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 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
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Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| The stress is starting to get to me. It is taking its toll in the form of migraines. I figure the best way to beat the stress is to be pro active... take control... make a plan. I'm stressed about work because I'm carrying vacancies I can't fill. Well, over in galinago's blog he mentioned that Gators are even-tempered and predictable. Well, I figure that gives them a big leg up over my current batch of employees, and I started wondering if they'd make good Civil Servants. Well galinago is pretty much an expert on both subjects (gators and bureaucracy) so I pitch the idea to him thinking he'll be able to tell me what's what. His reply got my hopes up. He thinks that gators have got the bureaucratic eye thing down pretty well. I'm thinking this might have something to do with the extra set of eye lids that gators have. Turns out Alligators have the sort of smile that makes them look really pleasant and approachable. They've got "excellent customer service" written all over them. If the customers are not satisfied, then the protruding teeth effectively discourage the tendency to make the sort of complaints that create extra work for me. So here is the plan. I placed an order with galinago for three gators. If I can get them on the Civil Service hiring list, my problems will be solved. If I can't, I'll take them over to my Mom's to keep the deer out of her garden. She's got a pond, so they'd probably like it there. |
| Today was my meeting at my son's school. It wasn't an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting. Apparently we are still working up to that, but the principal, guidance counselor and school nurse were there. I tried a new approach this year. I explained that we didn't need to waste a lot of time figuring out what will or won't work for Zachary. That's the good news. Zachary is a known quantity. I gave the principal a list. It was a list of the non-negotiables... all the things that must be in place on the first day of school to assure that Zachary will have a successful school year. To their credit, everyone seemed quite receptive to this tack. Go figure. I have another appointment at the school on Thursday with the classroom teacher and the learning support teacher. So far, so good. A week from today I will be basking in sweet relief. The kids will be back in school and Tony will be done with his exams.  Now if I could just fill some of my vacancies at work. Today I skinned my nose along the bottom of the pool of prospective employees. Turns out that pool was a lot shallower than I hoped, but no amount of desperation or despair was going to sway me to hire the woman who punctuated every phrase and fraction of thought with the phrase "ya know." Me: "Tell me about a time when you have used your communication skills to resolve a conflict." Her: "Well, there was this one time... ya know... when I was volunteering with my daughters Brownie troop, ya know, and it was the end of the year, ya know, and there was money missing from the account. Me: "and?" Her: "Yeah, so ya know, everyone started getting really emotional about things, ya know, and making accusations and ya know... Me: "And how did you resolve the conflict" Her: "I told them that, ya know, they needed to focus on the facts and, ya know, leave the emotions out of it, ya know, I just said that if they didn't stop, ya know, I'd leave. It was a painful interview. Now granted, the "ya know" might have been a nervous tick, or maybe it was the hypothermia setting in. Someone had the conference room thermostat turned down to 62 degrees! I'm not sure which was scarier, the fact that she feels communication is her strength or the idea that I gave her a flicker of consideration when I found out she was the last candidate available to be interviewed. |
| My mother's foot surgery went very well on Friday. She had a bunion removed, and seemed to come through it all with flying colors. In fact, when I went over to her house on Saturday, she wasn't there! What the hell! Turns out that she'd decided to run to the bank. She conveniently forgot that the doctor had instructed her NOT to drive for 48 hours. She also forgot that I was coming over specifically so I could run to the bank for her. Whatever... really, I can't be annoyed. I'm glad for her fierce independence, it serves her (and me} quite well. The kids and I spent the day visiting with my mother. I was supposed to be helping her out with things she couldn't do because of her foot. Instead, she wanted me to edit and type a letter and hang pictures and program her cell phone (a task I felt my daughter was better qualified to handle). I brought her a laundry hamper full of books, but I don't think she'll be sitting still long enough to get