All Taught Up

I'm just waiting to start my on-line class here in a few minutes, and thought I'd pop a few thoughts down on the old blog.

Things at work are still sucking. I feel like I'm feeding into being a big part of a dysfunctional family - on the outside we're so corporately happy, high fiving and hugging all around and celebrating each other. The door closes and we kick the snot out of each other.

I have resolved to not be the negative one about this situation. I have resolved to put my head down, nose to the grindstone, and get this project done so I can get back to my regular job. But man it's hard to be PollyAnna Positive when you're being beat up and around all the time.

The latest is that I might have to use vacation time to attend the mandatory 2.5 day sessions at the end of each course in this masters program that I was asked by my employer to take! Because I was asked and encouraged to get it completed as quickly as possible, I've been taken two courses per semester. That calculates out to 112.5 hours of vacation per year that I would be required to take to attend class. I get 150 hours of vacation per year. That leaves about 4 work days that I would get off each year. Wooo hoooo.

So I got all formal on them, and wrote a letter asking for the definition of "reasonable time off to participate in the program", per my return of service agreement. I was just curious since, you know, I've been told I can't take time off to study. Or write a paper. Or apparently now go to the damn mandatory classes.

But that's just me. Curious Georgina.

I'm found a devotional book called "Faith in the Valley" by Iyanla Vanzant. She starts it out by saying that we're called to remember that within every valley lies a lesson for us to learn.

Is it ok to be tired of learning? I'm just asking.

Voulez vous voo doo?

It occurred to me today that I am considerably late with this period. Like about 3 weeks late. Before you get excited (ok, before I get excited), let me assure you that I am not pregnant. I'm still just sucker enough to have bought into the whole maybe this is karma thing and I'm meant to present HB with a stick laced in urine for Father's Day. You know. Kind of in the same way that I got out of buying his a birthday present for his 40th birthday.

But no. So instead I wrapped up two pictures of our Barkley Boy that I had made into 8 x 10 and put into nice frames.

I didn't realize how stressed I was ... even with all the crap that has been going on of late. You'd think I'd clue in .... I mean an overnight stay in emerg, a meltdown at work and all the drama there should have been signs enough. We went for massages today and I could not believe how knotted up I was! Unbelievable. Man, it felt good. Unfortunately Knothead had thought it would be a good idea for Frodo and Mini Me to be here with us overnight tonight. I'd like to be Christian and say it was because she wanted them to be with their father on his hallmark holiday, but it's more that it suits her family plans tomorrow if they're back to her by noon. So we had these awesome massages and have been flat out ever since.

As for work...I've made a decision. I have met with the executive recruiter and she is reviewing my cv. I've moved my stuff to the crap cubicle. I've met with my home director and given him the heads up that if I don't have another job by the end of December, I will be back to my home position. And so between now and December, I'm going to put my head down, suck it up, get this project done and just keep chanting "it's just a job it's just a job it's just a job".

Ok. I might just maybe stick a few pins in a doll or two that I have in a drawer. Maybe.

Cheese with that whine?

Ironically, it was almost a year ago that I posted this . I had the pleasure of close to a repeat performance at work yesterday. I was ambushed by human resources again. I have enjoyed some really good support in the form of leadership development and in return, I agreed to take on a project within the department that I wasn't that keen on doing. But I took it on, squandering a placement opportunity that I had been provided by a program that I was involved with, and against all advice from the career coach who was working with me. I was being advised to get out of my home department to complete this placement but I chose to remain there because I was applying for the jobs that I reference in that linked post.

If you've read the linked post, you know that I was told I wouldn't even be interviewed for the positions, but was asked to continue on with the work of this project. I had been reporting to an awesome project manager who was responsible for linking the work of my project into the ongoing work of the program area to which it belonged ... until she received a promotion and moved on. I found myself operating solo, reporting to the most senior person in the department, and trying to link my work into the program area on my own. None of which went well.

