Agent of Change

What I am thinking about today: 1/9/2022

What I am thinking about today:

The group home job is super easy today, thankfully since I am the only staff here, as we only have two clients in the house, and both are wheelchair bound and nap a lot. We’ve been watching old TV shows and they are nodding off. Relaxed, getting all of their stuff done, and the like. Low stress, high contact and caring, the kind of day I like.

Dreamed that they replaced the entire supervisory staff at a job I worked and one of them let slip that I was going to be let go the next day. I spent the rest off the dream exploring the building and trying to figure out a way to let them know I knew so that I didn’t have to come all at way into the job just to go home. The rest of the dream was the building became more and more of a maze and me knowing I could get another job in a heartbeat.

My Saturdays off have a wonderful routine to them now, where I get up around 9 am, make a breakfast rather than jamming some cereal down my pie hole. I then decide on the One Big Thing I will do (yesterday was cleaning to the kitchen and fridge). I do that in between watching the stuff recorded during the week. I also had to cover the AEW Special on TNT for PWInsider.com, which was a solid hour of pro wrestling. There is something great about a wrestling show just being an hour where it feels fast, it ends while you still want more, and AEW’s product is enjoyable.

I don’t do goals, I do themes. A goal is something you can either meet or fail at, and I don’t think you should set yourself up for failure. Instead, I think I do best when I work small changes into my life. For people to change, it’s pretty hard. I have known people who actively WANT to change (or tell me that to get me to let them back into my life) but they always fall back into old patterns and behaviors. So, my theme this year si to be more present in what I do.

I have always felt that “multi-tasking” is bullshit created by employers who want more work out of you. Studies show that you don’t really multi-task, you switch from thing to thin, and it takes time to fully engage with the new thing you are doing. So, I actively fight against the idea of Multi-tasking.

As the year goes on, I want to me more fully engages in what I do. When I wash dishes, I won’t think about the next task, I’ll just think about what I am doing. When I read a book, I will not wonder about my schedule the next day. When I am at work, I will focus on one task at a time, rather than plan how I will get everything done before the end of the day. If some things needs to be delayed, they need to be delayed. When I am not working, I won’t allow it into my thoughts.

It’s simple. It’s hard. And it’s what I want to be doing.

Be kind, be courageous, and be cool.

What I am thinking about today 1/5/2022

The first of the year is usually insanely busy at my office job, and Monday was no exception. I was feeling miserable due to a physical issue I have from time to time and struggled to get through the day. Thankfully, by the time I got to the group home last night for a shift, it had mostly passed. They moved me to a home where most of the staff have “moved on” to other jobs, so I worked by myself. Thankfully, the ladies who live there are creatures of routine, so as long as we kept to their schedule, the night was quiet. The jobs FEEL very difference in that one job is time dependent and everything revolves around schedules, while the other is all about routine, but it’s more that the office job’s routine isn’t as apparent and more more stretched out.

At the office job, a woman who had called the wrong department started insulting me as I advised where she could get her answers, and actually called me a Peon. As in, “It’s clear you peons don’t know anything.” Meet the new year, same as the old year.

John Madden passed over the last few days, and when I started watching football in the 90’s, I went out of my way to watch the games he called because he spent time teaching viewers the game. If you were a new viewer, he’d cover the basics, but not in such a way that long time fans would roll their eyes. That’s a skill I don’t think anyone in football commentary has these days.

I have started a spreadsheet to track all of the things I have accomplished in the year because every year, I feel like “I haven’t done much of anything.” Since I am someone who starts a lot of stuff and then when I finish it, I just move on without pausing to let it sink in, this may help. Just a little boost since working from home and the group home job have made it so I am not out interacting with people all that much so I can’t answer “What have you been up to lately” since it feels like I work, I podcast, I sleep.

I also told my dearly beloved long time friend Shannyn G (who is smart, funny and easy on the eyes) “My bed is for sleeping, reading and yelling F@#%! when my alarm goes off. I made myself laugh with that one.

I have some group home stories that I’ll be writing up later this week, but the last two shifts I have worked have been surprise solo shifts, as the 2^nd staff didn’t show. I am incredibly glad I have years of experience at this point and keep things calm, on an even keel, and remember that at its core my job is: Get everyone fed, get everyone their meds, and get everyone to bed. Everything else is icing.

Much love to friends old and new. Be kind, be courageous, and be cool, daddy-o.