Hi, Brooke:
Thank you! Your teaching has changed me and I’m finally getting enough courage to reach out to you for your help.

This months topic is one that sends me into a tail spin and I don’t know how to get out of it.

I work as an Corporate Accountant and have become very good at planning my time and increasing my productivity even before I watched your Video for this weeks lesson. I work on what’s most important then go to the tasks where I can increase my speed for the most output. My work is usually at the straight A level except when it comes to speed then I have to overlook the small stuff to increase my speed. In Accounting we call it materiality. I’ve done really well in my current position with increasing productivity and I’m proud of it. The others on my team really look up to me as the informal “lead”.

My problem is that I feel like I don’t get recognized for it. I took this job after coming off a leave to go back to school and get my Certificate in Finance from UCSD. I was recruited and during the interview I was told that the position would last for four years. The department I’m in is a large scale Construction Department and my recent background is in Construction Project Accounting and Construction Contracts so it seemed like a good fit until I found out that the position was for tops 2 years because of the so called “HR rules”. I’m at the 1.5 year mark and now I’m going into the stress of having to find another job. I am upset because at the 1.5 mark after all the result, the increases in productivity I would think the discussion would be around bringing me up in pay with a review and instead the discussion is around whether or not I’m going to even have a job at the two year mark which is 5 months away. Plus, I start to get into what I call as the “pity me” mindset. For example, am I not good enough? Why is this happening to me, again? Then, I start to say to myself “I can’t stand the job” and “I can’t stand the people” even though that’s not really true and I get resentful and really scared about finding another job. I’ve come to realize that this type of an Accounting position requires skills but employers don’t want to make commitments to keep staff employed regardless of their output, productivity and contribution. I feel like a baseball player being traded for the next skill. Then, I start to think why am I even in this crappy situation because it seems like I’ve been here time and time before and I’m trapped without a clue on how to get myself out of it. I have so many negative thoughts and I can’t seem get to the other side, the side where I’m sucessful and stable. I was just getting some traction on paying off my home and now I have to re-focus on the job search for a job I don’t really like because of everything I’ve just mentioned. I hope all of this makes sense and I am really desperate for suggestions on how to get to the other side and get out of the negative beating myself up.

Thank you! Maureen Farrell-Jacobs