To put this in perspective (because I realized yesterday that I have minimized this entire event and that sane, normal people who don't work where I do are aghast at what has been happening), I was asked to carry out a piece of work that was part of a program and policy renewal initiative in our department. There are two components to this particular program area, and when the renewal project was initially announced, there was a team of four full time staff assigned to work on it. They quickly decided that it was too large in scope, and that they could only work on one of the two components. Two years later, I was asked to carry out the work related to the second component.

Just so we all understand:

Piece A - four staff and a project manager assigned full time for two years. Piece B determined to be too large to be in scope.

Piece B - One Sandy, no project manager or other staff resources (in fact, no office to work from for quite a while) assigned with 50% of her time being required to lead another initiative at the same time (for which there were also no staff, but which has received acclaim across the province and is being treated as a flagship program for government now...but remember, I suck at what I do).

I'm struggling with not sounding like a victim here but seriously....how would you feel? Since my project manager left, I have been attempting to bring this phase of the project to a close. We had created a project document with time lines and deliverables that broke the project into phases. We were careful to define what was in scope and not in scope for each phase. As everyone knows, the ability to deliver on deadlines is only as good as your ability to get sign off from decision makers. This project involved a large sector of service providers who have been treated like dirt by our department for a lot of years. One of the biggest pieces of work I had to do was in the area of relationship repair with this group. They were a really good group to work with, and turned themselves upside down to help me meet my deadlines. But internal to my own department ... the very group that asked for the work to be done? Different story.

I would schedule meetings with people that would be cancelled, rescheduled or for which people would simply not show. When I could finally get the key players at the table, the assumptions, rules and scope of the work was challenged. I ask for support in the area of research, only to be told there are no resources available to me. A new director is hired for the project area to which this piece of work belongs, and a decision is made to have the renewal initiative managed by the program area now, and that the staff working on the initiative will be assigned to that Director. I'm fine with that ... in fact am looking forward to working with this person who I know I will learn a lot from ... when I realize that there is a major miscommunication taking place.

The Director is under the impression that I will be assigned on a full time, permanent basis to her program area. When she brings this up at a meeting, I quickly said "with all due respect, that is not what I am aspiring to nor why I'm involved in this project". And that really got our relationship off to a good start.

The position that she thinks I'm assigned to permanently is two positions below where I am currently on the organizational chart, and pays about $20,000 per annum less. I have just completed a three year term acting in a position that is at the same level as hers. It just doesn't make sense to be involved in a career development placement that will put you back two levels and see you lose money, does it? Or is that just me being silly?

To be fair, she is new to government, and doesn't know me or my history. So we talked about it at one of our regularly scheduled meetings, and I gave her the history. I also apologized for my lack of tact in responding the way I did, and where I did it, but told her that I had a history of being screwed in this department and took career self management pretty seriously these days.

So last week I receive this appointment from human resources titled "career planning", inviting my new Director, the manager of HR, and myself to a meeting with our deputy minister (who is the senior person that I have been reporting to thus far) for first thing in the morning yesterday. I called HR to inquire about the purpose of the meeting, and was told not to worry. That is was simply a formal passing over of my supervision from the deputy to this new director, and that they wanted to review the terms of my educational agreement (the department is providing me with 75% of the financial support required to acquire this master's degree I'm working on).

Silly me. I almost took her at her word and didn't worry.

Until I got up yesterday morning early to get to work early, and said to HB "think of me at 8 a.m. will you? I have a hinky feeling". Ever the optimist, HB says "why do you always think the worst is going to happen?".

Because history is a great teacher, HB!

I arrive in the deputy's office at 7:55 a.m., and her secretary says "I'll tell them that you're here". I panic, assuming that I'm late. The secretary says "in fact, you're early. They were having a pre-meeting. You know how 'these things' go". To which I say, "these things? ummm no ... should I be concerned?" and she says some general stuff about "you'll be fine; reviewing talent pool; blah blah blah".

I am ushered into the meeting room, to be greeted by the deputy and the HR manager sitting on one side of the table, and no new director anywhere in site.

And then it began. This is not a passing of the supervision. This is a performance review. And not a good one.

