reflections on a Sunday storm

I dealt with last nights unpleasantness at home by letting Philippa huff off to bed on her own and then sitting up watching American Football. Might not be the best way to handle that kind of situation, but the NFL Championship games only come round once a year.
Philippa was quite quiet this morning but was mostly nice to me. She was a bag of nerves though. It’s hard to see her struggling when she’s always been so confident, but it’s early days yet - this is only her second week in the job - and I have to have faith that things will improve. I know better than anyone how unsettled and unprofessional you feel when you start somewhere new; stumbling your way through basic tasks and constantly having to ask the same questions over and over again. The key is to relax and get on with it instead of trying to learn too much too quickly, but I think that’s the mistake Philippa is making. She’s charging in, trying to get herself up to speed, where what she needs to do is concentrate on learning one aspect of the job at a time and building her skill set that way.  I tried to explain this to her rationally last night but three things were working against me - 1. Alcohol in both our systems, 2. She wasn’t open to reason or logic, she was stuck in panic and confusion, and 3. I am really crap at putting decent thoughts into acceptable language. So when she started saying she’s made a mistake changing jobs and misses the comfortable feeling of the old place and is thinking of going back already, what I wanted to say was ‘you need to give yourself some time and let yourself settle in and then see how you feel.’ But what came out of my mouth was something like ‘don’t let your feelings of inadequacy cloud how happy you were about leaving’ which doesn’t sound good, I must admit. 

She needs to get through the next couple of months of uncertainty and discomfort before she finds her feet and gets used to the new routine and gets a bit of confidence. Trouble is, she doesn’t think she can last that long. 
She’ll get there - I know she will. And I’ll have to try and be supportive the best way I can - for a start I can work hard at not getting fed up with her and retreating into GamingWorld to avoid her! 

RC 22-1-18