11:43 p.m. - 2003-03-17
Relatively Speaking
In the west, the full moon hanging in the sky - a giant luminous pearl wreathed in a light mist. In the east, the sun cupped in a cloud the shape of a hand lit from within with gold, orange, and pink light. That was the view this morning, on the way to work.
Spent most of yesterday with number two son and his fiance P. We went out for lunch, then spent time at their new home just admiring and savouring their good fortune. Their neighbours, so far, seem fine and the community they've moved into is well established and stable. New hot tub due for installation in another month - my son can hardly wait. Lots of potential for growth and development where they are.
P introduced me to a new drink that I think will be very useful for work. It is a honey ginger combination. Eases the throat and calms the tummy all at once. Her Mom and Dad are both not well. They've given their vehicle to P and my son in exchange for their help getting their errands done. P's Mom has very painful arthritis, so I told her about the patches I'd been using after number three son's friend told me about them. They work like magic on joint pain - no pain, and almost no inflammation. Bonus is that they're very cheap and they can be used for two or three days before they need to be replaced. Her Mom's doc isn't very helpful - as in not at all - so I gave P my doctor's card. They have Chinese speaking physicians on staff, so maybe she'll be able to get apppropriate care from now on.
Work, as usual, was interesting. One of the women from the data management firm, C, who has worked for the company we are assigned to on other projects, began working with me this morning. She has been off work for three months, so she was quite pleased to be there. They put her in the PCs office. We've established a good rapport and we are very compatible in terms of work habits.
I think that the decision to put her in the PCs office was meant to throw me off balance. In office politics, where one is placed and the size of one's private space are considered major issues. So much so, that in a couple of companies I've worked for,war has broken out when someone measured their office area and realized it was smaller by inches, than someone they considered less worthy. In the last assignment, when my second co-worker came on board after the "queen of mean" left, I gave her the "better" space and it left the liaison for that company buffaloed for several weeks. It's hard to manipulate someone when you can't understand their values. I was told about C on Thursday and wondered how that particular logistic would be managed. I thought it might tell me whether anyone in the team had been in league with the PC or if the partner that she had to have was outside the group. Now I know. B has been smelling quite strongly of alcohol the past week or so at times - this morning, first thing, it was very bad and she was a bit impaired. Don't know how to interpret that. Another day of being told to leave the priority work and do other tasks. Everything is documented and C asked for advice on how to do that for herself. She obviously wasn't comfortable with some of what she was seeing either.
We were talking about office politics on Sunday, because P works in a team at one of our banks and my son does a lot of work inside a lot of big companies as a contractor. They've both observed the same behaviour I often encounter on a regular basis. It came up when I was describing the team meeting I attended on Friday. After the Ethics workshop I attended it left me wondering how to handle one situation. In a team of 12 people there is only the one male on a full time basis. He is married, wears a very nice, very big wedding ring and speaks of his wife often and with affection. He is very nice to work with. Three of the females on the team seem to have set their caps for him and not all of them are single either. One is a senior manager who is quite a bit older than him. P asked if he was very handsome and I couldn't answer that. To me people look like their behaviour. I have a very difficult time "rating" someone's physical attractivness in the usual sense.
Anyway, at the team meeting, one female had on a t-shirt and a second button down shirt over top. She sat beside D, unbuttoned the overshirt, pulled it away from her body then proceeded to push up her t-shirt while pushing down her low rider pants a la Brittany, as she sprawled in her chair. The poor fellow had his left hand up on the table, fist clenched, so his wedding ring would be extra visible. The Ms Brittany imitator started stroking her bare tummy while the female speaking at the time commented that Ms wanabe Brittany would have to use her psychology degree to help the speaker understand how better to manage a relationship with a younger man while staring at D. If the roles had been reversed, and two males in a meeting did that to a female, the response would be quite definite in terms of sexual harrassment. It is. Personally, I would be out of my chair and down the hall if a male co-worker sitting next to me started removing his clothing and stroking himself in a meeting. How does one responsibly deal with that at the time. Do males perceive that kind of behaviour as harrassing? My male co-worker appeared to be uncomfortable - should one of the rest of us said something or would that have made it worse? I had to keep looking over to assure myself that I was seeing what I was seeing. Should anything be said now and if so to whom. How do you address someone in a power position about their behaviour? Am I reading something into it that is not there? Maybe I really didn't see what I thought I saw.
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