Day 1

Another snow day.  WHEN WILL IT END???  The good news is that I now have time to recap yesterdays events.

I worked from home all day, but it was eventful none the less.  It was the first time in my career that I signed an official document sent to a client.  Though only a data request (this is very unimportant), it was still a formal document that the client would see.  This was extremely exciting.  I have updated many of these documents before, but never with my signature at the end.  Not meaning to do so, I took special care with this one, noting anything confusing and making sure all grammatical errors were fixed.

Of course something went wrong.  I had to send it as an encrypted email, so one person could not open it.  It is against company policy to send information like this without encrypting it first, for fear of interception.  I reached out to my upper level colleagues for advise on how to respond, but they did not get back to me until much later, after I had already signed off.  I now feel a level of regret.  I think I should have sent an email to the client saying I cannot send the file without encrypting it, but we are currently working on a solution and will let you know when we figure it out.  It would be simple and would reassure the client that we are doing everything we can.  I am always hesitant to send anything to the client, and never do so without getting a draft reviewed.  Here are my thoughts:

1) Should I be more willing to contact the client when I think it is helpful, without consulting upper management?
2) Should I have emailed her last night, or wait until the next day when we have a more concrete solution?

I also went to an improv show last night.  I guess this is a good spot to tell you I take improv comedy classes every Sunday in New York City.  I started about 3 weeks ago and it has completely consumed all of my attention.  It is a fantastic feeling of making something from absolutely nothing, and developing this story with another person who has no idea what you're about to say next.  I'll go into more detail about my fascination with this later, but last nights show was a kind of "open mic night" for improvisers.  It was all people currently taking classes like me, but most were in the higher level classes (this coming Sunday will be my 4th week of level 1).  I got up and I feel like I did an OK job, but I didn't create anything.  I just kind of fed off what the other people were saying.  There's this idea of "Yes And" in improv, and I was only Yesing last night. I have to work on elaborating the story and moving it forward instead of laterally.

There was also another girl from my class, Kaitlin, who attended last nights show as well.  She was pretty much the only person I talked to all night which I do not like.  It would have been so easy to start talking about improv to any of these people since they were all enrolled in the classes as well.  I started one conversation that turned into a conversation on sports, but it was nothing great.  While I was talking to Kaitlin I felt awkward.  I was thinking very hard about what to say next and not letting my mind fully encompass what was being discussed at that moment.

This lesson goes hand in hand with why I'm taking improv in the first place.  I want to learn to completely turn my mind and thoughts off while talking to people.  I have to become a better listener (when your listening you can't be having other side thoughts).  So, in the future I want to:

1) Stop thinking while I'm having a discussion with someone.
2) Stop trying to think of what to say next.
3) Be fully present and listen attentively
        a) As long as I am fully present, I will pick up on things that can evoke responses or spur other threads of conversation.
        b) This involves a lot of faith, so I have to get comfortable with the unknown of not knowing what to say next.