10:43 p.m. - 2004-05-18
En LIGHT en ment
One mystery was solved in the newspaper today. Late Sunday night (the news was on) we heard a loud bang followed shortly after by a pall of acrid smoke and the sound of a lot of sirens. We watched for a "breaking news" clip but nada. Nothing in yesterday's local media reports either. Turns out an RV (recreational vehicle) exploded - several communities away. Normally that would be considered newsworthy enough to merit timely coverage - I wonder why the lag in reportage?
There is a Zen adage "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After en - light - en - ment chop wood, carry water." That was how my day went. When I woke up to music this morning I felt really disoriented. Why was it on - wasn't it Saturday? Now that's bad. I think it was because I didn't get a break from the paperwork at all this weekend, so my subconscious just kept ticking those days off as work days. Anyway, I was lucid enough to figure it out - with a bit of panic thrown in that I might be late. I wasn't, but I was running as I left the house. Got to the bus stop and most of the regulars were missing which triggered another "what's wrong with this picture?" moment. Just the almighty indulging in practical jokes - right?
The commute was non-eventful - I napped through most of it. Met my co-worker at the elevator as we both emerged on our floor. I hadn't seen him in the lobby so that was odd too- separate elevators, with a third worker from the floor getting off from yet another elevator. The lobby is very compact - how did we not see each other,let alone not ride up to work together? Oh well. My co-worker is tall, even by guy standards and a flaming redhead; the other co-worker we met is a tall, pretty, and willowy redhead of the female persuasion. It is obvious my co-worker is smitten by her and I think that's really cute. It's nice when anything positive and humanizing comes out of a corporate environment. Not fair to project a lifetime together on two unsuspecting souls like that, is it dear diary, but they'll never know - unless they read the romance novel I write about it years from now.
Work was routine this morning, just the usual issues. There seems to be some strain in my communication with the women in the company that I am usually dealing with, but I don't understand it. I come to work and do my job. Other than breaks because of biological imperatives, I don't even impinge on the consciousness of the rest of the floor - how could I? Yet they do seem tense every time I encounter or talk to them - maybe something is going on behind the scenes that I'm not privy to. Don't know. My liaison leaves for the country that this company is based out of on Friday - maybe it has to do with that. At least that would be another positive - it seems to be a very employee centered organization. I've never been any company before that openly invests so much effort into it's employee education and development.
Popped in to see my chiropractor at lunch. He and his family had gone hiking on the weekend, so I just asked about the conditions of both the trail and the weather. Chit chat. I had arrived early for my appointment, because one of his receptionists had said he left early on Tuesdays - mine being the last appointment. I thought that might give him a bit of extra time if he had to get away right away, rather than keeping him right to the very end of his shift. Apparently it did today, because he looked at his watch at the end of the session and said that he was now on "his time".
The en - light- en- ment I mentioned at the beginning of this post happened at about 3 this afternoon. I was working on one record that indicated a scientific focus. We've learned to skim all the scanned documents in a folder, because there is often more than one report or topic jumbled together. This one was a technical analysis until just near the end. Then all of a sudden I was looking at correspondence that was very definitely corporate planning at an insider level. Hmmm. Why was it there and why had it been left for documentation? Maybe it was because most staff wouldn't recognize the significance of the words - really they weren't all that earth shattering, except for the names and companies listed as the correspondents. I grew up in this city and so did my Dad, so some of the people I know from school or my parents and others by community profile. As I was reading the letters I started to laugh - the most salient sign of enlightenment a la Zen. When I used to volunteer in counselling work one of the key questions a therapist would ask was "why did you decide to come for counselling now?" The reason for that question is that usually the issue(s) being presented have been around for a long time - sometimes even decades or through generations. "What's so different about today that caused such a major shift in your perceptions and behaviour with respect to this pattern of reactions?" My assignments tend to have the same flavour to them. A lot of the times the problems with the records have been there for a long time - even decades. I always go in wondering why the angst and action now? With this assignment I had figured it out about a week ago - or I thought so anyway. Since it was a positive, proactive kind of reason I was quite content. This correspondence was like the other shoe dropping or "one hand clapping". I enjoyed the joke on myself. Good thing I'm in an office out of sight so no one could see or hear me laughing about it for the balance of the day.
