I met my new neighbours today while going outside to enjoy the sunset in my backyard. They are a very nice couple with an older son. While watching the sunset I thought to myself that I need a break from work. But it isn’t a good time to do so because I am training two new employees and have another employee on perterity leave for two weeks. On top of that I have another employee out sick for the week and another taking a scheduled PTO next week. Just a lot of things happening. Plus, I vowed not to take PTO unless I am physically sick so I can accumilate my PTO hours to take a minimum of 2 weeks off this week in a row. Plus, I have to go to San Diego sometime in the summer to help my father.
It has been a worlwind of a week so far. I am making a lot of changes on my team and how I do things at work. I am also training people and making purchasing decisions for the company. This week, I am hosting interviews for new positions. I need to get everything on my plate taken care of by the end of the week. This will place me in a good position next week and get me back to a normal work routine and not being over worked.
At home I am learning to pain with my daughter. She is much better at it than I am and I’m learning a lot from her. We are planning to take a bike trip to locate a whole bunch of geocaches this weekend. We are building a trailer for the trip to carry her and supplies behind my bike. It should be a fun day. It’s part of my more experiences agenda for this year. Last year, I felt we didn’t do much.
I have consistently been working out. Nothing crazy, but spending 30 – 45 minutes doing phyical activity, like walking with 2 x 20lbs dumbels. Or walking with a backpack with 30 pounds of waits. I incorporated push up and sit ups. I need to mix it up with meditation or just go for a walk at the park. Something I can do and not think. Everyday I am making decissions and constandly thing of processess. My mind needs to relax. I should plan a trip camping once a month for a day. Just to be by myself and relax.
Yesterday was allot of changes to the team structure and schedule. Everyone was fine with it and didn’t complain, which surprised me. People don’t like change of any sort and always pushed back on it. It wasn’t unreasonable change just a lot of small changes and set expectations. Today I have to redo the everyone schedule and publish them. I am using Ticktick to schedule all my task for the day and it helps a lot. I use to use Microsoft Todo for years, and it worked well but it lacked a calendar integration. I hope Ticktick integration with a smart watch is good. I just need it to remind me of upcoming meeting and events. Adding things to the list isn’t important to me. I prefer doing that at my desk or if I am out and about use my phone.
This month is getting everyone on board on all the changes that are being made and getting through the challenges that may derive from it.
My personal life is going well. I am changing some of my focus to health and personal development. I work out and am studying a new language 5 days a week. The only thing that breaks the routine is something more important pops up. They are rare so I am happy with my progress.
This year I am putting the family on a tight budget so we can do something special once a month. This month we are going snow tubing. The whole family is real excited about it. Afterwards we will hit up a restaurant and head home. We were not able to do this for a few years because we didn’t have a reliable car and had to wait well over a year to receive our new car. We have it now and it is now time to travel like we use to do. Our first trip in the car was a drive from Seattle to San Diego. The car handled great and the views from the drive was amazing.
Wednesdays are one of my most busiest days at work. I have meetings all day with eveyone. My one on ones, team meeting I host, and talk to other managers. During all this, I have to check up on everyone that I am responsible for to ensure they are working. Did I mention I also host interviews. I had one yesterday and have another one tomorrow. On top of that, I am training a new person for my team (2 month process) and helping to train a new manager for a different team. Next week, I start another training session with an employee from a different department for my team. I just got notice about that yesterday. I also have a project that needs to be completed by the end of month.
There is alot of changes going on right now and is hard keeping track of everything. I started to use Ticktick for planning and even project management. I like it so far, I am still migrating over from Microsoft Todo. Mostly assigning all the repetetive todo to the correct time slot in the day. This week I will be recieving my Samsung Galaxy watch FE. It’s basic and Ticktick work on it. I don’t care for smart watches, but I will need it to remind me of appointments in my calendar. I am pretty mobile in the office and sometime forget or stay in a meeting for too long and then late for the next meeting. It should help me, to remind myself to take breaks and lunch. I need to do it and want to. But time slips by and I either cram my lunch down or miss it completely. Once it arrives I am changing the watch strap with a leather one. I don’t care for the rubber one they come with.
