[222/365] better work day

[cosmolinguist]

This morning at work I fought with a PDF that's a previous version of something I have to write an article for (easy), for a conference I'm on a panel for (fine)...

But now I've been asked for a photo and bio, so I went to look at the photos and bios they had, and found all but one of the men in suits and ties. I don't even have a suit! And I don't have a bio like theirs, so the impostor syndrome is strong.

Can't do much about the latter, but maybe this is a good time to buy that waistcoat I keep talking about!

I'm not averse to wearing a suit at all, I just haven't done it and don't own one.

Times like this I remember how weird it is that all my transition, paltry as it is, has happened during the pandemic so I've missed out on a lot of stuff, like the need for smart clothes. (I inherited lots of nice shirts and joked I was only suitable for Zoom job interviews because I did them in nice shirts and ridiculous trousers and often non-existant shoes!).

The imposter syndrome was somewhat alleviated by my first meeting this morning, which I'd kind of dreading because I'd been asked to support a colleague at an external meeting they knew the context for but I didn't, and that just sounded like a recipe for anxiety so it was really nice that it went totally the other way: this person explained their situation incredibly well, they seemed to really vibe with me, and I both thought of stuff to add and felt like it was well-received (that last is especially miraculous; I'm sure the stuff I say at work is usually fine but I don't usually get to feel like it's fine because I have so much anxiety).

And then my next meeting was an internal one that would normally be chaired by someone who couldn't be there today so I had to do it. Again, a recipe for anxiety. But it was good!

After a couple of days of internet outage and not being able to catch up with my manager and resultant huge spikes of anxiety, this was really nice.

This afternoon I utterly failed to concentrate on that thing I'm supposed to write, which I hoped to have basically done today. We can't have everything, heh. But it's okay that I missed an entirely self-imposed deadline; I need to get it signed off anyway which couldn't happen today. Tomorrow is another day.

Comments

[otter]

Anxiety reduction feels good! I hope Thursday goes well for you.