Meeting With My Boss

So everything at work this week was merely activities that I was supposed to discuss with my boss Eloisa for my one-on-one. I was so involved in the catching-up-with-my-IS-budget stuff that I cancelled the Tech Council Meeting today. I had nothing to discuss and did NOT feel like manufacturing stuff out of my ass. Of course I wasn't expecting my CEO Barbara to walk in from vacation this morning either. I had cited her being gone as one of the drivers for cancelling. Oops! Oh  well.. as of this morning I was prepared for my one-on-one and I even visualized this morning on how it would end up pretty much being a non-event. But first things first... after knocking off early last night, it was back to normal for Johnnie waking up this morning and doing his thing and getting ready for school. I got dressed for work early too so I could leave right after I dropped him off. One of the moms commented that he always has a twinkle in his eyes. That's my Little Bug. THOSE are the things that make my day after all. Now on to work... I spent the morning filling out my database of invoices. I'm actually mostly done except for Amazon purchases. It took about 3 days, which is something I should have done 2 weeks ago when I found out i had to put this together. Argghh. Procrastination. Not my friend. All for less than 150 line items too. Anyway it wasn't even the first thing Eloisa asked me in our meeting. She wanted to know my thoughts about the round of lay-offs. I was honest. I thought it was people that were hired less than a year ago that probably shouldn't have been hired. We didn't look at positions the way my IS Manager position was scrutinized and then cut. To me it was just a continuation of that activity from when Justin's position was cut. I also shared that it brought back memories from the lay-off experience at USC Stevens. The IS Budget part wasn't all that earth-shaking and she did mention that if I had any thoughts about being next on the lay-off line that I shouldn't have those thoughts. But then again we didn't know a couple of months back all these people would be gone today now would we? And so I went on and explained about the discrepancies in the budget and how they were explainable and she told me that I should get OCHIN EPIC out of the IS Budget at the next Management meeting. Then I wouldn't look so bad. What I didn't say out loud was the prevailing thought I had that all these years the budget was kind of loosey-goosey in the sense that it was whatever Barbara approved really. But now things are different and that's ok. Just that we should also have processes to make sure I.S. doesn't end up looking bad for purchasing $35K of stuff for a new facility that was not budgeted for in the first place. To me it's not an I.S. Budget issue, it's an accounting issue. But never mind all that. In the end, it was like previous meetings. I walked away with some to-do's but nothing earth-shaking. I felt good about being here still and that is what counts right? Gotta feel good where you are. And so with that it was like the aftermath of a Tech Council Meeting. A feeling of RELIEF and a breathe-out. I would be lying if all the budget stuff I was doing prior to this meeting did not cause stress. It might actually have caused greater stress than I realized or acknowledged. This morning I felt tight around my mid-back and shoulders not unlike something I experienced before but that was it. I felt like this when I was stressed. Which meant I now have to focus on de-stressing activities. Internal work. Exercise perhaps. But not this afternoon. Tonight is Panda Express night after all and I was looking forward to picking up Johnnie and heading to Westwood. He ate so much chicken he had to poop right there at the restaurant. And then I figured out how to keep him awake on the drive home. We sang Frozen 2 songs! The rest of the evening was pretty routine, especially now that Johnnie was back to his energetic self... He was actually engrossed in making a specific drawing... and for me. I will post the pic in another post because it ended up being so touching to me. But normal mid-week evening and a quiet WEdnesday night is all good.