So the almighty seemed to decide that he had to play another couple of jokes to balance things out - he wanted to laugh too I guess. Just before 4 pm I tried to open a file that crashed the computer big time. My liaison was off the floor and their tech support is a few time zones to the east - shut down for the day. The local number given for IT support turned out to be wrong and the lady I spoke with on that line was mystified about the whole thing too. She was very nice though and came to my office to see if she could do something about the blue screen of death and the fact that the darned beast refused to turn off so I could do a "hard" reboot. Being that my machine is part of an international LAN I didn't want to leave it as it was over-night, in case it caused chain reaction damage everywhere else. My liaison didn't return to the office until the time I normally leave, so I had to stay later than usual, but at least I didn't go home worrying about dealing with a major disaster in the morning.
To top it all off, my supervisor called about 15 minutes before he knows I leave - just wanting to let me know he had received all the bits I'd sent him for the report, asking for a bit of clarification, and scheduling a meeting for tomorrow morning - could I let my co-worker know? Well he leaves about 30 minutes before I do, but I wasn't about to make an issue of it with my supervisor. My co-worker charges by the hour just like me, so we each set our schedules to accommodate out own rhythms. When I got home I e-mailed my co-worker to alert him and to send him a link to an industry specific website as a result of a question he had asked first thing this morning - a "specialists" query it was. As long as my co-worker reads his email or is on time tomorrow there won't be a problem.
However, I had one co-worker about three contracts back who did very strange things - like being in the office in question at 3 in the am "to work" and sitting on the phone yelling at all sorts of poor people during our scheduled work hours. I always thought it had something to do with the fact her ex-husband's company had subcontracted to the firm in question. I think she was spending her paid time looking through records to find dirt that she could use to extract more revenge on him. Just the mention of him (which she did often) was enough to have her foaming at the mouth most days. In addition, she never seemed to be off the phone unless she was gossiping with one of the other staff who had the same patterns of behaviour as she did. She would tell my supervisor that the messages he gave me to pass on to her - because he couldn't get through to her line - were never given, and that the reason there were problems with the quality of her work was because I was messing with her paperwork. As if I had time given all the work I was required to do, in addition to covering off on the tasks she wasn't completing. She was the one threatening to harm herself and her family and she was scary. That was the "Queen of Mean" I spoke of when I first started posting to you dear diary. She was one very destructive, vicious person, but she seemed to have our supervisor wrapped around her little finger. The problem was he apparently believed her. He became very nasty during that time, yet never raised any of the problems directly with me or gave me a chance to defend myself. Made the relationship very strained until she left the assignment for a full time job and another co-worker was re-assigned to work with me. It still took him a long time to not treat me with suspicion. Hope this isn't going to be the same. What I learned form that was to pass everything on by email when I could including ccing whoever else needed to know, but what does one do to ensure that is tracked in a case like this?
Rode home with the same mom I travelled with yesterday - she was a lot more upbeat which was a relief. We just chatted about work weirdness all the way home. It seemed to amuse some of the young adults who were standing with us in the door well, since we just made a joke out of most of the incongruencies corporations create. Got home to find my youngest all in a pet - about his pet. Miss Kitty had literally broken the window screen in her leap to freedom out of the kitchen window at about 4 pm.
While he was trying to secure that so the babies didn't follow their Mom and search for her, my Dad had come by with his neighbour in tow. She had wanted to give me one of her lawn ornaments - a wishing well "I'm Wishing, and I Dreaming of..." Snow White don't you know. Now he had called the day before to say he "Might" be by but also that he "might not". That's certainly not a problem and I'm guessing he had hoped I would be home, so that I could thank her in person. Because of the computer thing, of course I was really late and my youngest wasn't around becuase he was out chasing his "spring fevered" cat. Fortunately a neighbour passing by noticed that he needed some help getting the thing off the truck - it is quite big - and provided the extra muscle. Dad called after supper to let me know and to give me the neighbour's description so I could thank them too. However, "lanky older male with big red dog" covers off about a dozen people nearby. I think I'll have to stake out the back alley to see who comes by to admire the thing.
Last call of the day was a voicemail from Head Office at Elections Canada. Our instructions in our last assignment were to get our new hires to swear two sets of oaths - one set because of confidentiality issues in the pre-writ work and one set for issues during the election. Apparently no one told the front line workers about it so she wanted to know why I was sending her two of everything. Oi. She sounded a bit tentative on the call and I didn't know why until I remembered I had changed my voicemail message the night before. The volume of calls from people demanding I call them to discuss their employment ambitions is really increasing, so I just invited family and friends to leave messages as they always do but explained to callers looking for work that there were no paid staff to deal with their issues until the election was called and that they would not be called back before then. I think maybe the person from head office thought that included her calls too. Oh well - time to go read dear diary, destress I guess.
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