Am I broken? Am I somehow defective? Look, I know I hate everybody as much as the next person (okay, well maybe a lot more), but I'm not one of those annoying team dynamics that they warn people about in Management 100, am I? The reason I ask is that am finding it increasingly difficult to make any effective change at work. And then I think about it, and it was the same at my old job.

Leaving aside the questions of method for a moment, I question myself and ask if the problems I see are real problems, or if I just don't get it. I do know that in general I look at things from a different perspective from most people (which makes life hard enough as it is), but when it comes to problems within the workplace, I just don't know. I would like to think that the problems that I see are real problems, and I do, but when I try to enact any sort of change I hit brick walls. Constantly.

It's frustrating, to say the least.

More and more I'm doubting my effectiveness in the workplace. I can't pin it down. Perhaps I'm just unsuited to dealing with situations such as those presented by the type of workplace that I'm in. Perhaps I'm better suited to other things. Perhaps I just have deeper people issues than I thought I had. Perhaps I just plain suck. Who knows.

But, in the short term at least, I'm stuck where I am, and I'll have to learn to deal and cope with the situations. The problem is, do I just roll over and play dead, sacrificing whatever morals/ethics I may have, or do I persue problems and try to rectify them. Is there a middle ground? I don't think there's a middle ground - I've tried to find one before and it either ends up one extreme or the other, as you persue it until it's resolved or until people decide to start ignoring the issue and you don't. Is it perhaps because I'm too passionate about what I believe in? Am I full of myself?

I don't think so (but then, I'm doubt my own judgement on these matters, aren't I?) I think I'm right. I think the problems I see are real problems and they need to be addressed. I think that life could be better and I know what needs to be changed. So then what's stopping me?

Certainly the attitude of the people I work with doesn't help. The defeatist attitude that I constantly have to fight against is draining. The battle against change that they fight, "It's good enough, it's been fine up to now, why isn't it anymore?" People not willing to entertain the fact that things could be better. People that climb some way up a hill and look down and say "Look how high I am!" without turning around to see where they go. After all, they already have a pretty good view, why go to the extra effort? I am constantly battling to try and convince people that even some of the tiny, trivial things that could make life better are worth the effort of doing it. I am constantly battling to show that any change is not for changes sake, that there are reasons and rationalisations.

These people see change as a direct affront on their status quo. They are the center of their little universe, and I don't even think they understand the purpose of their job.

Am I painting a picture of a one right man war against a nation of wrongs? Maybe just a bit, and I'm probably a little guilty of doing it myself, but day after day of beating my head against the table (sometimes litterally) to enact some simple, trivial change to make life easier, for our clients and for us, is wearing thin. Don't even get me started on the 'big' change issues.

No, I'm pretty sure that this unit is not defective. Or rather, it's not deffective in the same way that the other units are.

*sniff*

This last week has gone past really fast. Too fast. I almost totally missed it! Does that mean it was a good week or a bad week? Probably means it was a good week. I mean, when you're not feeling like you like the world time seems to just drag on, but when you're in a happy happy mode time just flies past!

Which means that if you're not quick, you miss out enjoying the goodness. Maybe that's why people never seem to be happy? They miss out on enjoying the goodness and only really remember the bad times because they drag out so long?

Enough rambling. Usually by now this has undergone several revisions and edits, however it seems toog enough to pass muster - for now. Maybe by the time I'll get to the end it'll be a different story.

I suppose that if you take a look at the blogs that I've done previously, you could tell what mood I was in at the time. For instance, yesterday's was a completely spontaneous post (todays is similar - just blogging until Michele gets here). I toyed with the concept of taking a statistical analysis at the end of a year and seeing what type of moods I was generally in and what frequency of posts I'd make in those moods - oh wait here she is bye!

The problem with life, right, is that it sucks.

I'm a solitary kinda person. I've said it many times in the past, and it's still true. I like to be with my own thoughts and ideas. In the past (for reasons that I've also gone into) that tends to isolate me a bit because I spend so much time at it :)

I often tend to get side tracked though, because I'm not one to sit down and do nothing. I'm always fidgetting, playing with this or that, listenning to something, or whatever. I've got the proverbial ant in the pants. Can't sit still. That's where roller blading helps. I can zoom around for 90 minutes or so on a course (about 22km's), thinking about whatever pops into my head. Me, alone, doing something that'll take my mind of whatever I'd otherwise have to fodget with, and start thinking about things. I even get some form of excercise.

So being a "loner" can't be all that bad, can it?