I Go To Work...

I love being able to sit at my desk each day, tackle the number of emails that I get in my inbox, answer phone calls and get to glance out of my large window at the ball field where I either see campers playing or deer eating. I love the people I work with, the fun and conversations that we have. I also truly LOVE the tasks of my job. I love putting together details for people, making things organized, knowing that I am meeting a income budget that always seems to be an impossible number of campers to have on a given month.

As much as I love sitting at my desk, and love my job. There are days where my work feels heavy on my chest. Days where I feel behind on getting back to people. Days where I don't know how to respond to the requests that I get. Days where I feel burden by having to say "no" over and over again. There is really a lot of work that goes into the booking and planning of camps. It is a two way conversation, you need to read and meet the needs of the people of the other side of that email or phone call. There are conflicts. There are days where I mess up and have to tell a group really bad news. And sadly, there are even days that I have to under deliver what I have promised.

I have been in a season for almost 2 months now where I am waiting on so many things. And, as I wait, so many past groups and new inquires essentially have to "wait" with me, waiting.

A brand new dorm and chapel was schedule to open two months ago, which means we had the rooms booked two months ago. The building isn't done. this building has at least 2 more weeks (or 3 months) more work to be complete. THIS IS THE WORST. I told them months ago that this building would be ready for them to use, and now we have to shuffle, cancel and rearrange so many groups because this building is behind schedule.

We are waiting to hear back from our lawyers about leasing a second camp for the summer. Every day I have to turn people away from a summer camp spot because of this waiting process. This upcoming summer is a mess, somehow this summer is one week shorter than it was last summer, so many of our groups grew, and now I have a long list of people who have been our summer campers in the past with no where to go. This hurts me. I want to say "yes" to everyone. I want to be able to book, book and book camps. I want to fill up this new camp before all my inquiries find a new camp.

We are also looking at a brand new camp registration program. The current one we have is sub-par. It kinda does the job, but I have to do a lot of work to make it work. I would like to have my software work for me instead of the other way around. My boss and manager were at a conference where they found this AMAZING software. I did the tour, I asked a ton of questions and I am ready to make the switch! I love the tools it can do and how easy it is to use it. But with things like that you have to wait. We have to get it approved, we have to get our whole staff on board. We have to get it all set-up.

I am doing a lot of waiting at work. And in the waiting it creates a lot of stress. I have so many emails where I don't know how to answer, because at this moment, I don't know what the answer is going to be.

I am a person who really likes black and white answers. At least for when I am working with people. Being in this limbo land has really been messing with me. I think it is draining a LOT of life out of me. I want our calendar to be full, but I can't do a super amazing job at making sure its full if I don't really know the resources that are in front of me.
I want to be super efficient in my job, and knowing that this amazing software is so close for me to use that will improve my efficiency, yet I need to keep up with my backwards system until [insert mystery date] to improve.

Stress like this stays with you. I think about all my unanswered items all the time. I know that everything is out of my hands, which makes my stress about them that much greater. I think all of the personal things that I am working through is so much more intensified by the stress that my job is creating.

I am not fighting with any co-workers, I am not upset with personally with anyone, all the things that I think that are really hard to deal with aren't on the table. Yet, the unknown timeline is getting to me, no one has the answers. Everyone that I work with is going through the same thing that I am, but I am the voice on the phone, I am the liaison between camp and our churches. I am the one that has to answer the hard questions and makes our guests happy while making sure it works out for everyone.

I have a hard time remembering that everyone has hard parts of their job. Especially when I am going through a hard time. I always see the  "green grass" in what other people are doing, even though I am sure that what I am going through isn't even half of the struggles of others jobs.

I wish I knew how to instantly the answers to what I am waiting on.
 I wish I knew how to get this weight off my shoulders and went with the flow.
I wished I knew how to make everything work perfectly together.
But I don't.
I just need to do the best that I can do each day, and work on changing my perspective on this.