; finding a sort of inner peace with the world and centring your chi; learning to accept that everyone gets angry but not allowing it to get the better of you?

Screw that.

I don’t want to manage my anger (it’s enough that I’m a Project Manager at work!)

I want to harness that anger, to let it stew and mould it and then tap into it when the time is right and use it as a driving force in my day-to-day life. Instead of getting an irate outburst, I want to use all my frustration and ‘hatred’ to fuel my productiveness. Sometimes the best work is done when you’re angry/ brooding…

Okay, so perhaps the above sounds like managing my anger, since I don’t let it get the better of me and cause me to make a scene. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not angry. I’ll just be channelling the anger into a more dynamic state.

I don’t get angry often. It takes a lot to get me angry/ frustrated to the point that I start ‘scaring’ people – to the point, in fact, that I post a short ranting status on Facebook, using stars to replace letters in offensive words. After all, I’m supposed to be sophisticated and proper, daaahling 😉

But perhaps we’ve all got it wrong. Perhaps ‘anger management’ isn’t about managing your anger – it’s about managing to get angry! Some people never seem to get angry, almost as if they are emotionless, so in that sense, the fact that you as an individual actually have the capacity to get angry makes you more normal, more human (if there is such a thing)… Am I making sense? Who cares; it’s Whensday/ Hump-Day, and I’m so tired that I simply cannot wait for the working week to be over.

One thing about me being incredibly angry: I tend to want to tell people how I feel about them and their behaviour (cue many ‘Oh snap’ moments), though I never do. I just get a sort of sick satisfaction thinking the things that won’t pass my lips. Some people deserve to be brought down to earth and given a proverbial b*tch-slap, yet it’s not my place to do so (no matter how tempting it is).

If I’m still angry/ get angry again by the time I go home tonight, I’ll just have to start obsessively cleaning *laugh* Though I’ll try being faux positive today. It’s the best you’re going to get out of me.

So, how do YOU deal with anger?

[NOTE: the way I deal with anger is not limited to the blog entry above… though this is how I felt after my utterly crappy, infuriatingly vexing, rage-filled Tuesday.]

It’s madness – madness, I tell you!!!

I know I’m always willing to lend a helping hand, but this is getting ridiculous…

Have I recently lamented over the fact that it gets on my nerves when I’m busy doing things at work that technically aren’t my responsibility and they end up becoming a real pain in the you-know-where? Well, it’s that very thing that’s making me slip into madness…

(“Haha,” you say, “we know you’re already crazy, don’t try to deny it!”)

Although you wouldn’t say it by walking around the office, things actually are going up the creek without a paddle. I have two words for you: Price Fixing.

I. HATE. price fixing.

First we’re told to do it one way, then another… and then, again, yet another way – and the whole time, like a fool, you actually try to achieve something while everyone else is busy making up their minds and, in the process, making your life hell. You constantly communicate with and check up on the people that are slowing things down… and that also gets on my nerves. Seriously: I’m not that person’s mother or manager, so it’s not my job to check up on him/ her and ensure that he/ she is doing his/ her job. It feels like the rest of us constantly have to spoon-feed them… in essence, we’re doing their work for them. We’re held responsible and told to oversee things, and when you complain, what are you told? That that specific department is under-staffed.

Really? R-e-a-l-l-y?? Is that MY problem? If so many jobs are being advertised, why don’t you try and get them another staff member or two? Why do I have to do work that isn’t stipulated in my contract and run around and still do my job but the real problem (and this specific department is always the problem) isn’t addressed?

It’s madness… madness I tell you!!!!

*inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale*

Okay, rant over. Back to  being a mature, professional adult 😉

[But if you work in publishing, or – more specifically – in the same building as yours truly, then you know what I mean and will agree that this small rant is justified.]

I’ll just make myself feel better with the following sayings: 

“Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence” – Edgar Allan Poe

“No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness” – Aristotle

“Sanity is very rare: every man almost, and every woman, has a dash of madness” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is no great genius without some touch of madness” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Madness need not be all breakdown.  It may also be break-through” – R.D. Laing