12:53 AM - 20.11.04
Explain Yourself, Lucy
I finally had to concede defeat and apply for employment insurance. I hate doing it because I would rather be working, but the bank account is almost empty and there haven't been any job offers yet. The student financing looks as though it should be approved but others who have been students have said that it might take up to four months for the application to be processed. I can't wait that long.
I applied on-line and was very grateful that that option existed. You see if someone quits an assignment there is a demand for a very detailed explanation of every incident and nuance of problems including what steps you took to deal with each level of staff one was working with and what steps have been taken since. All that is to be explained over about 12 screens using no more than 4000 characters per screen. I had originally thought I could just cut and paste my posts in you, dear diary, but then I realized that was going to be impossible. You see when I checked, the entries from July 27 to the present accounted for 122 pages of 10 pt Roman type or 124,256 words. About one page per day of writing. Since I had to use a lot of creativity to ensure all the information neceesary was covered and submitted in the format determined by EI it took about two hours of concentrated effort to get it done. During that time there were tears but only the kittens saw so I didn't feel threatened in any way. In fact crying was cathartic at this point although I felt exhausted by the time I was done. If I had applied in person I would have had a real struggle if those emotions had surfaced in their offices.
My number one son's partner arrived after supper wanting a mediator in a difference of opinion between number one and three sons. The response as that it had been a long time since I could "make" any of the boys do anything they didn't want to do in the first place. It took a long time to explain that because she has been raised to think differently - that matriarchal influence should be stronger. Yes it should but this society does everything possible to undermine the mother's role. sometimes it seems our only function is to take the blame for any little thing that goes wrong.
A bit of a thread of the old Smothers Brothers "Mom always liked you best" ran through her comments and I just responded that children's perceptions of events are limited to what they experience directly. As a parent I worked hard from the start to arm my sons with skills to resist peer pressure. "If everyone else jumps off a cliff are you going to too?" It therefore seemed terribly hypocritical to turn around and use that same peer pressure to correct or discipline a wayward youg man. Each of my young "sinner(s)" was taken aside individually as required and helped to think of what they had done and how next time a better set of decisions could be made. I think humiliating or ridiculing children in front of others by parading their errors for all to hear and see is as wrong as doing it in the workplace to adults. I've seen that method tried with the result that resentment and passive resistance become the underlying tenor of the worksite. All the effort of the group is turned to not getting caught making a mistake and ensuring too that one always has someone else set up to take the blame if something goes wrong. The old CYA sydrome. The first thing to disappear is productivity quickly followed by any sense of cohesion in the group. Fear dominates instead of creativity and the incentive to contribute. I think my daughter in law finally saw the sense in what I and my youngest were trying to say because she left much calmer than she arrived. Maybe she just needed to vent. Don't know but the second round of exhaustion was almost as strong as the first. Hope tomorrow is a little calmer. I really need to get the paperwork that's been pending for the past week completed and there is at least a day's worth of slogging left. We'll see.
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