I take "fake"/ "me" sick days relatively often, I don't think it's anything to joke about. It's mental health days and we absolutely need it. Apparently the American "must work" mentality makes us feel inadequate and that we are underperforming. Frankly, if I didn't take a day here and there the stress would kill me, or at least make me very sick.

One cannot state something and then say, but I won't tell you about it. It's like saying don't look or don't do this or that, it makes the person look or do what they were told NOT to do. Now I HAVE to know what you didn't want to say.

Different news

I applied for a higher role under my existing manager, but I haven't heard back. I feel that he keeps dropping hints that I won't get the position, which is bull. At times he's expressed high praise and gratitude, and at times it's like I'm absolute garbage. For example the whole promotion vs applying for the job. He says "you're ready for that job position, but you'll need to apply for it". The first time he mentioned it he even went as far as saying there's plenty of departments that need that role filled. Now he has 5 openings in his organization, to which I applied, and the 2 times I've asked about it, he beats around the bush, he says oh I haven't even started looking at applications, haven't started interviewing. Nothing. Two seconds later he says, yeah I've interviewed a couple of folks. That, coupled with the two times he's but burned me in front of other people makes me not want to stay in his organization.

Usually I like my job, it's just management, the industry and some of the folks I work with can be full of themselves and make it hard to deal. Today for example we had a long budget planning session. Instead of making it easier, the lady in "charge" of the project costs makes a print out that is all black and white, it's all in small print and there is minimal detail, half the time we have to chase out the details we need to make decisions. There is no way to keep notes, or track estimates and assumptions, or set aside smaller budgets that we don't have solid estimates for yet. This method of budget planning is a waste of time and resources. I've started working on a tool to make it easier but it's taking me too long.

Something else I don't like about my job is that because of the size of the project most of my day is spent in meetings with minimal time to actually produce and generate reports or finish action items. You would think that the people that work with would be professional enough to be left to run with deliverables, but take the budget lady, I can't trust her to get it done well enough.

Anyway enough ranting.

I'll be out of town the next two Monday thru Wednesdays if you care to say hi.

| The Coast>