I am looking forward to being done with this internship with Southwestern. This would be considered "negative" to the Southwestern people, and I can totally understand why. This job is really emotional and mental more than anything, which hurts me because I think a lot -- "too much" according to many in this program. I am also a fairly emotional person.
I mention this, because the people are right. When I think of anything like this it does kinda mess with my mind and emotions when I am out in the "bookfield." I need to concentrate on enjoying my time out here and enjoying my job. I haven't exactly figured out how to do this just yet, but I think I may be on my way.
I am kinda seeing this as a game. I need to complete certain sections of the areas that I work, and I know that the faster I go through them the sooner I will get to people who will buy the books and the sooner I will get to "better" (there supposedly is no such thing, but that is quite obviously BS) territory.
Seeing it as a game has helped me work harder, faster, and enjoy this more. I seem to need a sense of completion to feel good about doing work. In this job there is rarely a sense of completion and never, ever a sense of accomplishment in terms of "satisfactory" or "good enough." You can always do better. You could always have done something different. (I find this incredibly negative, but apparently it doesn't meet their definition of negative, because it happens all the time.)
The next thing I am doing to enjoy my job more is figuring out what I do well when I am doing this. I seem to thrive on positive reinforcement instead of constant correction and suggestions for improvement, so I decided that I'd make a list of things I am doing right so far. I'll also make a list of the things I am doing wrong, the mistakes I make, and the suggestions that Marie, Mike Yandre, Clerison and Dahnell make for me to improve. I'm going to largely ignore the second list though. What I plan to do is to take the first list and just get enjoyment out of the fact that I am doing the things on that list well. I want to be consistant about those things so I will focus on them. Then I want to add things from the second list to the first list from time to time. Maybe I'll attempt to do this every two days or so. Finally, I am going to see the suggestions that Marie makes as assignments and just "accomplish" them every week so that I can feel a sense of accomplishment there too.
Hopefully this will all work out for me. :)
Posted by David at June 13, 2004 12:41 AM