breakdown...

I feel as if this past week has beat me down so much that I don't even know where to begin...  I've still been sick, my work week was comprised of just shy of working 60 hours, went to the dance studio two days (was "supposed" to go three days), and even though my voice was very raspy I went to choir practice.  I know that I made the choices to go to the dance studio and to choir but I didn't want to feel as if I'm letting anyone down so I pushed myself to go; I'm sure that's one of the reasons why I'm still sick.

On Friday, my boss came down to the building to have a meeting with us.  I was told it was going to last an hour (but probably less than that) and what it was going to be about.  When the meeting began, we were all in for a rude awakening...  I'm not sure why, but she got on a tear about something and began pointing out all of the things we should have been doing for the last year and demanding reasons why they haven't been getting done.  Because I was flabbergasted and in shock, I began furiously taking notes.  When she did ask me a question or was looking for some sort of explanation, I stumbled because I wasn't prepared.  After about two hours of this, everyone else was dismissed and she wanted to meet with me.  We had one other person sitting in on the meeting and it turned to her questioning me of why I was just sitting there in the meeting, why I'm timid/walking on eggshells around my staff, why I don't believe in myself, and why I don't embrace my mistakes as learning opportunities.

That once again left me flabbergasted...  I'm a perfectionist so I don't like making mistakes and I do try to look for learning opportunities.  If I internalize mistakes and strive to get better, how does that make me a bad boss/person?  I get frustrated with myself because I still don't feel as if I'm doing the best job that I can because I don't feel as if I know the things I need to know (and I don't like knowing what I don't know).  She chastised me for not just brushing things off and moving on.  I tried reminding her that I've only been a manager for just over a year and am still learning but that didn't seem to be something she wanted to hear.

I try very hard to support my coworkers (especially my fellow office staff) and be a cheerleader for them.  My family (who is so very far away) are my strength, my support and my cheerleaders but I don't necessarily have that at work.  Someone told me that means I need to be my own cheerleader and my response was, "ugh..."  I know that some people really enjoy cheerleaders but I'm just not one of those people...  But I do know that I need to figure out something before I take an idea from one of my favorite books: hop in the car, drive to the ocean and keep on driving (she didn't actually do it but considered it during her mental/emotional breakdown).  Sounds like a viable option right now - the mental/emotional breakdown, not necessarily the drive into the ocean...

Maybe if I have a mental/emotional breakdown I'll be able to get some time off of work and have a little bit of slack my way.  I'm not looking for sympathy or anything like that - I think I'm just looking for a break and for someone to cut me some slack.  Thinking about it, maybe I'm not only looking for someone else to cut me some slack but I need to learn how to become my own advocate and cut myself some slack (any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated).

Well my dear readers, I have a very hectic/stressful week ahead of me (including a dentist appointment one day after work) so I should probably bring this to a close for this evening.  I hope each of you have opportunities for you this week and I thank you again for joining me along my quest.  =)