By the time I limped out of there, I had been told:

- that I am good at making presentations and have good interpersonal skills;

- that I have taken far too long to achieve the outcomes of this project;

- that I have disappointed her because I didn't deliver on several items (that we had previously agreed were not in scope for this phase but that has been forgotten and I chose not to dispute because, you know, it's the deputy!);

- that I will need to move from my cubicle with a window and in an area where I have some clerical support to a small, middle of the floor with no window cubicle located in the program area and will have no clerical support (remember, I gave up an office with actual walls and a door to take this project on, and have been moved four times now since the start of the project);

- that effective the end of July I will lose the 10% bonus pay I've been receiving since November 2002 because they can no longer justify it;

- that I had to accept I was not going to be the director's equal but that I was going to be reporting to her;

- that there had been a comment that I was taking too much time off to participate in the master's program (I've taken 1.5 days off to study since January 2006); and finally

- that I could continue to lead the employee recognition program until the end of October.

I managed to limp out of there without crying in front of them .... but just barely. I left a tightly controlled voice mail for my former project manager, who has remained a good friend and mentor and is now part of the department's executive team, but she was in meetings all day. I didn't realize how badly I must have sounded until she called me back at home last night in complete panic - she said she thought my other dawg was sick or something, that's how bad I sounded!

I had a regularly scheduled meeting with the new Director for 10:00 a.m. She took one look at me and asked me how it went that morning. I told her I was surprised to see she hadn't been there, and immediately dissolved in tears.

Now I would rather march nekkid down the middle of the street than cry in front of people I don't know. But she was incredible.

She came around her desk, sat down beside me and went into full counselling mode. She explained that she had basically been "uninvited" to the meeting. She led me through a debrief of what had taken place and just listened. She told me that they would begin to make arrangements to have me move into the program area, and I reiterated again how much I'm looking forward to working with and for her, and to learning from her for the rest of this assignment. I didn't get into the fact that I still see this as being a short term assignment and that my plan is to finish the work up and then either find something else (ideally out of the department) or to go back to my old job. I was just too grateful that someone was being kind to me to screw it up at that point, plus I really didn't want to be making statements from a place of anger. Who knows? Maybe I'll get there and decide I love it.

Then she told me to go home for the rest of the day - and that we'd talk about how I could make up that time later. Hmmm. No one ever talked to me about making up time before. No one ever offered to compensate me for all the nights I am there until 8 p.m. either. Whatever. I just said I'd take a half vacation day. I'm beyond caring.

But I did keep my lunch appointment, which ironically was with a classmate who has quickly become a friend, and who just happens to be the senior consultant for executive recruitment for the provincial civil service. While we were eating lunch, the deputy minister for the public service commission came over to say hello, and to congratulate me on the role I had played last week in designing and delivering a corporate recognition training program for 90 staff from across all government departments for his department. The irony just never ceases to amuse me.

So here it is, 5:15 a.m. the next day. My mind was racing so much that I couldn't sleep. I've been up since 4 a.m. drinking coffee and creating this entry - both of which have helped immensely. I am becoming clearer and stronger in knowing what I have to do.

I need to finish this project, and stop worrying about impressing the deputy minister in my department. I just need to worry about doing a good job on the project, and I can learn a lot from this new Director.

I need to have the executive recruiter review my cv as she has offered to do several times now.

I need to keep my eyes open for other opportunities and apply. I need to forget about the return of service agreement I have with my department, accept that I am valued enough by other departments and deputies that they will be willing to honour my agreement if they want me in their department badly enough.

I need to pave the way for a return to my home position if needed, and not feel guilty about the fact that this will displace some other staff. I have to stop worrying about the impact on other people.

I need to remember that if I had ever had to go off on maternity leave, we'd be learning to live on a hell of a lot less than this pay cut is going to be. And I need to remember that we always survive - that it just means a slight adjustment in some spending patterns.

And I need to find my backbone somewhere. Apparently I misplaced it yesterday.

And finally, there is good news. Although I used to enjoy a good smoke after a royal screwing such as this, it never once crossed my mind to go have one yesterday. I guess I am truly a non smoker now.

Free Speech or Defamation?

When does having an opinion and a right to express it cross the line of expressing an opinion at the expense of someone else? Since joining the blogosphere in August of 2004, I have generally stuck to the world of infertility blogs. Lately though, I've been venturing outside that insular world to see what other topics folks write about.

