tingel

I learned today that I'm working for a company that actually helps out when people in need ask for it.

I was already impressed that the company's foundation gave 250K EUR for the victims of the typhoon in the Philippines and additionally promised to double their employees' donations.

But today we received a letter from a family (not the family of one of our employees, just strangers) who are in dire financial needs because they have two severely disabled children. I felt really sorry for them, it was a terrible story. But I honestly believed that was it. With my former employer that would have been the end. Maybe someone would have sent an answer, but only if they were having a good day.

My new employer on the other hand has someone whose job (among others) it is to check out such letters and, if they are true, to send money to the families. They actually have standard sums for people who had triplets because it's so common that they get requests!

Although there are some things in the office that I don't like (my view of everything is rather more pessimistic after the experiences of the last two days) work can be really fun right now. I have a new office-mate (is that a word?) and she can be really funny! XD And we always find time to chat about TV series, food, co-workers, food, vacations, food etc (there's a theme going on here). Also after just a few weeks together we have different roles established: she's the nice and understanding one and I'm the one with the bit of a mean streak which she makes fun of(!) :grumbles:

Something else entirely: my nephew is starting to walk! A the moment he still clings to things to keep his balance. But he pulls himself up to his feet all by himself and then off he goes. My sis has her hands full keeping track of him. And he's only just 10 months old! :proud: I'll visit at the beginning of November and am already looking forward to it! I've seen the latest pictures and he's soooo cute! ^__^

I'm really annoyed right now. Can't mentally let go. It's not yet pissed off, but close.
I've been back to work for some weeks now and it's really going well. I enjoy being in the office, meeting people, again having structure in my daily life. It's really good for me. Right now I'm easily bored at home. Guess I had my quantum of endless days of sitting at home, reading, watching shows and listening to music. And I can't say how relieved I am not to be in payroll directly anymore. Right now my phone rings about 2 times a day and I get about 5 emails. Compare that to the phone nearly constantly ringing and about 100 emails a day, 70 at least. It's also really nice to be on shorter hours, though that stops next week, when I'm officially fit for work full-time.
The last few days I helped out in payroll because it was 1) payroll-time, 2) we had an internal audit and 3) they audited new procedures which make payroll even more time-consuming. Actually I stayed a bit longer on Monday and Tuesday but that was okay. I felt okay. I did it to finish my current work properly, went home with the feeling of a job well done and was still home earlier than on full-time (without overtime).
There's a (relatively) new colleague who started mid December. (I feel sorry for him. I had just two weeks to superficially train him on the job and then I went missing.) He's really out of power right now. Desperately needs a vacation which he's due in a month. As support there is a help from a temporary employment agency. She's not really fit for real payroll work, but she does filing, copying, scanning, sorts the mail etc. We get along really well, have a smoke together twice a day. She's the motherly type and really funny sometimes. She, too, is stressed right now.
They asked her to collect the formal approvals for the payroll lists from the managers last months. It didn't go very well. And since this is one of the procedures that are being audited right now, this time it has to go perfectly. I know what it's all about and how it works. So they asked me to help her out. She doesn't have the access to the system that I have. So produced the reports, printed them and sorted them for her so she knew who should get which. I asked her to scan them and email them to the respective managers. And she got pissed because I asked her to scan them. Because she felt everyone dumped the menial jobs on her that we didn't care for. Yes, she is stressed and yes, my office is nearer to the scanner. But I'm there to help her do a job correctly that's her responsibility and will be in the future. And in order to make certain of this I stayed a hour and a half longer than I normally should. And this really annoys me, it just keeps niggling at me.
Actually it is not that a big deal. We had a smoke together afterwards and were friendly. But I just keep thinking about it. Maybe it's because somewhere I feel that she is right and I should be nicer, more considerate. Maybe there's a bit of arrogance because I'm better trained, have more experience in this area and there she goes and wants me to spend time on something that's below me? And I feel a bit hurt that my effort at supporting her wasn't appreciated.  I didn't expect criticism from her. Before she was always very sympathetic.
I think those are points that I just have to acknowledge and deal with. I have the suspicion that was just the kind of situation that my therapist told me to look out for. Because I really need to delimit (is that the right word?) myself against others' expectations if I can't meet them. That means saying no if I can't do a job, if I don't have the time. Because just accepting every job till everything piles up and I can't do any one properly isn't the solution. I learned that the hard way. Another problem I have is that I really depend on others' opinions. I feel bad if I suspect others don't like me. So my marching orders from my therapist are to learn how to be an asshole if required to protect myself. And let me tell you that's harder than it sounds. As long as everything stays within my head it's very difficult for me to decide if I'm just being unfoundedly selfish or if I was right to say up till here but no further.
Okay, trying to get things straight really helped. I don't feel so annoyed anymore, more contemplative now.