much reading done. I was sitting in front of one of her windows when I caught motion from the corner of my eye. Turning toward the window I saw a mess of turkeys coming out of the trees into her garden. I watched them for awhile trying to do a head count. There were five good size turkeys and a couple smaller ones from what I could see. I called Zach over to the window to watch them eating whatever they managed to scratch up. "Well Son of a Bitch!" mom said and I looked over at her, but her eyes were focused out the opposite window. "What?" I asked turning to look. "God damn deer!" Well there they were just picture pretty outside the window. A handsome four point buck was staring at us through the window while a doe and two spotted fawns bent to nibble the tender hosta greens. "Katie!" mom called, "Go shoo them away." Katie went to the sliding door pulled it open and scarcely raising her voice gave a half-hearted "Shoo!" The deer looked up and I imagined laughter in their big brown eyes. Frightened they were not. Mom was on her feet moving toward the door in a determined hobble "you have to yell! You have to wave your arms and chase after them!" Katie looked at me with pained, pre-adolescent eyes that begged the question "do I have to?" Yeah, she had to. "Go on," I said "chase those deer off for your Grandma." The deer retreated a bit while Katie stood on the deck waving her arms self consciously. "Grandma!" she said coming back in through the slider, "They won't leave." My mother headed for the door, and I glared in her direction. "Don't even think it! You are not going out there to chase deer off!" Between the kids and I we managed to get the deer to wander back into the woods more from annoyance than fear. The deer around here seem to get more brazen all the time. The dogs are boarding with a neighbor until Mom can walk them again, and the deer seemed to enjoy their absence. |
| I am supposed to be on a blogging hiatus. The point of that was so that I didn’t fill my blog with all sorts of anxious thoughts and whiney drivel while I waited out the big day when Hubby will take his licensing exam. Besides, I was having trouble pulling words together and was feeling at lose ends. I didn’t want to be a broken record. Well, sorry folks, I need to blow off some steam. That means I’m going to bitch. It is something I need to do, but it isn’t something you need to read, so I understand if you all want to leave now. (None of this has anything to do with strange pants by the way.  )Now where to start… My son got his classroom assignment in the mail yesterday. Of all the 3rd grade teachers in the district that he could have had, he ended up with the same Asshole my daughter had in third grade. Sigh. Alright, he’s not a bad teacher, but he and I had words. He had issues with my daughter’s “attention problem.” My daughter does not have an attention problem. She was bored. Several conversations in, the teacher suggested to me that maybe I should considering talking to her pediatrician about her “attention problem.” At that point I suggested he might want to talk to the building principal about his “inability to meaningfully engage children.” Oh my! Now I’m going to have my other baby in his class, and this one really does have issues. I have his Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) meeting on the 28th. That should be loads of fun. Next up… well, I still have three vacancies at work. That is getting old very quickly. Unfortunately I’m not optimistic about the chances of getting this resolved any time soon. I had several good interviews this week. There were three women I’d gladly hire, but I can’t. We are civil service. We have to hire off the civil service lists. Specifically, I can only offer a position to one of the top three candidates who responded to an interest survey. The lists are ranked by scores from the civil service exam. I have two lists that I can hire from, Caseworker I and Caseworker II. That gives me 6 candidates to start, and for every person I take, I can drop further down the list to get to the next person. Since the people I like are all high on the list this shouldn’t be a problem, BUT… there is this thing called Veteran’s Preference. In Civil Service, Veteran’s get preferential hiring. They get an automatic 10 point bonus on the exam and if you’ve got a Vet at the top of the list, you absolutely cannot hire below them. Needless to say, there is a Vet at the top of the CWII list that I will not hire. He was employed by another county agency and was fired for not doing the work, but managed to get reinstated on the civil service list (not unusual). So happens that a friend of mine is in the process of divorcing this same guy, and it has been an ugly sort of thing with PFA (protection from abuse) orders and all sorts of nastiness. I can’t hire him. I explained to our HR director that there was a very direct conflict of interests that I need to