Facing My Goliaths

This week/month has been rather trying, an understatement to say the least. I was put on a project at work, the person that used to handle the project was leaving and they needed someone to do it, so over the course of about a week he showed me how to manipulate the spreadsheets and put them in order.

I naively thought that I understood what to do, I was scared though that when the time came to do it I wouldn't be able to... and I wasn't, at first.

I had deadlines to meet, and I was told by my manager that she had confidence in me and I wanted to shake her and say "are you crazy woman? I haven't ever done this kind of thing before! I will mess it up and you will be disappointed and angry with me...!!"

Nevertheless she left me to scratch my head and sort it out, it was very frustrating... I had notes but for some reason they just didn't seem to fit any logical order, they were all bits and pieces to a puzzle that I was terrified of handling. So I kept asking her questions and she has been so busy that she's been giving me distracted half- hearted answers, I've figured out that she honestly thinks that she's helped even though I (and others) are still left feeling confused.

So, I just started opening spreadsheets and pulling reports. Then I randomly started formatting the reports like I had been shown... but the crux was that I needed this list of customers and their cancel dates and I had queries to pull to find them, I had had previous instruction, I had examples of past spreadsheets... but things just wouldn't work the tools that I was using to try and find the answers to my questions just wouldn't work for me... so I spent many nights and shed many tears sitting there sorting it all out.

Then there was the battle that I was waging in my mind about how much I hated all of it, how much I wished that I was doing something else, ANYTHING else. Why had I chosen accounting in the first place I HATED IT!! ARGH!!! ON the other hand I was arguing with myself trying to be more positive, trying to look at all of the ways that I was improving, trying to deal with the stress during the day with other people there who needed my help and at night when I was tired and just wanted to go home, especially when things were not working. Plus the fact that I really needed this job in the first place and how much I wanted to prove to the world that I would be a good worker and how I wanted to prove to myself as well that I could be competent... and how much I wanted to be able to know all of the things that I needed to know...

You know what, I never would have been able to learn as much as I have learned if I had had an easier time at this. I've found that to be true with everything in life... still, it is hard and I wish that I could just absorb all of the stuff I need to know and just be incredibly talented w/o the hard work... hmmm.... well, I guess I'll just have to survive the hard work... and maybe when I come out on the other side, even if I end up not wanting to do accounting in the future, I will be more talented for having faced and conquered the difficulties that I have had this past month/nay lifetime really... ;)

Hope you all are doing well...

SG