After work I spend time with the kids and do things arround the house. The normal things like cooking, cleaning, washing clothes … The normal family things. I go to bed early for most people. Arround 7:30 pm and read for a bit before i go to sleep. I am up at 4:15 am to start the day. I like this schedule. I am not in a hurry and have time to nock out the important things before anyone is up. Going grocery shopping right when it is open is very quick. It save me 30 minutes. No traffic, plenty of parking when I arrive, and no customers except for me in the checkout lines. In, out and back home in no time. These little time saving things add up pretty quickly. I can use the time to hang with the kids or do the importent thing I want to do in my life.
I haven’t done a journal entry for a very long time. About a year, I believe. I stopped doing online journaling for a few reasons that I mentioned in previous entries. Since moving to Blueskies, I am thinking of starting it up again. This year, I will be studying once more to expand my career. I have been a manager for almost two years, and I want to step it up to the next level. There are things I need to do to make my team more successful and give them more opportunity to move up in the company. I feel most of them want better pay for doing the most minimum of work possible. No company will give you a nice pay increase by doing less than average work.
For me I want to become a better manager, this will require some studying. I need to make myself more valuable to the company so I will get a higher pay adjustment this year. My focus it to get the whole team to a profesional level. I have only one team member that is consistantly at this level. I am working with another memeber and he is almost there. I just need to constanly push him to get there.
The biggest hurtle accross the board is time management. Team members morning routines consist of the first hour getting coffee, breakfast and thumbing through social media for the first hour. To make up for lost productivity they cram everything in at the end of the day. The quility of work is terible and it shows. I need to change this habit. If they want to spend an hour doing this, it will have to be before they clock into work. Get a cup of coffee and start work, sure, it takes a few minutes and shouldn’t effect you work output. No need to rush it at the end of the day. Slow starts is just part of the issue. I should make an article for habits that efffect your productivity. Most of these are things I have done myself and after reflection I corrected them and improved. For the company I work for, I started from entry level at the company and promoted up year after year to where I am at today. Everyone in the company starts out at entry level, even the CEO.
It’s almost time to get into work . I wrote more than I thought I was. Going forward you will see more updated to this blog.
Interesting day at work. Half the agents called in sick, and I hosted an interview. I know a lot of people that are sick right now. I am not sure what is going through, but it hopefully peaked yesterday and is on the way down. The interview went pretty badly. I understand that resumes are padded. But this guy said things that were not true at all. I worked on a project that I was on for 11 years. He was there for 3 months and indicated that he automated the work so effectively that they laid everyone off and used his automation. I didn’t tell him he was full of it, and the project is still going, and it is a continual project that will last for decades to come until they stop leasing equipment. He didn’t know anything on his resume. Incredibly vague on what he did or how he would resolve issues.
Another day full of meetings. Glad this week is over. We lost two agents, and a lot of changes are underway. I need to get out and do something that is not in front of a computer or desk. I treated the kids to McDonald for dinner and watched a Pokémon movie that I haven’t seen before. It came out in 2019. It was rather good. After the kids went to bed, I watched the first episode of Masters of the Air. Well done. I can’t wait to continue watching the series.
Another hectic day at work. The director asked a lot of us in a brief period of time. I got most of the things done but will need to finish up tomorrow morning. I am not stressed at all, just tired of the last minute this needs to be done now bs we had to do. It pulled me away from 2 crucial items I needed to do today.
I was happy to clock out and play Mario Cart with my son for the rest of the day.
I lost an agent from my team. He was the new guy and wasn’t able to handle the pressure. He was so close to getting over the bump and it would have been easier for him. There is a lot of knowledge to absorb. But once you get it, it’s easy. He will be missed.
I was very tired after my workday, so I took a nap when I arrived home. After dinner I played a game called Cheese Touch with the kids. It’s a pretty fun game.
Life in the Pacific NW 