avoid. Turns out I wasn’t the only one waving around red flags on this guy the PFAs are pretty common knowledge, and he had a recent DUI arrest to boot, but we are still stuck with him being a Vet at the top of the list. There are two managers in the agency who have openings, and we are both leaning on each other to bite the bullet and hire the prick just to end the stalemate. We can hire him and then turn around and fire him in the first month without needing much justification, but it is a headache and it leaves you having to start the process all over again in a month. Also, given my conflict of interest, it wouldn’t reflect well on me to be the one doing this. I’m hoping the other manager will give, but she’s not the giving sort. In the meantime, I can still hire from the CW I list (the other manager can only fire from the II list), but only one person has been scheduled for an interview from the CW I list. I said I’d take her, but that still leaves two positions I can’t fill!!! In the meantime, I am responsible for carrying the workload, and my shoulders are starting to ache. Interestingly, Alan, who I fired a week ago, called and left me a message. He asked if he could use me as a personal reference. How weird! Talking to some people I found out that Alan believes he was fired as a result of an economic cut back. The mind is a mysterious thing, and I guess it is easier to think you were downsized than to rap your head around being fired. Finally, topping off the big heaping pile of stress… My mother is having surgery on her foot today. That means she is going to be laid up for a while and since she is all alone, I’m going to be called to fulfill my daughterly duties. I’m okay with this, but it is going to mean a lot of running back and forth during an already stressful week. My husband’s exam is actually in two parts (shows what I know). The first part is scheduled for August 31st and the second part is Sept 4th… bookends to what I’m sure will be a very relaxing Labor Day Holiday Weekend. [e:sarcasm] All told, I think I’m holding up pretty well though. I’m kind of getting buoyed along by this underlying optimism. It’s all just a bump in the road.  |
| Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. I know. I know. I know Still, there are days when I just want to stomp my feet and fume and flame. Enough of that. I need to pick some text to go with the PUMPKIN that welkerdeb gifted me with. So I’ve been racking my poor wrung out brain. Here, in no particular order, are the possibilities…. <insert drum roll here> 1. Have you eaten your Pumpkin today? 2. Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater!!! 3. If you think the Pumpkin is Great, you should see my melons. 4. Veni, vidi, veggie 5. Still waiting for that Fairy Godmother to pimp my ride. |
| Hi there folks. Hope the week treated you all well. I'm just checking in quick with exciting breaking news. You see that. I walk away from this blog thing for just a little bit and all this stuff happens! First off, Tony's exam has been scheduled! He will be taking it on September 4th! September 4th also happens to be the first day back to school for my children. I think I might take that day off of work and just stay home with a bottle of gin and a pack of smokes. Well, that might work except that I don't smoke and I don't like gin.  In other news, I had to fire someone this week. Alan was just one month away from being off probation and my boss was seeing the opportunity to can him slipping away. Alan made some bad choices this week and since the Boss-man was looking for reasons... he got fired. Our administrator assures me they did me a favor. She said that I already had two kids and didn't need another one. I now have three vacancies and a crappy track record for interviewing and hiring. My friend Denise told me "I don't understand what you're bitching about. You said you wanted to supervise fewer people and now you do." Go ahead world. Have your fun. Heap it on! I'll keep plodding along. |
| My friends, I am approaching the apex to my current trajectory. A critical moment of truth… a pivotal, life changing moment that will rocket me into a world of new possibilities. Or not. Now, if something doesn’t happen soon, I’m going to loose what little I have left of my sanity. I’m tired of waiting for stuff to happen, stuff I have no control over. I’m tired of having my life up in the air! I’m tired of marking time! Some time in the upcoming weeks (though I have no idea when) my husband will take his licensing exam. It has been a long time coming. My son was a baby when we started on this road. I have no control over any of this, but resigning myself to that has done nothing to stop the snowballing anxiety. If he passes, he’ll be looking for a new job. A new job will almost certainly mean relocating. Where will we go and when? What if he doesn’t pass? Oh shit! What if he doesn’t pass? It’s a possibility that I don’t