Chelleology

During the second season of “Dawson’s Creek” the character named Andie was over excited about a high school dance.  She was full of school spirit and encouraged her friends to go to the dance with the promise of sex.  It was that same type of person who encouraged a group of us to attend Scott’s high school reunion.  Even though this particular person didn’t attend Scott’s high school she was hyped up to attend.  We naturally assumed that it was because she wanted to see who her husband dated in school.  I had my own opinions of why she wanted to attend but I will reserve those for a later date.
I had no interest in attending.  I had avoided my own class reunion.  The people who mattered to me are still involved in my life and the rest are ancient history.  I had no desire to relive my youth.  I went to Scott’s reunion prepared to leave right after dinner.  I figured Scott would want to stay late to catch up with his friends. 
I have very specific reasons as to why I flaked on going to my 10 year reunion.  First, I know I didn’t live up to my potential and my dreams.  I was on the right path until 2002.  I was ashamed.  The last thing I wanted was for people to see me as just another failure.  I didn’t want them to think that I was just one step above Taco Bell manager.  I had always dreamed of being a journalist in a big city.  Instead, I’m a team lead at a field service company in small city Iowa.
Second, I don’t want to be someone’s point of comparison.  We all do it.  “Wow.  She had straight A’s in school.  Now look at her!  She’s working at Pizza Hut.”  I can just imagine what people would think of me.  “Gee.  She acted so smart in school.  She’s not so smart now, is she?”  I’d rather not indulge people, especially the people who didn’t like me in school.  The last thing I want is to give them fodder.
Third, there are certain people and things I would like to forget.  I would prefer to act as if they never existed.  Most people don’t change after high school.  They just become a more mature, taller version of who they were in their teens.  Hell, I haven’t changed that much.  I’m still cynical lil Chelle with the piercing sarcasm and dry sense of humor.  The kids I didn’t like in school are probably still mean.  They may not be so obvious about it.  Their nasty comments are probably more veiled.
Finally, there are those with “Mommy-isms”.  Childless people know what I’m talking about.  You go out to lunch with someone who has children and all that person can talk about is their child.  You yawn and start looking out the window and they continue to ramble on about their ‘little man’ or ‘little princess’.  I can just see myself settling up next to someone at a reunion and hearing them talk incesantly about their kids’ eating and pooping habits, the terrible twos and playdates.  Anyone want to take the first crack at putting a bullet in my head?
I haven’t decided if I will attend my 20th reunion.  Perhaps by then I’ll be more successful or perhaps the petty people I didn’t like in school will end end up fat, married to an alcoholic and miserable.  The ultimate revenge!
As for my true friends, and you know who you are, my friendships with them are still strong, if not stronger than they were in school.  I see them every couple of years, exchange emails, Christmas cards and photos.  We are in each others lives even though distance separates us.  So, even if I miss my 20th, it doesn’t matter because I am already surrounded by those who love and support me.

There are going to be times in your career where you just know it’s time to move on.  I am going through one of those times.  I’m not a quitter but even I know when it’s time to cut my losses and get on with another job.  I should have started looking from the first moment I became unhappy which was about the end of 2006.  At that time, I just thought I needed a vacation because I am always at work (unless of course I’m in the hospital with some crohn’s related issue).  I figured a nice vacation would be the trick to refreshing my attitude for the job.  It didn’t work.  Yet, I continued to stick around.  In 2007, I was promoted.  I thought that would renew my energy.  Nope.  Instead, I went from being bored and disliking my job to absolutely dispising my job.  Going to work makes me almost physically ill.

It’s important for me to note that my company is a good company.  For over five years, they have matched my 401K, given me 18 days of time off, eight holidays, a good medical, dental, vision plan and great employees to work with.  However, these days we just are not seeing eye to eye on how business should be run.  I realize that with today’s market, we are limited to how many people we can hire.  That’s fine.  However, when you clearly need to hire someone because the team is dropping things left and right, you need to hire someone or risk losing your client’s business.  There are so many issues out there that are irritating the client that I’m surprised they haven’t signed on with a different vendor. 

I’ve spoken with them rationally about this (reserving my tears for the bathroom which is becoming a weekly occurrance).  I’ve told them what another person would do for my teams and even showed them the number of files we are handling along with an explanation of why these numbers have grown over a year.  But they don’t want to hear it.  Instead they say “Chelle, just hand that project off to one of your team members.”  I can’t do that to them.  They are barely keeping their head above water as it is.  I have no problems with delegation.  I have problems with a company who tells me to delegate onto an already overloaded team.

When I first set my foot back into the market almost two weeks ago, I didn’t have a positive outlook.  I live in BF Iowa where the only jobs are Foundry Person and Swine Assistant (yes, apparenly pigs need assistance).  Additionally, I don’t want to go back to a $9/hour job.  No offense, but I’m too old to be working for peanuts.  I don’t think my salary requirements are that outrageous for this area.  But I’m feeling a bit better about my prospects.  I applied with the magazine that my husband’s company puts out and a few others that might fit in with writing and PR.  I spoke with my sister and she told me that finding the right job is all about patience.  Just keep plugging away at my current job and waiting for that dream job to appear.

They say every family has a story.  My family just happens to have several as I learned during my trip to Independence, Mo.  I seriously thought I would be bored out of my mind and the only reason I was going was because my mom and dad were going to be there.  I actually ended up learning so much especially why history is not a bad thing and why it should not be avoided.
I already knew that my grandfather from way back in the 1600 was buried in under the alter of a church in Glooston, England.  But I didn’t know that my great, great, great grandfather lost his wife and he had married a pregnant woman whose husband had died.  The son was pretty much adopted by my great, great grandfather.  That son ended up dying in a bar brawl.  We also had a family member serve as the Governor of Kentucky.  Then I found out that a very distant cousin of mine was well known in LSD circles.  It seems he was an LSD chemist back when it was legal.  Then it became illegal and he ended up in prison for possession of 350,000 doses of LSD.  In fact, his name was brought up in a documentary this past weekend about the culture of drugs.  Of course my husband chimes in “Thanks to your family we have LSD!  Nice job!”  Um, yeah.  A Swedish chemist invented it dear.

I had a wonderful time meeting everyone who shares my family name.  Like I said, I knew some things from stories my aunt has told me but I learned a lot in this trip and I’m sure there’s many more stories to be told.  In the meantime, I’m going to save up some money to eventually see the church where my grandfather is buried.

Even though learning about my family was interesting, my favorite part was the dinner on our last night.  We had a wonderful speaker who told us about colonial American times.  He even dressed the part and spoke with the British accent.  I had a wonderful time and peppered him with questions.  The guy does Shakepeare Festivals.  Now, talking my husband in taking me to one of these festivals will be a challenge.  I’ve always wanted to go but getting Scott to go will be a bit tricky.