I have a real interest in the field of social work and public administration. In fact, that's what I do professionally. It's a humbling and complex world to try to get your head around. So when I stumbled across Angela's blog several months ago, I became a regular lurker. I've worked as a caseworker in the type of system she sometimes writes about, and have had the good fortune of having some of the women I worked with become both friends and coworkers. But we rarely talk about the truth of what they experienced in our system. We can talk about the system itself, what worked, what didn't ... but really getting a chance to hear how they felt about being a part of it doesn't come easily. It's such an intensely personal thing, and after all, don't we all save our intensely personal sharings for the anonymity of the internet? I, for one, seem to do that!

So I have felt humbled and honoured to have been able to peek in on her world - the emotions of which are not so very different from other moms with kids, daughters with families, working parents with jobs, citizen in a community, that I have met....or my own emotions.

The challenges of her world, however, are totally different. She faces challenges daily around access to resources, dealing with stereotypes, people judging without any basis upon which to form the judgment, and feeling like you're swimming upstream against the tide of people in society. She juggles children, a part time job, school. In short, I think she's pretty amazing.

So when I logged on the other day to find that someone had decided to exercise her right to "free speech" by trashing Angela's lifestyle and choices, I couldn't help but go visit that someone's blog. Turns out she claims to be a government worker employed in the social service sector. That scares me. Edited to note that the blog entry I was linking to and had referenced in this post has now been closed down by the blog owner. I'm hoping it's out of respect although I sense from the tone of the vague entry thanking for the fish/traffic, it's not.

So tell me....when does the blogger's right to free speech turn into libel?

ER - the cure for pain

The prospect of a child free weekend with no commitments was obviously too much for me to handle. It threw me into a tail spin of stress, resulting in my spending last night in emergency at the local hospital, hooked up to a cardio machine, receiving regular injections of morphine, and periodic EKG tests.

Yep. Everything is fine, as it turns out. The official diagnosis? "Sometimes people just have aches and pains that cannot be diagnosed".

HB was out on Sunday, doing his usual Sunday thing (exercise, paddle, band practice). I was at home, studying, determined to get a jump on this week's assignments so I wouldn't be stressed. I had been to Mass earlier in the morning, and had noticed that I was having a hard time catching my breath. As I studied, I became aware of a tightening across my chest, up under my armpit, and a tingling painy kind of sensation in my left arm.

I of course did what every sane person does. I ignored it.

But it wouldn't go away. When HB called at 3:00 to see how things were going, I described my physical state to him. He immediately ordered my ass down to emergency. I am so not a drain on our medical system. I'm the one who had to be reminded that telling one's repro specialist when one miscarries is standard practice, remember?

Anyhow, down I went, feeling quite foolish. As I sat in the chairs waiting to speak to the triage nurse, I noticed the woman ahead of me was crying. Her husband had dropped her at the door while he parked the car. Seconds later he came running in, and very protectively stood beside her. In an instant, I knew. And I was right. She was pregnant and was having a bleed. I knew all too well what they were going to experience next as this was the exact emergency room we went to when I had my first bleed with Brodie.

I am seen after them, and state my case matter of factly. I hate those "on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being least and 10 being most painful, how would you rate your pain" questions because I always feel like there are right and wrong answers!

I must have given the right answers because I watched the young couple looking at me curiously as I was taken right back and they sat, bleeding, in the chairs of the waiting room.

So...note to self. If you ever present at an emergency room as a middle aged, overweight woman who says she's having pressure in the chest area, be prepared to camp out! I arrived there at about 4:00 p.m. Sunday and got home at noon on Monday.

I gained a whole new admiration for emergency room staff.

The elderly gentleman (Cecil) in the 'room' next to mine came in with a bleeding hernia, a distraught family including a 7 year old grandchild, and no chance of survival. He died alone at 7:30 a.m. after the morning shift inserted a cathetar, and only one hour after his son had left him to go home for a few hours.

