Unabridged Me

The cherry seawater might actually be killing me.

I know I said earlier I thought it was the safest bet, but my body is not appreciating the ingredients. Lately my body is cramping and my body’s waste water is reflecting signs of toxicity.

So, all things apothecary from my mother will now be treated with suspicion.

I guess it was worth the attempt of not getting sick, as well as keeping my father from being exposed to anything. I now have data to back up my general suspicions regarding my mom’s medical opinions.

One might challenge my conclusion, stating I cannot be sure the drink is causing my body’s reaction.

Well, one might be correct. Except the only thing changed in my diet was the elixir, and after one day of flushing with water I feel better. Not exactly scientific, but enough to support my already existing bias of resistance.

And it’s not like my body is a computer system, with data points collecting for me to query or analyze with any resounding conclusion. Data points would make debating about food beliefs easier, but I can’t really be sure the data wouldn’t be manipulated and changed to support any argument anyway.

As much as people try to convince me that data is immutable, cannot be changed, and thus entirely trustworthy, I will always disagree. Because data is not understood in it’s raw form, requiring human touch for meaning. And human touch is subjective, fallible, and inclined to support its own biases.

Before I jumped off a cliff, quitting Corporate America, I had been miserable in my job. Well, not entirely, let’s be honest. The structure and premise of my job was a boring enterprise, and entirely unsuited for my way of thinking.

As in the case of medium, lean-and-mean, companies I came in at one position and was allowed to grow and develop as far and as fast as I could prove myself. To a point. What started as an experiment for me, hey let’s give this a try and see where we go, became a several year process of educating myself, researching, trial-and-error, and ultimately ending up in a management position.

Of Human Resources.

Now tell me what is the image you have when you think HR Manager? Yup, me too. And totally not me in personality.

Maintaining things makes me want to scream. Files? Forget about it. Setting standard processes, and making sure they are followed? Be a damn adult already.

I don’t mean to offend anyone who enjoys it. We all have our strengths. HR Operations is not mine.

The early years were awesome, in that I charted my own course and was self-teaching in all possible categories. I learned there are some areas of HR I find interesting, namely those involving psychology or creativity (I know, die of shock) and I was reinforced in the areas that just totally suck.

During that period the company was making me an amazing cocktail of free reign potential, and I was drinking what they were selling.

But as with all things made up to be too good to be true, this potion created a toxicity in me that was impacting my very essence. I was settled into HR operations, with very little respect or acknowledgment regarding what I brought to the table.

It happens. The pat her on her head isn’t she cute, but she doesn’t really know business and isn’t she so young.

Forget I was responsible for a multi-million dollar department with a global company in my previous experience.  Not bitter. Really.

Instead I fell into a pit of despair and ohmagad is this what my life is becoming mentality. I struggled daily with working in a corporate environment, which was never a goal in my non-existent plan, doing things I couldn’t stand. The toxicity was building in my body, and soon my life would be affected irreversibly.

Then things got really busy. Like implementing a new system while integrating three acquisitions busy. And for the first time in my life, I found myself more on the IT side of things, assisting with two systems and understanding large picture theories and how things would fit together.

I enjoyed myself. Despite the stress and exhaustion. And since I was intimately familiar with the systems, it was natural progression to begin data analysis for my boss.

So when things settled back down, and I was back to managing the crap (again no offense), I started looking elsewhere. Thinking maybe data analytics would be something I could really sink my teeth into.

Why not propose a new position at my current company? Because despite the explosion in revenue, it was still a lean and mean shop. A friend was working her way into the Business Analyst position, and the two separate positions were not needed.

And… despite having my boss’ full support, it was still a pat her on her head isn’t she cute she doesn’t really understand business environment. I would never be more than what I had clawed my way to being. And long periods of exposure to the potion caused a toxicity level my body couldn’t flush without full quarantine.

Several interviews and a few companies later, I came upon what I thought would be my mecca of jobs.

A company recently moved their global headquarters to Denver, and they were staffing up, creating new positions, and were rumored to be an amazing place to work.

The position read as my ideal scenario, and when I interviewed in person I could almost believe the rumors were true. The company was a case study for Organizational Psychology everywhere. The sense of support for the company was cult-like, palpable as soon as I walked in the door.

I made it pretty far in the interview process, and almost convinced myself I would have been happy there. I was sipping their tonic.

Lucky for me I didn’t get the position. Instead, life events led me to a different path. One where there is no potion and my stress level is lowest it’s been in years. My body has flushed the toxicity from my system, and I am moving forward with my complete brain rather than creating scenarios where I can be happy with only my left hemisphere working.

Of course, it may be true that I am mixing and consuming my own libation in my current endeavor of writing. Though, since it’s my potion, I’m unlikely to view any of the symptoms as toxic.