January Blues...

I am ready for this week to be over. I feel as though I’ve been under my "Pootle” cloud since Monday. I don’t know if it’s the time of year or just one of those times in life where everything just seems blah but that seems to be what’s going on.

Work is going fairly well, at least. I like my job because it’s different every day. It’s actually different every hour. Gone are the days when I feel like I’m so bored, I’m going to climb over the walls of my cubicle, wave my arms in the air and tear off running down the hallways screaming “ARRRRG”

For one thing, I don’t have a cubicle. I have an office. All of my very own. Until today, it even had artwork. It was an enormous, framed, slightly tacky poster of Las Vegas. Today, I removed the artwork. I’ve disliked it since I started and the account manager next to me who is a young guy who’s never been to Vegas but wants to go asked if he could have it. Naturally, I told him yes. Now I have a bare spot on my wall but I quite like it. It’s crying out for something interesting. I’m not sure what that is but I think I’ll find it in time. I’m eying the large framed poster of London we got from HQ that’s supposed to inspire us to do our job well enough to have earned enough ‘points’ to go by August. I’m not sure where that poster is going but I have a nice empty spot on my wall where it would fit…

I digress. I like having an office. I like having the variety in my day. I don’t necessarily like that my boss hired a ‘temp’ recruiter to help me and my fellow full-time recruiter out and she’s competing with us more than she’s helping us but that’s up to my boss. We originally thought she was going to help us find resumes for open positions but it seems she’s started recruiting on her own. I suppose that’s fine. I just wish she wouldn’t use my Monster.com account and call people for my open jobs before I get there. I’m trying to rise above but I know that my fellow recruiter is also getting a little frustrated by her. We’ll see what happens there, I suppose.

However, I like virtually everything else about my new office. I like my coworkers. I like that I can leave if I need to as long as I tell someone. I like that I have sick time and vacation time. I really like that my boss doesn’t care if we go on Facebook during the day as long as we’re doing our job. At my old job, they blocked Facebook except for lunch time. This was a bit of a nuisance for the staff who were expected to maintain the company’s Facebook page during their workday. It meant…they couldn’t. It was a bit daft when you think about it. Besides, what companies don’t realize is that the majority of people have Smartphones and if they have a Facebook account, they have it on their smart phone which means you can block it all you want on the PC but it won’t stop employees from accessing it, commenting and posting regular status updates throughout the day.

So, I think I’ve established that my job isn’t the reason I’m under my 'Pootle' cloud. I don’t even lie in bed with the puppies thinking of ways to avoid going to work. This is actually a strange feeling. I spent almost two years feeling that way with my old job so to get up each morning, detangling myself from puppy bodies and paws, turning on Fox 19 Stormtracker Weather and following the rest of my morning routine doesn’t feel at all like a prison sentence. It’s quite nice.

I think it’s just a state of mind. As I said in my ‘chubby day’ blog yesterday, I’ve been feeling unhappy with myself and my clothes. I’m wondering if it’s because winter clothes feel so lumpy. So many of my big, warm sweaters make me feel blobby, I’m wondering if I need to replace them. Some of them need it. I have a fondness for chenille but I’ve discovered that no matter how careful you are when you wash chenille, inevitably, it wears away and you’re left with bare spots on the garment.

But what to wear when it’s below freezing outside and your office isn’t the warmest either? It’s an interesting dilemma. Any suggestions on that?

I’m hoping that this weekend, if I take some ‘me time’ and just enjoy myself, I’ll lift myself out of the doldrums and feel better about everything. I’m feeling the need for something ‘new’ in my life. I don’t know if that’s a new novel or a new boyfriend or simply a new friend. I think I just need to shake the January blues. Even though February is a little too ‘pink’ in my mind, it’s short and sweet and doesn’t come on the heels of a major anticlimax as the holidays end and the world is grey and cold. I like the world when it snows but lately, we’ve just had the remnants of the last snowstorm sticking around and making everything look messy. I’d rather have a nice fresh covering. I even wore my snowflake pendant today. (Please don’t kill me, mum!). I’m hoping it’s good luck charm will bring on the snow this weekend. Then I can have a lovely self-enforced snow day. That sounds like a treat.

