Motivation

I might as well talk about motivation since it's been a reoccurring theme in my life lately. Last week I attended my first Motivational Seminar. It was quite the interesting experience. My work got tickets and we were allowed to go for the day rather than go to work. It seemed like a decent enough idea, since I was pretty up to date with all of my work and figured I might get something out of it. It ended up being a pretty cheesy experience. The famous speakers were Terry Bradshaw, Colin Powell, Laura Bush, and Rudy Guiliani. Terry Bradshaw was just plain bizarre and the man makes no sense. The others made good speeches and were somewhat interesting to listen to, but I didn't feel like they were particularly inspiring if that was the real goal. Interspersed were a series of other speakers. While more talented in the whole "motivational" aspect of it, it still came across as sales pitch-y and contrived. I wasn't all that impressed and don't feel like I got a whole lot out of it. Oh well.
I usually use this blog to talk more about Greg and what we're dealing with due to his furlough and job situation, but I'll give some background on me and my job. If you've read my blog before or know me, you know that I work for the Federal Government, but don't really want to go into detail about what I do. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology and a minor in Criminology. After college I became a Police Officer and did that for about 2 years. It was life changing, extremely interesting work, but ultimately I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do long-term. I went through a somewhat devastating time where I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life after leaving police work. I had never been one of those people who had known what they wanted to do from an early age in life (no, I wasn't running around with a plastic badge and gun yelling "freeze!" with a life long desire to become a cop- which might have been part of the problem). I pretty much went through all the motions of school, went to college, and found that Soc/Crim was what interested me most and literally didn't make the decision to go into law enforcement until right before college graduation. I interned at my University Police Department and enjoyed the work, so it seemed logical enough to continue the work. I was happy to settle on that and not eager to have to revisit figuring out what I wanted to do for my career, so once I left police work it took me a while to think over my options and decide what I wanted to do. Eventually the idea to apply with the the Government agency I now work for came to me. I originally got hired with an office in DC/VA about 5 years ago. I basically took an entry level job when I first got hired. Within 8 months I was promoted to a pretty great job. That was the best time in my career so far. I felt like my past experience made sense, was interested in the work, and it had promotion and monetary potential. I felt like my organization looked at me and said "wow, you're motivated and smart and we want to promote you." I felt like sky was the limit and I loved that feeling. All I had to do was set my sights on something and I had hands lifting me upward.
Then things came "crashing down". Independence Air went under, and Greg suggested that we ought to move out of DC/VA because the cost of living was too high. I was really angry initially. I felt the happiest, most needed, and most appreciated I'd ever felt in my career. It took some time but I came to see Greg's point, and agreed to move. I got lucky and got a transfer (that doesn't always happen in my agency) to Charlotte. I was sold on the idea that I could let my career take a back seat if it meant we'd get to start a family soon after moving to Charlotte. Well, that didn't happen, because Greg's career in Charlotte never took off the way we thought/hoped it would three years ago. The job I took in Charlotte was the same job I initially took coming into my agency. It was entry level. I did get promoted again since I've been here, but to a job that "tops out" in the grade level I'm currently in and really has no career path- I'm the only person that does this type of work in my office, there's no where to go. My office here is very small compared to what I came from in DC. Since being in Charlotte I've applied to a the few openings we've had in the last 3 years. I haven't gotten anywhere with the exception of getting the job I'm in now. Don't get me wrong. I like my job. I like the people I work with. The work can be interesting. I work pretty independently, which is usually really nice. I just don't like the idea that I have NO WHERE to go from here, it feels horribly limiting. And thus, in the last 6 months to year, it's left me feeling a lot less motivated about my work. It's like I said, I just figured when we moved here I wouldn't care what I was doing with my career as much because I'd have my focus split between career and children, but that hasn't happened, so it's left me feeling pretty stagnant in my career, thus, losing motivation.
On to Greg's lack of motivation. The man does have his moments. Just recently I was pleasantly surprised to come home and find that he had FINALLY called about our gutter problem (we have massive trees behind our house that dump leaves into our gutters clogging them and causing problems when it rains). He took care of that and a few other things at home I'd been hoping he'd do. I was happy about that. But sometimes he is just a master procrastinator, and it's just soooooo frustrating! Back when trucking ended a few weeks ago, he suggested we take a couple weekends and travel. He's still got Continental flight benefits even though he's furloughed and we never use them. I happily agreed and suggested Chicago should be one of the first places to go. Greg's sister had a baby in September and thus, we have a niece we have yet to meet. We also have a tradition of trying to do early Thanksgiving with her. Last year they came to Charlotte, so it's really our turn to go there. Especially with a new baby and three other kids, I don't want her to feel like they have to deal with traveling. Greg was told upon being hired at the hotel that he'd be working evenings with weekends off. So far that hasn't been the case. At first I wasn't worried about it because I figured he was new and they were training him and it would take a few weeks for the schedule to normalize. Well, they just gave him his schedule for the next couple weeks and he's scheduled both this weekend and next. I told him he should find out what's going on and whether he is in fact going to have weekends off or not ever. I wouldn't care if they had said the schedule would be random from day one, but they didn't say that, they said it would be evenings M-F with weekends off and that's not what it's been. This schedule sucks because Greg's not usually there evenings when I get home from work and now he's gone at least half the day on weekends too and it's impossible to do ANYTHING. Lovely. So I just think he needed to be motivated to talk to his boss and at least get the scoop on what is up with that. He's just so apathetic all the time about this kind of stuff. It really frustrates me. Rrrr.