1:05 AM - 18.02.05
Offers
My personal computer crashed tonight, so I`m writing from another unit dear diary. A change is as good as a rest, I guess. Hope that beast thinks so too. My youngest promised to try and get it functional by tomorrow. We have a long weekend coming up in Alberta - Family Day - and I had hoped to get a good start on my Elections Canada assignment. The one we were advised last Friday was to be sent to us this week. The one where some of the deadlines are March 1. Still no package and the way votes have already started to go in parliament - defeats on minor points - we could be in election mode sooner than hoped.
Anyway, started off as working on the second spreadsheet I had been asked to produce at the meeting yesterday. I like playing with the data in different configurations. It`s sort of like a really tough jigsaw puzzle and a logic puzzle all jumbled together. I was getting along just fine and I was also setting up some of the data so that the next few spreadsheets would go quicker, when it comes time to reconfigure the setup it is in now. About two hours into the process the liaison, the person whose spreadsheet was the focus of my efforts and her new assistant came by my workstation. Change of plans. The spreadsheet I sent to one of the other staff is now to be under their direction, since the other person is too busy. No problem I`ll just send a copy by email to you. BUT, also the person who is handing off responsibility for the first spreadsheet needs this class of records instead and we also want the other material that you are pulling together now - could we have all of it early this afternoon. No but maybe by the end of the day. Not what was hoped for obviously but there`s this time space element to our current physical reality that precludes me working at the speed I wish I could manage. Probably a good thing. Results at the speed of thought would be a dangerous weapon in the mind of someone who changes it frequently. Not that I`d do that of course. If I could just take the holographic images that are infused in my brain and project them on to some sort of photographic plates for such things that would work too, but it isn`t technologically on the horizon yet, I don`t think. Besides I`d be projecting some of the dream images I have experienced long before I`d play with work stuff. Art before commerce, don`t you know. Wonder if it would work for some of the music that comes with the dreams too.
Ok enough of the fantasizing for now. It was triggered when my youngest pulled one of the books out the box brought by my sister`s sister-in-law and that is what brought this up. It is called Visions and it is by Michio Kaku. My son says it is ancient - 1997 publication date - with respect to some of the quantum data but that the biomolecular and other disciplines, discussed still have a lot of validity and technical applications pending. When I have time I`ll read it through.
Back to cobbling that spreadsheet together. Looked up about an hour later to find the woman who had come to the meeting to discuss the problem with the way her files had been labelled standing there. Could I help her? Thoughts of the politics being played by my co-worker through my supervisor ran through my head. At the meeting yesterday, it was determined that several of the staff would be taught how to use the labeling software so they could create the records classes pertinent to their team`s responsibilities. Good decision given that this company is under a deadline for certain regulatory issues that include that responsibility. Could I show her, or do her labels, right now. Well no, I have other priorities set for me and I also have not had the software for the program installed on my pc account. Only my co-worker and the one other woman at the meeting yesterday have it. Well, the reason she had come to me after it had been determined he should do the training was that he wasn`t anywhere to be found, even after several attempts to track him down. Could she get the software installed on her unit and get the written instructions I had created that first week I was working onsite for it as well. Installation has to come through IT, of course, and I tried to explain in discreet terms that I was hamstrung by the politics I now find myself enmeshed between the co-worker and supervisor. However, my supervisor had agreed that all the designated staff would be trained. That shouldn`t have to wait, when they are under the gun to get their work completed on deadline too. Handed her a copy I had made when her request was first made at the beginning of the week. Next up she needed the physical supplies. Did I know where she could get those. Yes, I had seen the boxes under the co-worker`s desk when I had been told by my supervisor to work at his station last Friday. At that point, my co-worker finally returned to the floor and she went off with him.
Worked through lunch trying to meet the target set by the liaison for completing this spreadsheet. There was one errand I had to complete for the election work, so I took a break at about 1:15 thinking I wouldn`t have to compete with downtown lunchtime crowds. That is currently considerably increased by the ranks of all the teachers in the region, who were attending their annual convention today. Worked well and I was back on the floor within half an hour. Munched on a sandwich as I was keying like crazy and thinking of the Dilbert cartoon where one lady is told that she is stealing from the company by eating lunch at her desk, so she can continue working through her break. Uh huh. About 3:30 my co-worker is at my station - he has been told to go to the office of the data management company and won`t be back today. No further explanation offered and I`m too busy to worry about it anyway. I`ve gotten used to not being included in the planning between him and my supervisor, but it still rankles - a lot.
I glance down at my cell phone as he is walking away and notice I missed a call. It`s from the agency that set me up with the interview on Monday. When I call back the recruiter tells me I have the position, if I still want it. It was so sudden, that I was quite honestly stunned and nerly speechless to boot. It was only one week ago that I had made that call looking for other work and already I had managed to get an offer of something I really want to do - especially for the new piece of learning it will offer. Add in that I`ll be working with people who not only want me for my skills, but that also say they really want to work with me for myself. I can`t recall the last time I actually have had such positive feedback from anyone in a work setting and it was a bit overwhelming. I know how valuable my skills are, but that doesn`t seem to translate into being welcome on most worksites. The wage is the same as I make now, but I have a long term -for me - promise of employment. Hard to take it all in. Sort of takes all the power out of the machinations going on at the workplace I`m at now from the data mangement staff.
In some ways it`s too bad it came to this point - choosing to look for other work - because it is obvious that the liaison has become quite enthused by the work I`ve already produced, now that she sees how it can be applied. She is very positive and even respectful, when she talks with me and she has passed that attitude on to the other staff I need to work with. Not only that, the puzzle part of the work with the spreadsheets and their creation is like icing on the cake. The recruiter and I discuss timing on when I can be available. I knew from the interview that the new supervisor would like me to start as soon as possible. I explained in the interview that I don`t like leaving unfinished work behind and would like to complete my section of the contract I have now. She was ok with that I think, because she realized it meant I would treat her work the same way. The recruiter asked exactly when I would be available. Last week I would have said next week without hesitation - even sooner given some of the things I`ve posted about last Thursday`s little t�te a t�te with my supervisor and co-worker. At the meeting yesterday the liaison mentioned a go forward meeting with the company`s staff tomorrow to determine the application of the work done to date and who will be delegated to do which tasks. It would be fun to see the work I`ve done brought to fruition, but I would be crazy to jeopardize the first opportunity (I hope) I`ve had to be in a really positive work environment where people really want to work with you. It would be nice for a change to feel I belong with the group, instead of being outside of it most of the time. And that, coming from an Aquarian, is a very revolutionary statement indeed. Better go to bed before any other weird thoughts comes out in this post.
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