Saturday, February 22/14
"As" by Stevie Wonder
It's been quite sometime since I've posted and I can honestly say I've missed this connection. 2014 has been pretty crazy so far with work, my kids, coaching, and dating. Yes, you heard that correctly, I've been dating the past few weeks, well I should say I'd been dating as things have sort of cooled off the last week or so but that is a post for another day.
Work has gotten interesting on a couple of different fronts as we've lost a couple of people to resignations and transfers, transfers within our Ottawa office as well as back to Amsterdam. Because of these changes we've been trying to re-balance work loads in order to equalize things while still meeting some strict closing deadlines, while still attempting to complete an intensive two weeks of SAP training in anticipation of a go live date set for April 1st. Yes, I've wondered if this will be some huge April fools day joke but am keeping my fingers crossed.
Usually I'm all for learning new things and even more so when it comes to systems and software, as I was when I learned that corporate had designated me as a SAP Super User meaning I would be expected to know all the modules and be able to support all the rest of the users at our location. Sounded pretty good when first described to me in January but not so much these days.
When I mentioned to a friend we were shifting over to SAP from GP Dynamics she pulled my sleeve up on my right arm and asked if I'd penciled the marks yet? I pulled my arm back and asked what marks and she replied the ones showing where to slash my wrists as SAP is no piece of cake. I laughed as I thought she was exaggerating but she just shook her head and said I'd see.......well damn if she wasn't dead on right. After spending 10+ hours per day learning the system over the last two weeks I can honestly say my brain feels like an egg would on a sidewalk in Las Vegas in the middle of August.
Couple this with some major dating drama at work with some co-workers that has every single person in the organization buzzing and my days have been interesting to say the least.
The saving grace has been my daughters soccer team, well more nights than most, as we began the spring season of indoor soccer. After finishing in first place for the fall with an 8-4-3 record there were the usual changes as some players left and new ones arrived to fill the gaps. The core group remained the same and have gotten off to a 3-0-1 start and when push came to shove they showed some mettle by coming back from a 2-0 deficit to earn a draw against an old nemesis in the Kanata Lasers. A game they were literally minutes away from winning but just ran out of the time.
The funny thing is that as good as they've been playing to start the season they've played like crap in the first half of each game, so much so that it has taken a scathing indictment of their skills at halftime to get them back into the games. Before the third game I gathered them around and reminded them they have won 2 of the last 3 titles, know what to do with and without the ball, know each other well enough to know where each person is on the pitch without having to think about it, so how about they start the game with the same determination as they show to start the second half and save me from having to lose it and yell at them.
One of the girls looked me dead in the eye and said "Coach, we know all that but we enjoy you yelling at us as it motivates us to play harder and win" With that they all just smiled at me and went back to warming up so I walked back to the sidelines. When I got there my ex asked me what they said and I just smiled and said they want me to yell as they play harder.....she laughed and went to sit down next to her boyfriend who looked over at me and said "it's true, they do"
Now I don't have any issues getting mad when they play bad as that comes with being a coach, but they shouldn't need it as there isn't a team they cant' beat when they are playing like a "team" in the true sense of the word. But I don't like being known as the coach who is always yelling. It bothers me to have to do that as much as I have, even though the end result has been seeing them take points in 41 of 49 games over the past year and a half.
I think I'm going to try something new on Tuesday and not yell at all. I think I'm going to limit my coaching to calling the substitutions and see what they do. Might serve them well as I'm going to be gone for a key game over March Break and they'll need to coach themselves that week anyways.
I'll let you know next week how that turns out - fingers crossed :-)
Marcus
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