Micromanagement Survivors

My boss was really irritating me with her micro-management last week. I realized that she seems to do this the most when my coworker is out sick, and she can't punish him for being out sick, but then takes out some of her frustrations on me. I talked about some of my feelings about her micro-management in therapy, and my therapist really wanted to see this all as some sort of problem that I had, with someone in my past or with something that I don't like about myself. But really, I think sometimes my boss is just someone who shouldn't be in a position of managing people. And the real lesson I got out of therapy last week was that I need to focus on the things that I can control.

Now, my coworker is back at work, and my boss is irritating him and not me, and I'm starting to feel like things are more right in the universe, at least for the moment. But I still could use a day off work.

Healing Old Wounds

"Thin people don't want to eat a second piece of pizza," she said. This girl I knew, I think on my soccer team and maybe from religious school or camp, sometime before I was twelve, said that to me, and I still remember it. The line was clearly divided, outside and inside, fat and thin, and it was clear what side I was on (the latter) and which side she was on (the former). And wanting that second piece of pizza meant terrible things, that I was fat, that I was a pig, that I had some horrible craving for something that was so wrong and it indicated some character defect on my part.

Today, I added the girl who told me this, all those years ago, really, 2/3 of my life ago, at least, as a friend on Facebook. I haven't talked to her since before junior high, probably, and never really hung out with her much after that, but I always remember that. I don't remember the exact age I was at, but I wasn't really fat, and I was active (I'm pretty sure we were eating pizza after a soccer game or something), and I just wanted a second piece of pizza, not to eat a whole dozen donuts by myself and wash it down with a slurpee. And yet this comment was somehow so shaming, as though the things I wanted were wrong, that I was wrong, that I was somehow missing the boat, and not only was I not a thin person, but I didn't know how to be a thin person.

Then I'm browsing her photos, and I look and see that even though she's doing some athletic events, I wouldn't really describe her as thin. Certainly not skinny. I mean she looks healthy, and "average." Yeah, all these words are kind of loaded, and I'm not trying to insult anyone here. But it kind of made me feel like saying, see, you don't eat like a thin person either. I was imagining her doing some of these athletic events, and then maybe wanting to eat extras after, and maybe someone says something? I don't know. I am sure what she said to me, she was just repeating something that someone else said to her, but she had to know on some level, that wasn't a nice thing to say.

But I realize, it doesn't really HURT me anymore, not like it did then. Obviously it did then, because I still remember it today. (And why were we made to remember the hurtful things people did, so many years later? It seems like all the drinking and drugging I did in college should have erased some of those bad brain cells that were full of the hurtful things people said.) But I don't feel actively hurt, in fact, I can deconstruct this and think about how my mom rarely let us have junk food or things like pizza, so when I would go out on something like this, unsupervised, of course I'd want to indulge that craving for delicious pizza. And there was nothing wrong with that. And from my experience with eating shared meals with people in my life, there is no thing that "thin" people do, and "fat" people don't do. Everyone has different appetites for different things at different times, and making a blanket statement like that is just totally over-simplifying for no reason other than to try to make someone feel bad.

It worked. But it doesn't work anymore.

Tired and Un-Harassed

I had to sit through two hours of sexual harassment training today. First of all, how was it that I was able to, for so many years, sit still and listen to someone for a long period of time. Because that was what school was, right? I swear halfway through, I was yawning so hard that I thought I'd crack my jaw open. Then I'd bite down to keep it from coming out, and feeling my teeth grind on each other. And it's not like the subject is that boring, so much as just murky. I've done this kind of training before, and it seems every year things get less clear-cut and more convoluted. I know they don't just say "don't do this" but it would be easier if they did. Probably didn't help that I was sitting there the whole time thinking about stuff my boss has done and wondering if I'd have enough to file a complaint.

One thing that was really cool was that I spoke up easily, without even thinking about it. When I was younger, people would always describe me as shy, but more accurately, I had a lot of social anxiety. Especially in big group situations. Some kind of class like this, in the past, I'd be measuring my words carefully, sitting there for a long time, wanting to say something. But today, I just blurted shit out. Which maybe isn't a huge victory in that people who blurt stuff out are usually annoying, but it's not like I annoyed myself. Or like there is even a wrong answer in this field.

I'm so tired this week. I think having my dad's visit which just exhausted me, and I didn't feel like I ever got to sleep in last weekend. My dad is just exhausting because he talks constantly about crap, mostly about how his mother annoys him and trips he took with my mom before I was born. Did I ever mention that my parents haven't been married for over 30 years? So yeah, talking about trips with your ex-wife is kind of creepy. I did ask him at one point, are you thinking about traveling by yourself sometime? He's near retirement age, so even some group thing might be good for him.

Passive-Agressive

Just a note, boss, when you are smiling big and bossing me around, or micromanaging me through IMs with smiley faces, that is what we call "passive-aggressive." It is pretty insulting since I'm not a two year old who needs to be manipulated by fake kindness and I'm mostly nauseated.