Next week I promise to be less ‘grey’ and more upbeat. Thanks, as always for reading!

Happy Friday!

January Needs a Holiday Too!

Some days just don’t go the way you plan. Mine started out well. I was sorting through emails, finding candidates for jobs and all the usual sort of thing that make my day go well. The morning past quickly and I felt productive. Then, the afternoon came along and everything just…stopped. My first recruit who I placed in a job proved to be a problem child for his employer. He ended up getting fired today because he simply couldn’t just learn the job and do it but, instead, followed people around and tried to get them to tell him exactly what to do. That’s not good when you’re supposed to be a manager.

Aside from that, the afternoon just turned out to be…a blah one. I can’t explain the blahs but if you’ve had them, you’ll know what I mean. Nothing seems to be working out, everything just seems to fizzle to a full stop and you find yourself looking at the clock too many times in an hour.

By the time I got home from work, I was tired and cranky. It didn’t help that I had to take down my Christmas decorations either. I’m going back to my parents’ this weekend to celebrate my birthday so I won’t be around to take them down then. As much as I love Christmas and the trimmings, there comes a point after the holidays where the tree suddenly feels out-of-place and the room begins to feel cluttered. Christmas music is no longer as fun. The smell of cinnamon and pine cones seems a little stale.
All in all, sad as it is, it’s time to take the decorations down.

The room looks empty without them. The bright coloured lights made the room feel warmer and without them, there’s just the usual décor to fill the space.

This time of year is hard. It’s the start of a new year but the end of the revels that salute the holiday season. Winter is still gaining its hold but is dithering about whether it wants to bring snow, rain, sleet or ice. The landscape is yellowed and sad and there’s still a lot of weeks before the green of spring is allowed to show through.

I don’t mind the winter. I’ve said that in several blogs. I love the fact that winter is the dormant period allowing nature to rest before it starts all over again. I enjoy the snow it brings. It makes the world a different place.

I just don’t like the “in-between” feeling you get during the first weeks of the year. There’s no real holiday or occasion to mark any particular occurrence in January. Prior to that month, you have Labour Day in September which gives way to Halloween which leaks into Thanksgiving which is often overshadowed by Christmas.

Then January rolls around and the escalating holidays come to a crashing halt. I think everyone feels it. People get the blues because not much is happening. Around these parts, it’s too cold to spend time outside and so even those of us who are happy homebodies start to feel the itch to get out and do something.
It’s a strange month, January. Theoretically, being the start of the year, it should be a time for new beginnings but sometimes, it’s hard to find the motivation. The winter clothes are now starting to feel bulky instead of cosy and you feel a little weighed down.

I don’t know what the solution is, honestly. Experts, whoever they might be, say that we need to get daylight or we get depressed. They recommend exercise and hobbies as a way to counteract the blahs. There are countless articles on how to cook healthy, how to incorporate workouts into your daily routine and how to fight the stress of every day life.

All of these are nice. Some of them work. It’s just that no coloured lights, candy canes or pumpkins to take the gloom out of the air, January has a challenge in trying to get people excited to do….things.
It’s not January’s fault. It’s just where it falls on the calendar. It’s the start of something. It doesn’t have time to develop its own personality before February so rudely snatches the reins and floods the worlds with the slightly irksome pinks and reds of Valentines Day.
Perhaps we should give January its own holiday. One that celebrates the Januaryness that fall upon us. One that lets us replace our Christmas wreath with something specific. Maybe something with bright colours and light that celebrates celery or carrots or something that counteracts the effects of the holiday treats.

No matter what it is, I think January needs…something. Even though it’s my month of birth, it’s still not that exciting to me. It probably comes from the fact that as a child, my birthday was too close to Christmas and people were fed up of celebrating by then. It’s nice to have a birthday but I’m not much of a party animal and never had the personality where I felt like it was ok to throw a party for myself.

Still, maybe it’s not really about the month. Maybe it’s about our attitude. Maybe if I don’t let myself fall into this pattern of blahs, it won’t happen.

Of course, it would help if my people didn’t get themselves fired from jobs that I’ve worked hard in which to place them. Ah well, I'm sure there's a lesson in that somewhere.

Happy Friday!