A young woman was brought in by her mother. She had taken a shitload of some kind of drug that made her entirely too chatty for 3:00 a.m. Apparently she hates social services because they took her kid, and her mother is an idiot. These were the two items repeated over and over again most of the night.

Then there was the old doll in another curtain who was completely disoriented and a carrier of something that required the nursing staff to don new gowns and masks every time they went in to see her. I can't remember the acronoym and wish I could because I meant to look it up to see what may have been floating through the ER last night....Cecil in the next curtain was a carrier as well. Anyhow, this elderly woman woke up every 20 minutes and yelled "NURSE!" very loudly. Then the very loud nurse would don gown and mask, go in and tell her where she was, what time it was, and that she needed to get some sleep.

Or how about the obviously drugged up kid that was brought in by ambulance that punched the young doctor, who was already having a lousy morning, square in the nose? This punch caused said young doctor to yell "sit down and shut up ... and get me security NOW". Yet he still finished treating the kid and writing up his chart.

And of course, the young couple who had come in before me, had to wait to be seen, and then were sent home long before me because, after all, we've all heard what they were told. If you're going to lose the baby, there's not much we can do. Go home, take it easy and monitor yourself. I watched the young husband gently lead his sobbing wife back out through the automatic doors and I said a prayer for them and their baby. Maybe they can be the ones who defy the odds. Please.

And in the midst of it all, there I lay ... hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, iv in my hand (ouch), wired for sound to that cardio machine, and tripping on morphine.

Sometimes people just have aches and pains that can't be diagnosed. There were a lot of aches and pains there last night - few of the medical but many of the loneliness kind.

8 - 18 and still in love

You know how when you've been living in and with something for so long, and you're consumed with it, and then it finally happens? What comes after that?

I've thought about posting a couple of times, but then I think, about what? I was so consumed with nursing Barkley and then he passed. It was hard, peaceful, challenging, calming ... it just was. It sucked. But it was.

I'm amazed at how at peace I am with it. He was an amazing part of our lives and will always be our first Newfie love. I am getting one of the pictures we took blown up and giving it to HB for Father's Day. We received the call today that his ashes are ready to be picked up. We have friends who have this great piece of land out on the ocean, not too far from where we are, and they are going to let us bury him there. We want to have a little ceremony of some kind - the kids had asked if we could.

We have had some stuff happen of late this is post-worthy, though.

HB's sister and her husband have split up. When I think of a couple that I would say "least likely to split up", it's these two. HB has always said that he and I could have fun in a ditch together, and I would say these two could have that same kind of fun.

He came home one night after their 18th anniversary and basically told her he didn't love her.

It got me thinking, so tonight at supper I asked HB if he thought that could ever happen to us. That's right up there with the "do these pants make my ass look fat" or "which of my girlfriends would you date if I died" questions.

And here is why I love this husband of mine.

He proceeded to tell me about a conversation he had with his 25 year old work out buddy tonight. This young guy is a med student, and a very nice guy who comes over regularly for supper with us. He was telling HB about a party that he's invited to on the weekend. HB jokingly asked him if there was room in the car for an old man like him, and of course, Dr. WorkOut said "Nope...you're too much the life of the party and I want a chance with the women that will be there!!"

My incredible husband looked him in the eye and told him that he wouldn't trade one ounce of the peace, serenity and love he had at home with me for a chance with another woman. He went on to say that he acknowledged that there may be women who have "tighter bodies" (his words) than mine is right now, but that he'd rather wake up to my love and personality every morning instead of falling for a tight body that turns into a bitch in six months.

Now some people might think me weird for loving my husband for saying these kinds of things, but I adore him for saying it! I know I have a weight issue - I've put on 52 lbs since I first met HB. He is a total athlete and in incredible shape. We are oil and water in that way. I'd take the car to walk the dawg if I could, where he thinks nothing of running 20 minutes one way to the store. And yet, he looks at me and loves me - regardless of whether I'm wearing a size 8 or 18. He understands that the weight is my issue, and that I will deal with it when I'm ready to do so. And in the meantime, it just doesn't matter because, as he says, I have the same personality that he fell in love with when I was a size 8.

He told me tonight that he falls in love a little more with me every day we're together.

How can I not feel blessed?