really want to face. If he doesn’t pass he will have to try again, and he’ll have to wait six months before he is eligible to sit for the exam again. That means all the anxiety and uncertainty about what comes next will be strung out for another six months. It won’t be the only thing ‘strung out’ either. Once he takes the test he’ll have to wait 2-3 weeks for the results. That seems needlessly cruel when the exam is computerized. Yikes! I’m kind of a mess folks. I would like to leave this area, but I have promised my daughter that I will let her finish out her middle school career here. That means I will be staying put until June, and if my husband does find a job elsewhere, we will be separated for a time. Logistically this is important to allow time to sell a house, locate and buy a new one, and save up some money… still, I don’t look forward to holding down the fort alone. My husband has been talking to recruiters, and they seem pretty eager to pounce on him once he is licensed. The opportunities are exciting, well paying, and in line with what he’d like to do (or thinks he’d like to do.) Still, phone calls from recruiters do not always gel into job offers and even if he passes the exam, we could still be sitting with our situation essentially unchanged. The recruiters are looking to fill positions in Killeen Texas, Fayetteville, NC and Columbia, SC. Of those, I am most enthusiastic about South Carolina. I could get very excited about that prospect, but I’m afraid to get my hopes up. If he gets a job and we move, I’m going to drop out of the job market for a few years and go back to school / pursue writing as a career. I’ve got a lot riding on this. Mostly, I’m just damned tired of waiting to see how all of this is going to play out. I don’t know how many twists and turns are left in this tunnel before I get to see the light at the end. I’m preoccupied with all this mess at the moment, and for that reason I’m going to take a little break from blogging. Besides, I need to wrap up my contest and get reviews out to those who entered. |
| The other day I watched a television show called Survivorman. By this, I mean that I was in the room trying to read while my husband was watching the show. My husband has quite an affection for these survival shows. He likes to believe that he is learning all kinds of tricks and strategies that will tip the odds in his favor should he find himself alone in the midst of a Central American jungle. Given the extent of our travels, I think he's more likely to win the Power ball lottery, but I digress. The basic premise of the show is that they dump this guy out in some remote, inhospitable locale, with no food or water, and he makes a show of surviving the elements for seven days. Now, the show I was watching found this survivor dude (I'm sorry... Survivor MAN) alone in the Kalahari. A couple days into it he was hungry, thirsty and suffering from the elements. He needed food, water, and fire. He managed to trap a couple scorpions to eat for supper, and was trying to work on the fire issue. A quick assessment of his supplies showed that he had an empty soda can, dry tinder, a pocket knife, and a piece of chocolate. A piece of freakin' chocolate! Only a man would carry around a piece of chocolate for two days when he had nothing to eat. If he was a woman, the chocolate would have been the first think that was eaten. So now that we know he has the chocolate, surely he'll eat it right? Wrong. He's gonna use the chocolate to start the fire. Rather than just rubbing the sticks together like a normal survival nut he's uses the chocolate. He explains that the chocolate has lacquer and he uses it, in combination with sand to polish the botton of the soda can to a brilliant shine. He then uses the can to focus the sun's rays on the dry tinder. It worked. He made fire, but at what cost. The chocolate was wasted. He could have at least had chocolate covered scorpions for dinner. I was forced to conclude that men just don't know much. Why isn't there a Survivorwoman? Easy. Survivorwoman would have the sense to know that the first key to survival is NOT letting your film crew dump you in the middle of the Amazon. Have a great day all!  |
