15 Days — Henny and Tea

Can’t believe there are 15 days left in the year. Even though I’ve been ready to put 2023 behind me, I’m not ready to walk in to 2024 quite yet. This week was another tough one. I finally reached my breaking point and was starting to lose patience. I’m a week away from holiday break. One would think that work would be winding down but instead it’s been ramping up even more. There’s all this pressure to get all of these hires in. Last minute contract requests filled my queue, promotion letters needed to be drafted before we leave and I still had to be on for department holiday parties, just to name a few things. We had a competition for one of the shindigs. Each team was charged with decorating a holiday house. There was 2 categories we were vying for: most creative and most interactive. My team all wore matching elf hats and one of my colleagues even put together a video to go along with our house. We didn’t win (we were snubbed for obvious reasons, but I’ll cover that in another post). I was impressed by the job we did, so much so that I’m posting it below (minus the elf video).

This week was finals week at school. My group turned in our final project and I have to admit, I am proud of the work we did. We have a finished product that we can present to our respective leadership teams where we work. I’m all for projects that can quickly be applied to one’s everyday life and that’s what ours encompassed. I’m now taking care of a few closing assignments before I am officially done for the semester, so I’m not going to celebrate just yet until I hit “submit” on the last forum post. Even though this course was a lot of fun to take, it required a lot of work and attention. After work, my nights belonged to this class. Sometimes I wonder if I am a glutton for punishment. With my time already being limited by life stuff, I threw myself into another class that I probably could’ve put on the back burner to focus on my well-being and maintain work life balance. I was yearning to learn more so that I can prepare, yet again, to step outside my comfort zone. In Spring, I’ll be taking a programming class and a writing class with a focus on social media. I’m soaking up as much information I can handle.

Another win for me this week: I was finally able to fill a role I have been recruiting for months now. It was probably one of the hardest to fill. Temporary positions with no benefits tend to be difficult to recruit for. I knew when i first got the request, it would be an uphill battle. Usually, I have the hiring managers extend the verbal offers. I wanted to do it myself this time because I wanted to ensure there was no way the candidate would turn it down. I wanted to personalize the experience, show that we were happy to bring them on and answer any questions they may have. I wanted to convey that they were special and it paid off greatly. I want to make sure their onboarding process will be a smooth one. Retention is the goal. One down, 7 more to go!

I want to finish this year off on a high note. My place has been looking really depressing lately. It’s been this way for quite a while actually. Finally rolled up my sleeves to start tackling a room at a time. I’m probably about 30% done but I’m glad I made some progress. That’ll definitely keep me motivated to keep going. The goal is to have my place in order before I leave to visit family for Christmas. There is so much more to do between now and then. The perfect end to my Saturday: feeding the homeless at a men’s shelter tonight. The intrinsic value that it brought me had me on cloud nine. It gave me an extra boost to put my worries aside and instead focus on serving others. I’m grateful for the life I have and the people I have in it. I have to keep reminding myself of this when I start to get sidetracked and down. For most of us, all it would take is the loss of 1 paycheck for us to end up on the street. Stats show that Americans are one paycheck away from poverty. Those of us who are fortunate to be housed take that for granted. It was fulfilling to be able to serve others, something I want to continue to do more of in the new year.