12:03 a.m. - 2003-02-18
Family Day
I received a response from the liaison at the data management company this afternoon. "Sorry about misunderstanding you", I'll be meeting with A (my supervisor up until now) and one of the senior VPs tomorrow morning before having coffee with you. I hope that's a good thing. Apparently the senior contact at this new assignment has been very difficult to deal with and there was concern already about this contract. I was looking forward to her return from holidays next week, hoping it would settle out the PCs behavior. It may in fact explain it, which means work conditions might not get any better. Oh well, I can't waste energy stewing over a speculation, guess I just better keep my nose to the grindstone.
Went out with my Dad this morning. My brother - the youngest of my sibs - has just finished renovating his kitchen, so he wanted to show off his handiwork. He is a very skilled hobby carpenter and everything looked great. One of my other sisters and her hubby and my brother's girlfriend and her sister were there as well so it was a pleasant morning. I must admit I really don't care for his girlfriend. Part of that, I suppose, comes from the fact that I think my brother is practically perfect. I don't think I'd completely approve of any female in his life. I just don't have a lot of time for people who follow slavishly the latest in pop culture. I often feel like I'm seeing the latest articles from Chatelaine or Homemakers being acted out. I never liked Martha Stewart. I also don't care for people who "dabble" in the latest "new age" fads. Spirituality should be a critical part of everyone's life, just as physical and mental health maintenance are. However, substance and depth should be the goal of exploring one's spiritual nature - it shouldn't just be whatever is on the talk shows, week by week. Bitchy, I know.
My brother's usual occupation has to do with keeping computers running - more the hardware side I think. When my ex left, my brother made certain I had a computer at home so I could practice using it in preparation for being in the current workforce. No tutorials, "figure it out yourself" it will stand you in better stead. He was right, of course, because it also helped me deal with the fear of the technology itself and the fear of breaking things on the system. I can usually walk into any assignment and learn their software in a very short time now. How? Just be willing to experiment and make mistakes - fixing them forces you to understand the "logic" of the program, such as it is.
Got asked about the new assignment. "What do you do to attract these people?" "I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I wish I did, 'cause I'd certainly change that behaviour if I could." My brother-in-law is a senior executive at a major power company here, so the talk turned to things corporate and political after he made a couple of suggestions about my situation to me. I think his strategy would work, but it's just not in my nature to respond to people like that. It was nice that he was willing to comment though.
Dad and I stopped for lunch before returning to our homes - seafood, my favorite. We talked about work stuff, mostly. Dad's been asking, too, if I would take on some of the simpler responsibilities around his financial affairs. Could I do his taxes, that sort of thing. I've done mine ever since I began working and I don't find it that difficult, but then I don't have much that's complicated. I'll give it a try and see what he needs done. I don't ever mind admitting when I'm over my head, so if I feel that way I'll just find someone I trust to help.
Got home just in time to catch a call from my friend in the women's shelter. She seems a lot more settled, although she was describing some fairly odd behaviour she witnessed in some of the other residents. It made her feel unsafe, which in a shelter that is supposed to provide safety, is quite worrisome. We discussed what might be causing the women to act the way they were. Often when someone is immersed in any really controlling relationship or system, freedom from it is very frightening, because the "rules" used to control the situation usually come with very severe penalties for "rule-breaking". When one is expecting reprisal or punishment for doing things that the average North American does everyday, there is no internal model of "normal" behaviour for the abused person to reference. If everyone else around them comes from similar circumstances, then there are also no new role models to emulate. Acting out to try and find out what the boundaries really are, is quite a common response. It is similar to what happens with refugees who come to Canada from repressive regimes. One of the leaders of one of the bigger refugee groups commented to me, once, that "it was difficult to predict beforehand which immigrants would not be able to handle freedom and the self-regulation that it demands." I just noted that that wasn't just a problem in the refugee community.
Lots of homegrown Canadians struggle with that too. One Mom I used to volunteer with had grown up in a really abusive family. One day she commented that all the rest of her family was angry at her brother because he wasn't speaking to her Dad any more. She paused, and then said matter of factly, "but I wouldn't speak to him either if he had come after me with that butcher knife." O K ! She really struggled with social interactions, despite the fact that she was extremely intelligent and constantly worked at improving herself. She told me that she had learned all that she knew about social behaviour from watching soaps. Best argument I know for banning them from TV. One of the things that was really sad, was that she measured herself by how far she had come from conditions in her childhood and youth. The broader community could only see the dysfunctional behaviour she hadn't been able to overcome, instead of the tremendous inner strength that shone through her. There was such a disparity in the two perceptions that even though she knew how much better she was, she only ever heard the social judgement that nothing she did was good enough. Her level of frustration was very high some days.
The phone rang again shortly after, this time the Mom I went out with the other evening. She is a vice principal at a local school. "We're just setting up this new program for teens and we can't understand why so few of the New Canadian youths are participating. Your community has had a program like the one we want to develop for some time - do you remember what was done to make everyone feel they could be involved?" About 60% of their school population is New Canadian. Well let's see that was about a decade ago, what DO I remember. Spent some time brainstorming, her son in the background participating in the discussion. Had several different approaches by the time we were finished. Hope it works for them.
Anyway time to go to bed - work tomorrow.
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