| My husband is notoriously difficult to shop for. Back around Christmastime, I found myself wandering from store to store waiting for something to jump out and grab me. As luck would have it, I wandered into a bookstore. Perusing the shelves, I spotted the book Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D. Hmmm.... "Hundreds of questions you'd only ask a doctor after your third martini" the cover of the book promised. Flipping the book open at random I read why men wake up with erections. LOL.... so the book is entertaining and educational. Yeah, I bought it. I had forgotten about the book, but it resurfaced a couple days ago (Yeah, in the bathroom... ) took it to the bedroom and started to read parts of it. This time I read the reasons why you shouldn't but a cotton swab in your ear. This lead to a dialog between the two authors about other things that people aren't supposed to do, but can't resist.Their examples included: Popping zits, picking scabs, touching a plate after someone tells you "its hot," talking with food in your mouth, and talking to a woman's breasts. Being who I am, I kept thinking about this. This is rich stuff for writing characters. What are the other things we do? 1. Scratching bug bites and poison ivy. Yep, it leads in infection and makes it itch worse, but come on...ya gotta scratch it. 2. Double clicking when you're on-line. 3. Opening emails that promise lots of money or better sex. 4. Licking the spoon and/or the bowl. (Okay, people who work in food service probably don't do this... at least I hope they don't.) 5. Eating the cookie dough. (That's as close to Bugzy's raw diet as I'm ever going to get.) That's all I can think of right now. How about you? |
The idea is neither new, nor original. In fact, I am out and out stealing from deemac  ’s In and Out of the same name… and not for the first time. Still, it seems a fitting format for today’s blog. Fortunately, the problem I had with my digital camera is a known defect in that specific make and model and Sony will repair it at no charge. Unfortunately the repair estimate on my daughter's camera is almost equal to what I paid for the thing back in March. (Note to self: Sand, surf and digital cameras do not mix.) Fortunately, the nice man at the camera store said that I might be able to repair it myself by opening the camera up and spraying compressed air into the lens works to clear any sand particles. Unfortunately, I did not pick up on the difficulty or futility of the task based on the shops unwillingness to perform said task. Fortunately, I was able to get some pictures before my daughter's camera went kaput, and even took some stills using or digital video camera. Unfortunately, when I tried to download the stills from the video camera, I realized the end of the cable had been smashed down and misshapen so that it could no longer fit into the camera. Fortunately, I had a screwdriver handy which I was using to try to pry the back off my daughter's camera after remove two dozen miniscule screws. Unfortunately, when I tried to "reshape" the end of the cable, the screwdriver jumped out of position and jammed into my left thumb. Fortunately, my husband was there to move all sharp, pointy objects out of my reach. Unfortunately, the end of the cable was now completely destroyed. Fortunately, there is a Radio Shack just down the road and while I was replacing the cable I could pick up a can of air. Unfortunately the road was under construction. Fortunately, the guy at Radio Shack was able to point me in the direction of a replacement cable. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to keep a straight face when I showed him the mangled cable and explained my attempts to "fix" it. Fortunately, I was able to get the back of my daughter's camera open, and sprayed it thoroughly with the pricey can of air. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the wires would be live even after I'd removed the batteries. Fortunately, the shock wasn't too bad, and the camera was probably already beyond redemption when I dropped it on the floor. Unfortunately, I have to admit the camera is a lost cause. Fortunately, I did manage to get some decent pictures at the beach and can’t wait to upload and share them. Unfortunately, I’m very close to maxing out the capacity of my port. I need to either upgrade or make some tough choices. Fortunately, while I was on vacation they filled the vacant manager’s position in my department. Unfortunately, they filled it by promoting my best worker. Fortunately, the promotion will keep Rebecca from leaving the agency to seek opportunities elsewhere. Unfortunately, I now have two vacant positions under me and no interviews lined up. Fortunately, my husband received a form from the state yesterday to schedule his licensing exam. Unfortunately, I had the post office hold the mail while we were on vacation, and we’ve yet to receive the letter that was supposed to accompany the form stating that he is eligible to set for licensure… somehow this is all my fault. Fortunately, it looks as though the job in Texas may still be available if Tony passes the licensing exam. He has received emails inquiring as to his status and availability. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm has cooled a bit. (Maybe it was all the flooding they had this summer!) Fortunately, I had a clever (so I thought) idea for coercing my daughter into cleaning her room. I told her that she will either do it, or I will charge her my housekeeping services. Unfortunately, my daughter thinks that it would be money well spent. . . . and so it goes. |
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