What a Feeling

The heavens must've heard my boredom plight. The past two days I have been helping a friend of mine, Rhonda an elementary school teacher, get her materials and classroom ready for the beginning of school. It still amazes me how much there is to do, despite watching my mother [special education teacher] do this for years. I have been laminating, cutting, stapling, glueing, organizing, etc all in the name of getting Rhonda ready for her fourth grade class.

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This may sound like a lot of tedious work, and it is most of the time, but, I have been having a blast. I haven't felt this productive in weeks... heck, probably months! Despite getting up earlier than normal and working until 4pm or 5pm I have come home with more motivation to get things done around the house. Productivity? In more than one place?? Say it ain't so!!

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Today when I recieved a call from the a co-worker about an upcoming staff meeting for the studio I a funny feeling welled up inside. The general crankiness and hurt stuff is there, yes, though it is better, but, there was something else. After mulling it over for a few hours, and continuing to get stuff done, it hit me. I haven't been productive! When I began my old job I was so excited and ready to get things done, help the studio become more productive and help my boss in anyway that I can. After some months, personal drama for my boss (not her fault mind you, but, I respect her privacy so I'm not going to go into details), and other multiple issues I was just getting through each day in my job. Doing what needed to be done to keep things running, but, not really being productive.

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Yes, okay, I was doing something it wasn't as if nothing got done. Heck, there were times I was practically keeping the studio together with scotch tape and a prayer. However, it was all in the name of survival. What I really wanted was to get involved in some areas at the studio, to help the partners with more that just the everyday studio needs, change how things were done, help with projects that created more business, etc. It fact, that was the original idea behind my position; to do many if not all of those things! However, I couldn't do as much as I wanted as none of the partners were actively at the studio and communication was weak at best. This led to months of frustration and I became very unmotivated and 'unproductive'.

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Sure, frustration and miscommunication happens with any job. To be honest, I thought the 'survival' mode would ride out as the partners were coming together and promising a larger presence at the studio. When they started coming together, however, is when I lost my job. I have realized that, i,n a sense I was denied the opportunity to make the impact I wanted to in the studio (though I did something by keeping things running for sure). If I can feel more productive by cutting out fishes with motivational words on them, but, not running the studio I think that screams the job really wasn't working out- for ME.

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There must be a position out there for me, one that despite typical frustrations that come with job, will utilize my talents. A job that will help others and be productive. Something that will give me motivation to make a difference for people. That is what I want in a job. All it took was going back to elementary school to figure this out. ;-)