Thanks,
FC

Cleaning House

I woke up in my own bed today. I think this is the first Sunday that I've woken up in my own bed since right after I got back from Spain. It seems to be my pattern, spending Saturday nights at C's, and then we wake up Sunday and get breakfast. But he had a big motorcycle thing to go to today, and I certainly have lots of stuff to do around the house. I just spent about an hour cleaning, and I probably could put in at least another hour of doing stuff and maybe do some laundry. Do I feel like doing it, not particularly, but since my dad is visiting next week, I want things to look presentable. I don't think my dad will be particularly critical of my house being messy but if it is, I have less room to critique his house when I next see it.

I never really did any cleaning until my ex moved out a few years ago. I would wipe things down on occasion, and clean the toilets and bathtub, but that was about it. Of course, I didn't have cats back then. Once he moved out, I got a Dyson and started cleaning once a week. Vacuuming once a week helps with the epic levels of fur (particularly during summer time when they shed a lot) and then I have to clean the cats' bathroom frequently, and recently I've got into using the Swiffer WetJet on the floors after I vacuum. I can easily spend an hour maintaining just this baseline clean, and would like to do more. I do feel a bit lazy at the moment, now that I'm resting, but I'm sure I'll get back into it in a few.

What "They" Eat and What I'm Eating

So I've been going to Weight Watchers at Work for a while now. Actually, I've done two sessions, and each session is about seventeen weeks or something, so it's been a while. I lost about thirty pounds before my Spain trip, then kind of stalled out, and the weight crept back on a bit, and lately I'm trying to push myself to be motivated, to actually write down what I eat and work on exercising more than I am currently (which is, like, me counting cleaning my house once a week as exercise, and that's it). Not having a goal of an upcoming trip, it's a little hard to motivate. Also already having a boyfriend makes it a little hard, because I'm less worried about attracting a mate by making myself look thinner. But really, I am trying to focus on eating better foods, and feeling better and more energetic, making sure I get enough vegetables and fruits. The Weight Watchers Point System really does make it easy to motivate to eat plenty of veggies and fruits because they are low in points and you can eat many of them every day.

Weight Watchers has some really good points. You can eat real foods based on what kind of things you like, not all prepared foods or food group restrictions. They do encourage following their "good health guidelines," which involve the aforementioned fruits and veggies in addition to eating some healthy oils, low or nonfat milk sources, and drinking fluids (they changed the "drinking water" to "drinking fluids" this year, but I still drink water). And the points system is pretty easy to get the hang out of, and even if you don't buy their overpriced books or pay for the online system, it's not too hard to go online and look up the points value of everything you'd like to eat. Also Weight Watchers really incorporates a lot of cognitive therapy type techniques in not just changing what food you are putting in your body, but what thoughts you are putting in your mind as well.

Luckily my group here at work is pretty knowledgeable and doesn't tie the time up with dumb questions, but I've been in the group before where someone asked "if one cup of rice is four points, how many points is two cups of rice?" Seriously. I think in the case of that person, needing to lose weight should be the least of her concerns. One of my favorites was also someone who asked the leader, "how many points is an apple?" The leader said, very nicely, we give you those books to look stuff like that up yourself.

So our session is coming to an end, and they are asking us to look around and see if we could find anyone around us who would want to join up because if we don't get fifteen people for these meetings, we can't have them. But I really wouldn't feel comfortable telling anyone to join with me. And not just because it would seem like I'm calling them fat. I think some of the messages of Weight Watchers are very mixed, because there is always talk of a direct correlation between being healthy and being at goal weight, and I don't think the two are as necessarily linked as they'd like us to believe. There is also a lot of talk of "others" who aren't on the program, discussing what "they" are eating and how fat "they" are and that sort of thing that just rankles me. I think there are plenty of people out there who are happy the way they are, and eating what they want to eat, and don't need to be shamed or pointed out as some sort of example. Weight Watchers meetings spend a lot of time talking about other people and other diets that don't work, which I find frustrating (and often not true, because the whole concept of a diet "working" is a bit vague, I mean, a diet that you can follow, whatever it is, whether or not you are trying to lose weight or whatever, is a good diet for you, and I'm just responsible for what I put into my mouth, not what you put in yours).

Every once in a while, in my weekly meetings, I feel like arguing with someone, particularly my leader. My leader who is just a nice, sweet, middle-aged lady who lost 40 lbs a few years ago and is keeping it off and trying to applaud us. But the more I hear her talk about her own struggles, the more issues I realize that she also has with her weight. Even at goal weight, she has weeks where she's put on a few pounds, and has to go back to tracking. Sometimes those discussions of "those" people who eat whatever they want, well, that's just jealousy talking. Because my leader knows that to stay at her weight, she's going to have to watch what she eats for life. And she's so driven, so frustrated with herself sometimes. It kind of makes me more sympathetic to her. I'd rather be happy than pushing myself into a situation that is near impossible just so I can stay at a particular number on the scale.