21:58 - 19.05.05
Paralysis
When I got to the train platform at the end of the work day today, I could hear my favorite busker - Tom Pirosic - singing. The song You've Got a Friend, sung by James Taylor and written by Carole King, has always had a calming,centering effect on me. Tom's voice captured a lot of the emotion and intent of the lyrics. I could feel myself being wrapped in the warm arms of the words. The odd thing was that I also could hear an echo - soft, subtle and infinitely sweet. It sounded as though a woman was singing back the words to him as she heard them. I looked around the platform and the sidewalk that passed between his position and where I was standing. No one there. I wondered if he was thinking of someone he cared about so strongly that he could evoke that echo through his own singing. I liked that thought; lifted me right up.
Work today was mostly good. I'm still very tired, but I can feel my body healing - slowly. I focussed on just getting as much done as I could today. With the stand off vote in the House of Commons due at the end of the work day, I wanted to be certain I had moved the project as far along as I could in case I had to go deal with an actual election call. There were an awful lot of undercurrents swirling around my work area. Since the batteries in my diskman kept cutting out - even though I had just replaced them - I had long stretches of time, where even though my headphones were on, I was only hearing the discussions of my co-workers.
I was blaming the battery malfunction on Fred, the ghost. That was one issue and there was also the fact that my computer has been powered on every morning this week, that was unsettling me. I have watched that screen go blank and checked to be certain it was off before leaving each evening, as I have done every night since starting work here. About an hour in to the morning, I realized one of the younger women on the floor was standing just behind me. She looked a bit embarrassed and said she had a very strange question to ask. Would I bear with her. Sure. "Has Fred been bothering you since your workstation has been moved to it's new location." Well yes, but I just thought maybe it was the effect of the illness playing tricks with my mind. "Well did it seem that Fred was messing with your computer." Yes among other things. She then went on to tell me that she was finding her computer turned on a lot of mornings since I had been moved. The topper was this morning, when the one supervisor she works for arrived before her to find that her computer had also been turned on. Her computer is not easy to reach, tucked back in a corner behind a lot of furniture. That supervisor is very security conscious and it was really bothering her. The other women in my work area had all been listening in and started offering explanations to rationalize what was happening. The problem was, that just before the young woman had come by, I realized that the reason I had been having trouble breathing this morning was that my shawl, which I had left on the seat of my chair the night before, was permeatd with a woman's perfume in one place. I had pulled it up to wrap around me, because I was cold and that is when the light dawned. That and the fact I began choking on the fumes. I didn't mention that in the larger group, but suggested that the two of them let the tech support team know just in case a live person was logging on from their units. That is verbotten.
The three women in my area were all really edgy and the tone of their interaction just got more intense with the added question thrown in. I went to fill up my coffee mug with tea - mint to ease the breathing problem. Decided to go touch base with the one supervisor on the way back to my station, since the conversation had really unsettled me. She allowed that the other thing that had set her off was that the desk nearest her, where the person who had been let go a couple of weeks ago sat, had been empty when she left work on Friday. The younger woman corroborated that. The supervisor then asked her if she had orderd pizza or if anyone else on the floor had done so at the end of Friday. No, no one. Yet when the supervisor arrived at work at about 6 am Monday morning, there was an empty pizza box sitting on the empty desk. I asked if it was possible that one of the scientists had had to work the weekend on data in the records room and had brought lunch in with him. The supervisor said no - that this, the 13th floor, was locked down on weekends. No on except records staff could have access without security letting them in. A brief discussion of our options brought us to the conclusion that we would all just record every odd incident and pay extra attention to securing things as we came and went. That Fred - what a joker.
When I returned to my desk the one female who likes to bathe in perfume was still on the telephone. She had arrived at 7:30 and now, close to 10 am, was still dialling out. All personal calls about booking some classes. While I was away, she had placed the extra chair so it was close up to my work area then piled her purse and coat on it. She had taken the table that had been in the center of our work area and pushed it in to the area that was close to my desk, so I could now barely pull my chair out to sit back down. It made opening the drawer of my storage unit less easy too. Her last move was to take a very large cart full of files and place it across the entrance to our area so I could barely move around, even when I stood up. She was still not acknowledging me when I said good morning or made a conversational comment. I just put it down to a continuing fit of pique over the request to tone down her perfume. Whatever. The one supervisor who she is very friendly with came by and they chatted. She had been absent for the past few days with the same sickness that everyone else has been struggling with the past month. She was quite angry that she had been inconvenienced by it, but at least as a permanent staffer she doesn't lose any wages while she was off.
Two of the other contract staff have been coming to check on me from time to time and to remind me of different tasks that we have to do - such as follow up from the workshop - knowing, I think, that I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed. They've both been in similar circumstances at other contracts, so there is a strong sense of empathy among us. The old storage unit I had from the last workstation was brought along with my other work tools, but the supervisor who I had been sitting closest to before the move told me I would have to move my supplies to another cabinet sitting nearby. She couldn't really explain why, but it seemed it was time sensitive. I moved the two units over, moved everything into the new one, then washed the old one out. I put the two old keys in the clean drawer. There is only one key supplied for this unit but that is enough, I guess. Today my supervisor came by after lunch and asked if I was done with the old unit. It was to go to one of the women who was empathising with me, since her unit had been broken. Sorry I hadn't realized that. My supervisor opened the top drawer to check the keys and there were supplies back in that drawer. I know I moved them to the other unit, because I had washed that top drawer out from front to back, especially, since that is where I had kept things like my toothbrush and kleenex. Fred again, I guess.
My supervisor allowed that she was pressed for time and a bit stressed, when I needed to take a few seconds to transfer the supplies back to my unit. I checked the other drawers too. I found the lid to my coffee mug in the middle drawer. It had gone missing a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, my supervisor went one to say she was back having to interview people for new positions. I startled. She expanded on the skills she needed to find. I told her there were a couple of women I had worked with about six years ago who I considered the best of anyone I had ever worked with in that area. I knew they were both very unhappy in that company now, because of an abusive manager. I told my supervisor about their skills and just allowed that they were looking for new opportunities - could I pass the word on to them. My supervisor got quit excited and said she would really appreciate that. She said one of her stressors was that she was booked into back to back meetings for the next few days and was having trouble doing her own recruiting for suitable workers. The implication seemed to be that the resumes she had received were not meeting her needs.
She left and I put my headphones on. I was logging in to some new programs and realized the batteries were acting up again. While I was finishing up with the computer work, the perfumed woman picked up her phone again. I was really wishing that the music would kick in, so I didn't have to hear any more of her personal issues. She just dialled an internal number - 4 digits - and then said "we have a problem". The next part of the comments were muttered and then she said "part of the problem is that she just said she is booked into back to back meetings - I don't know how I'm going to get to her" Hmmmmm. Shortly after, a woman from another department several floors away came rushing in to our department looking for her. Turned out she is the supervisor for the perfumed woman. That explains something about the lack of work ethic I guess. The perfumed woman had disappeared, so her supervisor went to see my supervisor. In an open area work set up, there is very little privacy. This woman was also very loud. She started talking with my supervisor, sort of promoting the skills of the perfumed woman, who just happened to appear at about that time. It was almost like seeing a skit on one of the comedy shows, only less subtle. Finally got my diskman working and turned up the volume to drown out the noise. Going home was good today. And that vote? The non-confidence motion failed - twice. Let's see then if the opposition will stick to their part of the bargain and start working as legislators instead of trying to just paralyze parliament.
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