Balancing work and practice

Something I've been struggling with lately is balancing my professional life with my spiritual practice. I'm very quiet about my faith in most areas of my life; I don't advertise or discuss my faith with co-workers or in general public; I make an effort not to draw attention to my practice. I wear a pentagram often, but it's not three inches across. But I'm finding that my work tends to overshadow other aspects of my life. From the moment I wake up every morning until well into the evening, I'm focused on work. If not actually doing it, then brooding venting thinking about it, or somehow focused on it.

I used to do have a morning ritual that included meditation and light exercise in the mornings, but anymore I can barely drag myself out of bed and through a shower and a cup of coffee before leaving for work.

My favourite Aerolin has talked about Medicine Cards, and I find myself very drawn to the idea of using these cards as part of my practice.

Another thing I've been having difficulty with at work is patience. It is no secret to those who know me that I am extremely lacking in patience with others. I do okay if I am working on something with a specific goal in mind that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. My problem comes when I think someone should be nearing the end, and they aren't there yet.

I'm training an employee for a Reconciliation position right now. Her duties include direct contact with parts vendors, processing correcting entry transactions, reviewing open items statements, and handling urgent invoices. She uses a computer, printer, copy machine, and scanner in her job. She started as a data entry operator, so she has a good foundation for the work; she's proficient with the equipment for the most part (she has trouble grasping the concept of how she can interact with computer drives, but that's somewhat secondary). She really struggles with policy though. There's nothing particularly wrong with her - she's experiencing a stiff learning curve and I understand that she doesn't learn as fast as everyone. My problem comes with the fact that I'm just so busy all damn day, and she has an urgent question at least every hour. I'm on the phone a lot, by nature of the fact that all four of my managers and every single adjacent group I work with are in different cities (and in some cases, different time zones), so she has a tendency to lurk around my office door waiting for me to get off the phone. As such, I barely have time to deal with anything before she rushes in to ask questions. Her questions aren't so difficult to answer or explain, but I feel as though I'm being constantly interrupted.

She's not at fault for any of this, but I find myself so frustrated with her. I've hurt her feelings a couple of times, so I finally devoted some energy to figuring out what I needed to do differently to avoid snapping at her. After giving it some thought, I realized I'm so frustrated because she's not like the lady that she replaced. The last person in her position - we'll call her Former Recon Girly - was such a quick learner. She was fast, highly efficient, dedicated, and professional. She and I became close friends, which is amazing in and of itself considering my disinclination to befriend employees. She's about my mom's age and we share several hobbies. I enjoyed talking with her about casual, generic stuff, and I could go to her for help on a crochet project or a cooking tip. She and her boyfriend relocated to New York state for his job in June. We keep in touch, so I haven't lost the friend; but I really miss the employee.

So, New Recon Girly shows a lot of promise and I have faith in her abilities, but I've realized the source of my impatience with her and I just need to stop putting unreasonable expectations on her. She'll never be Former Recon Girly, and I need to give her more reason to grow than just to fill someone else's shoes.

I feel like this impatience of mine at work is exacerbated by my lack of satisfactory practice in my faith. I just need to get grounded with a renewed morning ritual and better exercise.

On another work-related note, I've started to develop a friendship with another of the ladies in my office. She supervises one of the groups I manage, and we've discovered we have a lot in common. I tend to be a little stand-off-ish about work friendships with subordinates, but I think she's mature enough that we won't have a problem.

I feel like I'm growing, what with all the new friendships I'm developing.