12 April 2008

Winter is making a return appearance this evening. It will be strange to have the heaters going again after turning them off and getting ready for AC season by cleaning the filters and vacuuming off the coils on the AC units.

Sheesh, there is even a freeze warning that extends through the middle of the coming week! Not that I mind winter, I like it. It just was nice to not need the heaters for a few days.

Things at work are still quite strange and frightening. 'Nuff said.

One of my neighbours mowed my lawn for me last week, which was a great help. I'm out of shape, although that is soon to be a thing of the past as I am walking and doing some upper body strengthening. I am not trying to stave off old age as much as I am trying to stave off feeling like a lump:)

I have been trying my best to be ultra frugal. The cats are disappointed because they can't come to the library to blog with me, and Gonzo is staring at the remote control with a rather pointed look on his little fur face as if to say, "People, this dang thing don't work anymore!"

Luckily, my blog is so boring to Gonzo and Mozart that even if they made it to the library and logged on without being caught, they still wouldn't come to my blog and find out that the cable and Internet should be back up at our house in a few weeks-I HOPE!

Well, time's up, gotta go:)

05 April 2008

Who am I? For that matter, who was I?

Is that where I start? Do I backtrack, or do I go to the beginning and move forward through the years?

May be that I should begin at the beginning. Hmmmm, see the top of the page, 5 thousand years worth of reflection could take some time, hehe.

Seriously though, I've been trying to get all this straight for the past ten years. I've been busy getting through what ever for so long now, do I have it in me any longer to be able to step back and figure it out?

OK, who was I?

Fox's Mom. Crusty's wife.A neighbour, a friend, a sister, a daughter. OK, well, looking back, that all went away at 2130hrs on the 6th of July 1998. Just took me until September 2005 to really get that.

Who am I?

Weeeeeeeeell, right now I am a true thorn in the side of the woman who runs our business unit. Oh Lord, I hate that I've caused her trouble.

She is brilliant, a terrific business woman for whom I have great respect and admiration because not only is she smart as a whip, she is fair, friendly, and responsive. She really cares.

Things are looking up for the whole group now that she is really in charge. So naturally I've managed to push her right to limit of her patience.

She tried. I was so tired that I'm hoping she was able to make sense of the guarded mumble I was trying to squeeze out-that I actually do love my job, and that the day I went home was not a pattern but an attempt to keep from shooting myself in the foot and/or causing a problem for my co-workers.

At the same time she needed to address what looked like an error on my part, but was in actuality an error on the part of Blondie and her band of followers. I know my new boss did not want to hear that what happened was:

I was responsible for regular communication to separate but related people outside of our company. I have the emailed instructions to prove this.

In the middle of performing the preparation of said regular communications I was moved to a different set of responsibilities to cover the duties of a team member who quit without notice.

Because of the changes that had occurred to that preparation in the eight months since Blondie had been screwing it up, I tried three times to brief Blondie-who wanted no part of it,

"I've been doing this for years, I do not need your advice!"

I tried three times to get the attention of three other people in a supervisory position that there were important items germane to the process that were not being addressed-SOMEBODY HEAR ME OR WE'RE GOING TO HAVE CLIENT PROBLEMS!!!

I was told to mind my own business; I was told she knew it all; I was told "Good, now she'll be exposed as an idiot."

Meanwhile I had some of the people who received these regular communications calling me asking

"Why is that idiot communicating with us again? She can't even follow the instructions."

"Who the hell are these arrogant people calling me demanding information and refusing to tell me where you are?"

"Can you please translate what this person wants? Who is she, she can't even write a business sentence?!"

Or worse,

"Blondie (and two others) are saying you don't work there anymore, so how come I can call you and get you on the phone??"

One set of these people I was to have regular communication with came right out and wrote in an email (that included correspondence between her and the other people in her group that was highly uncomplimentary to my company)

"I don't know who these people are, you are my regular contact, why did you drop off the map and these functional illiterates start contacting me without any warning from you??? When can we get together in a conference call to address these issues?"

To which I replied,

"I have been moved to a different area; Blondie has retired; XYZ will be your temporary immediate contact and ABCD will be your go-to as he is the new head of that team."

I apologized for the stumble in the transition and tried to assure everyone that the new team in place would address their very reasonable concerns.

I checked it with my former manager who said,

"Well, you are saying all the right things a hell of a lot more professionally than I would in the situation; you are doing what you are supposed to do and it will satisfy the client; but our people are going to be pissed as hell with you because they should have caught this the first time you went to them trying to stop this very thing from happening."

Since my bottom line is the company and it's best interests, I hit send and hoped for the best.

And of course, I am in trouble. My brilliant new boss wanted to know why I had initiated contact with these people.

I didn't.

My brilliant new boss informed me that I was not to tell people outside the company information like that unless I was their primary contact.

I was.

Because she is brilliant, something in her eyes as we parted indicated to me that she might look into this further and if she is able to, she will find out that I was correct in the communication and should not be sanctioned.

But until then, she thinks I am a problem child and I absolutely hate that.

My supervisor thinks I am a problem child, and doesn't hesitate to tell her that I am the whole morale problem within our tight little team area.

I'm not.

I tried to tell her that I am sorry that he thinks that and ended up telling her that he has a tendency to run his drill sergeant routine at me (and everyone else, it's not just me) and has in the past tried that. My response has always been to try to get through the moment and give him a couple of days to cool off and realize it was unwarranted.

She wanted to know why I would put up with that and offered to address it-I hope she doesn't as it's just part of his personality.

I didn't tell her that I was disappointed that he has to go through all that blustering nonsense but I did tell her that it wasn't a big deal to me because I knew he would get over it and we'd work together well. He is going to even out pretty soon and he knows the industry-I respect him and his authority. He and I went through this before two years ago.

Meanwhile people are looking at me as though I am incredibly stupid and I am going to have to go through that silliness again until the truth slowly filters out.

So, who am I?

Am I an idiot glutton for insults? Am I a hard working misunderstood professional who still believes that the truth will come out and I will not be the problem child? Am I interested in hanging around long enough to find out?

Am I the corporate type? Patently no. At least I know the answer to that one.

But, as my friend said this morning over brunch,

"You love your job."

And I do.

These are very strange times.