My work has done a great job of recognizing all the long hours I put in after the October fires. Left and right I've received tons of official and non-official pats on the back from all levels. I'm appreciative of the praise especially since I did work 12-14 hour days for 4 months straight but I must admit I'm not one for the limelight and sometimes like to do the dirty work from the shadows. A month ago my picture went up on the front of my agency's website as an employee profile. I wasn't a fan of the picture but I had no one to blame since several times I was asked by the PR peeps to pick out a picture but refused because I didn't want to be all high maintenance and request a pro looking action shot of me doing my job (which I have several). That's the bad part of me being the "it" girl of the moment (which I realize that this is my 15 min of fame and it wont last much longer). Everyone at work has known me since I was the 20 year old intern who was reliable but often came to work slightly hungover from the frat party the night before. I don't want my coworkers to think I've forgotten my roots or worse yet to think that I did all the work after the fires by myself. I have a wonderful staff of 12 plus a myriad of coworkers from across the state who came down and spent time away from their families to help me out. Anyways, I try really hard to not be the drama queen in the center of all the attention.
Today a very glossy, very professional looking "magazine" type thing came off production that will be sent to several very big wigs in my agency's National HQ. My picture is plastered across the magazine on about 5 different pages (of the 10 pages total). And in every single photo I look fat. Like really fat. Like WOW. I didn't realize I had gotten that big fat. I could blame it on the PR person who did the layout but in all honestly it's not that the photos are unflattering. I think it's that I really look as bad as the pics portray. This magazine should be something that I cherish but instead it's something that I am really not proud of because of the way I look.
I know that its not really about the photos, it's about the story within the magazine but let's not kid ourselves. That's like saying men subscribe to playboy for the articles and not the hot chicks. The big wigs that receive the magazine are all very busy people and wont have much time to actually read the text. They'll flip through it and be greeted with me looking like a lard-o. I've seen my face on other agency promo material and several times been pleased with how I look. This isn't me just being hard on myself because I don't wear the standard SoCal size 2. This is me being hard on myself because once again I've let my weight get out of control and I'm really embarrassed of the way I look.
