Good morning, it’s still pretty chilly out. Please come into the warmth and let’s chat in my fresh-bread-smelling kitchen. I had just finished baking a loaf of Sourdough Foccacia. It’s been a while since I’ve baked anything and I sure do love Foccacia. They are so savory and versatile.
Here, try a piece. It’s made with my one-year-old sourdough starter. Can you believe it’s a year old already? Its birthday is February 15. They sure do grow up fast, don’t they?
If we were having coffee and bread, I would tell you I’ve been suffering from bouts of emotional and mental sickness this week. I feel like I’ve woken up on the wrong side of the emotional bed. The only emotions I’m feeling had been irritation, frustration, unfulfillment, and inadequacy but underneath it all, I feel stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed.
Mom has been complaining everyday at work about being assigned too much work. If she would spend more time doing the work instead of complaining, she’d have no trouble completing the work. Complaining feel so one-sided in this household. Only she can complain, when I complain, angry expletives would begin flying, and I’m the one who ends up running to my room, chest heaving this large load of anger and frustration.
When she’s not complaining and not working despite the workload, she’s blasting the speakers on her tablet and phone, set to YouTube, either playing Cantonese Soap Opera or news about how horrible the current government is. It’s so loud that sometimes, when I’m in my meetings, even with my door closed, the other participants would ask, “What is that background noise?” Oh, and that’s with a noise-filtering microphone plugged in.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you my CFO took me out to lunch this week. He wanted to have an one-on-one with me. I’m guessing it’s because I’m the least known person in the accounting department. During our virtual meetings, my co-workers would show off and compare the cuteness of their children and grandchildren while I often just sat there, feeling envious and bored. Since my CFO came on board in 2019, I had two one-on-one meetings, both 30 minutes but both meetings got nowhere.
He would say the purpose of the meetings was to get to know each other better, to find out what each of us can contribute more to the company but somehow, I’ve always managed to divert the conversation back to the current day-to-day manual tasks of sorting mail and data-entry.
However, the purpose of this week’s lunch was he wanted to gauge in what other aspects of accounting I’d like to do since he recent acquired a piece of new software that should lighten my workload in the coming months and/or years. “I like to design reports,” I told him.
I’m not sure where the meeting went in the end, whether I would soon be transferred to another team, I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
If we were drinking coffee, I would tell you I finally finished listening to Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I didn’t really get into the book until the end of part 3 and the beginning of part 4. Above is my review of the book on Goodreads. I didn’t like the ending though. It was abrupt and did not feel final. Right after finishing the book, I began listening to the sequel – Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. I checked the reviews on Goodreads and it looked like a lot of people didn’t like the sequel. I shall be the judge of that.
If we were having coffee, I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.
This is Another Story 
Yinglan, Your foccacia bread looks delicious. I’m sorry to hear you had a difficult week. I hope you have a nice weekend and a much better week ahead. Thank you for linking with #WeekendCoffeeShare.
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Thank you. I went shopping by myself today and that seemed to had lifted my spirits a little. Maybe a little alone time was all I needed. Have a great week ahead.
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OMG sourdough focaccia!! I love both and did not know it could be combined!! 🙂 I pray something good comes from your meetings – a new opportunity, new role? Fingers crossed.. I too sit on video calls, silent and smiling, as everyone shares their kids and pets.. Haha.. Always praying that your home situation improves.. You have the patience of an angel..
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I’ve made this recipe a few times and it turned out great every time. It’s an absolute favorite of mine.
Thank you for dropping by and have a great week ahead. 🙂
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I’ve heard from many, and experienced it myself, that this last week has been generally hard on everyone. Sound’s like there might be something positive in your work future, though. I hope so. Have a great week!
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Maybe it’s just the monotony of February and the never-ending pandemic. I feel optimistic about my future in this company, hopefully, I’m right. Crossing my fingers. Thank you for dropping by and have a great week ahead.
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Have you read Pearl Buck’s THE GOOD EARTH? If so, what did you think of it? I read in my twenties and still remembers parts of it.
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No, I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll have to look it up. Thanks for the recommendation.
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At least this one on one meeting seemed to have a tangible purpose. Hopefully it will lead to something good for you, work wise.
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Crossing my fingers. 🙂 Thank you for dropping by and have a great week.
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I’m sorry about your mom….my dad can be the same way, though he’s retired and my sister lives with him, I hear him complain a lot about everything, instead of doing something about it. I love foccacia too. Yum. Have a good week. Hopefully your meeting with your boss will turn some great corners for you.
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Crossing my fingers. Thank you for dropping by and have a great week.
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Hello Yinglan, I think your lunch with the CFO sounds promising. I too like designing reports as there is something immensely satisfying about taking a wad of hard to understand data, numbers, status codes, whatever; and laying them out in a way that helps the reader quickly understand what the data says and what, if any, action might be indicated. One of my reports deals with trouble tickets and how long they’ve been open. I did a simple Excel enhancement to the report that uses conditional formatting to: do nothing if the ticket age is less than 30 days, highlight the cell in a soft yellow color if it was 31 – 59 days old and a threatening red tone for any older than 60 days. The customer loved this change and uses it to direct their attention to those tickets that are the oldest. From our side, we saw the pool of 60+ day old tickets all but disappear in less that 3 weeks. Simple, but so effective. I could see you doing really well with such work. I hope your CFO sees what a great resource you might be. Keep us posted. This could become great news.
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Hi Gary, that’s precisely what I like about designing reports – to make complex data easier to read and interpret. I am hoping to have an update within the next month or two. I feel optimistic about this and I agree, this could become great news. Thank you for dropping by and have a great week.
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I’m sorry you are having such a hard time; having several people working from home is difficult. Get out for walks as work breaks as often as you can. That will give you a break from your mom, some fresh air, and a little exercise. It sounds like you need all of those!
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I try to go out when I can. A few minutes is better than nothing as someone always calls me back. Still, I cherish those moments.
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Seems yummy
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