22:11 - 20.06.05
Shifts in the Force
The cats were acting almost too strange, even for me, last night when I went to bed, dear diary. There was a tension throughout each of their bodies - a hyperalertness and a focus on something that I couldn't see that made me feel as though I had fallen down the rabbit hole in to a sci-fi movie. They were all watching and interacting with an energy that had no form. Pulled the covers up over my head and tried to go to sleep.
That must have led to the strange dreams I had where I kept switching between a debate with a male over the way a lantern was constructed and one about sailing. In the lantern dream, it seemed to have a glass cover made from several sheets of differently coloured and surfaced panes that had somehow been "melted" or fused together. The debate was over whether the collar of the supporting pole should face upward or down. I think, in the end, it was determined it could go either way. The other part of the dream seemed again to be a debate - this time over which was the correct set of sails to choose for the boat we were using to cross the ocean. Given my absolute lack of waking knowledge of such things, I can't say why or which sails were chosen, but I can say we arrived at our destination safely, albeit very wet and bedraggled. Even the sails were soaked.
The events of the evening made getting up this morning very difficult. I ran late of course. The ride across the bridges over the Bow River was adventure enough. The water was right up to the deck of the bridge of our route and those other routes visible to us both upstream and down. These photos, click on "reader submitted photos", tell the story of the conditions here in the city. Severe and mandatory water restrictions in effect, with fines that have some teeth in them, if one was inclined to ignore their imposition.
Reached work and found photos of the dance event from Friday waitng in my inbox too. The woman who took the pictures did a great job of capturing all those slightly out of synch, though not out of rhythm, bodies whirling about in the studio. A lot of back and forth commentary between the group and also between the studio, the company organizers and me as well. One of the messages was a summons of sponsors to a meeting to do a dissection of the play day during work hours on Friday. I sent thank you cards for being allowed to participate and invited the participants to help me critique the entire process.
The morning work hours seemed to be consumed by discussion of both the play day and the personal stories of the effects of the flooding by most staff in the department. I kept my headphones firmly in place, trying to get back on track. Writing and submitting the weekly report, then continuing with the coding. That worked fine until just after 1 pm. My telephone rang. It was one of the women whose name had been mentioned by the visitors from Texas - one of their co-workers. She said that she had talked with the one woman who had spent so much time with me. She asked a lot of questions to clarify some points of information that obviously mattered to the work she was doing, then requested that I email all the reports and spreadsheets that our visitor last week had viewed, so she and her co-workers could analyze and incorporate that data into their presentation to management in just over a month.
I had no objection to either the grilling about issues or the request for the documentation except for one small item that was likely to put me in the middle of a power struggle regardless of my response. I imagine you've seen it already, haven't you dear diary. My supervisor is away until midweek. The women from Texas uniformly have commneted that they feel they aren't receiving all the pertinent information that is necessary for them to make good decisions. I can empathize with that. The loud supervisor - who is in charge by default until my supervisor returns - continues to claim that the reason the others want the information is so that they can interfere with and gain control over the Canadian records operations. In most other international companies I've worked for, direction always comes from head office with the more professional ones accepting the adaptations necessary to meet local legal and regulatory requirement. Personally, that is how I understand the requests for information from the Texas group, but the loud supervisor becomes really angry any time they call or visit.
The request today should have gone through my supervisor to me - I'm a consultant and I know my "place" in such a hierarchy. I doubt she would have obstructed any request had she been present in the office, given her behaviour last week when the one specialist spent time going over my work with me. Remember she just told me to provide the visitor with whatever information she needed, then she walked away. In the chain of command, since she is absent today, the request by default, should have been given to the loud supervisor first. The loud supervisor has made it very clear she doesn't want the head office to have any of the information I've culled. What to do? Rock and a hard place.
The data I've created belongs to the company - that means head office. The acting supervisor tells me they aren't worthy to have it. I did the politically correct thing and went to her with the request anyway before complying, but managed to present it as water under the bridge. They have already seen the data. I don't know what I would have done had the interim supervisor given me a direct order to withhold the information. Before I went to see her, I spent some time on the company website looking at the local and head office organizational charts trying to find the lines of authority. I think, for the sake of security, they weren't that clearly demarcated. It would have been difficult to have gone to my supervisor's supervisor on this issue, because it wasn't clear who that was. Lucky I didn't have to test it out. The loud supervisor conceded the request after a lot of grumbling, back-biting and complaining. I had the first email ready to go for as soon as she consented. The request for a consolidated report for the entire project took the balance of the afternoon to compile and clean up with respect to redundancies. Oi my aching head.
The thing that bothers me most is the one issue both groups are very focussed on and which neither can give me a satisfactory explanation of why the concern. That question? When will I be done this phase and when the next. Each group and each individual seems to have a different goal in mind. I am guessing that means there is another scenario being played out that I am not supposed to perceive. That's the problem with having been a parent first and foremost for a couple of decades. It's what they're trying to hide or not saying that you know is the most critical piece of information. Human nature isn't much different regardless of setting at home, school or work. I think I'm going to go watch the clouds and the turning of the seasons. It's the solstice and time for a sun salutation. Next up is the full_moon and the visible conjunction of Venus, Saturn and Mercury. One moment, only moment. Om mane padme hum.
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