23:43 - 24.06.05
Ab conjunctio
At the department meeting on Wednesday, the perfumed woman after stating how much filing she had completed for the month, announced that she had finally sold her home and that was why she had been so ornery the past couple of months. She said she would no longer demand that the person who made the coffee in the floor's communal kitchen, place a note on it stating the time it was made, so that she could gauge if it was fresh enough for her or not. I hadn't heard about that specification, being that I usually have my headphones on, but I guess she must have complained about my negligence more than a few times. If no coffee is made when I arrive in the mornings, I make it. I've always considered that kind of thing as just part of being a team.
Yesterday that comment of hers was still bugging me - I know, don't sweat the small stuff - so I bought a cup of coffee from one of the stores on the way in to work. When I arrived upstairs, the perfumed woman was standing by her workstation - very unusual time of day to see her - and she appeared to be waiting. When she saw the cup of coffee in my hand she flounced over to her desk and got her purse. I looked up from logging in a bit later to see her arrive back on the floor with a cup of coffee from the same place. Whatever. Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes being part of the "community" and, I suppose in it's own context, one has to allow for other definitions than one's own if you expect yours to be respected. However, I wasn't about to accept that I was obligated to report to her about my actions, especially when there was no sense that she felt she had to contribute to the team in any way herself.
Today was just one of those days when I seemed to be running hard - in place - backward. The one woman who had breathing problems when she took my place at the old workstation, always wants to visit for the first 15 to 20 minutes of the day. I was trained to be at my desk and working from the time the work day begins until the next bio or coffee break. When I started back into the workforce anything else was considered stealing from the employer and it was grounds for dismissal. Guess old habits die hard. I find it hard to stand and talk with anyone for more than five minutes in the workplace unless it is specifically about work. Besides that, I keep getting asked when I am going to be finished the first phase of my project - local or Texan, it doesn't seem to matter. Even though I have been given several additional tasks to keep up in addition to the coding, and even though I report those stats weekly, the only ones that have been acknowledged are the coding counts. So even though all I do most days is sit and code, even when the rest of the staff are chatting for hours on end, I seem to be the only one who is under any sort of deadline. Fair enough, but don't get angry when I don't participate in the socializing. I can only do the work if I don't talk. The data the past few days had been fascinating, because it is about the nuts and bolts of the structure of the company itself. These are the "vital records" and they require careful consideration when handling. Losing source documents is very bad karma.
At 9 am there was attendance at a debrief required from the people who sponsored an event for the play day. The one issue left over for me to deal with is the matter of a refund of part of the deposit from the dance studio, because the actual number of participants was much lower than anticipated. According to the regulations put in place by the company, the organizers of the event - the company - were supposed to have been responsible for the promotion of what the events entailed and the specific signed contract required firm numbers be provided to the studio so they could scale their planning and costs by May 24. The registration wasn't closed until June 7 - 2 weeks later. Between the lack of information about the dance lessons being made available, the fact that I was absent for most of the registration period because I was sick and the lack of notice, the studio overprepared and lost money. I haven't asked for the balance of the deposit back, nor do I think, given the lack of follow through on the company side of the obligations, that the studio should eat the loss entirely by themselves. They may have been somewhat over-optimistic, but then if the correct information had gone out and been received in a timely fashion, I think the day may have been quite different with a lot more people involved. I don't know how I'm going to deal with that item. All the sponsors were given gift certificates to the store of their choice. I chose a grocery store, since I really need the extra help financially. I did see most of the people who were in my event today and that was fun. Some of them hadn't been to visit the records center before - or at least not for a long time. I guess that demonstrates that one of the goals of the company was met in making people comfortable about working cross discipline and cross department.
Just before lunch I received a call from someone from the animal shelter here. Someone had called them about the number of cats now residing with me. It is true there are too many, but none of the tactics we've tried to have them adopted out or boarded out have worked. I can't see how having them euthanized is more humane than having them live. I had left a voicemail for her a day earlier saying that I'd like their help, but that I didn't want the euthanasia to be the solution. She started yelling at me as soon as I responded to the call. Sitting in the office with four other staff not even a few feet away, I wasn't in a position to reason or even respond to the abuse she was pouring out. I asked her to call me at home tomorrow. Hopefully she was just having a bad day or misunderstood my intentions. As it was, I had to double both my asthma and blood pressure medicine right after and it was hard to concentrate on work at all. It is tough enough trying to look after them all and trying to find homes for them, without being yelled at/trheatened for it as well. Given that they are all house-only cats, it isn't even as though they could be considered a nuisance by any of the neighbours. Odd thing was that the neighbour that I ride to work with offered to lend me her oversize pet cage two or three days ago "just in case I wanted to take them anywhere - like a pet store". She also stated that you shouldn't name things you intend to kill. Oh well, maybe tomorrow will be better.
At lunch I went to the bookstore to pick up my copy of Greenwitch - the one I'd ordered a week ago. While I was waiting for the staff to find it - it had been filed under the author's name instead of mine - I found two books on sale that I had been wanting and looking for for the longest time. One is called the Mabinogian. It is the source document of all the Welsh/Celtic legends that gave rise to the stories about King Arthur and the Black Cauldron. The other book was written by the biological mother of the current Dalai Lama. It is her story of the great one's childhood. I have always wondered how she coped with having a child, then being required to give him up to a fate that would "be for the best interests of all" except maybe the child himself. I don't think being forced to be a king or holy master from the time one is barely conscious of self, is a kindness or much of a privilege either. Living in a fishbowl with absolutely no privacy and no opportunity to be human most of the time. Isolated from those that really matter to you to serve "the greater good". I admire his quiet patience and sense of humour, but the burden he carries must be overwhelming a lot of the time. At least with the cats, regardless of what happens, I won't ever have to sit and listen to them tell me how they were tortured and murdered by the country that invaded Tibet decades ago. I won't have to flee my home seeking refuge in another country knowing the peril and fate of those I was born to protect, without being able to stay and share it with them even if I couldn't protect them from the violence of a social system that deems it knows best against all evidence to the contrary.
In Michael Quinion's newsletter world-wide_words today there was one definition newly minted for the Oxford dictionary that sort of sums up the behaviour both with respect to the cats and the Tibetans that also has application in Britain through their governmental system of "Asbo" (Anti-Social Behaviour Order), a recently introduced way to control "bad" behaviour by restricting a person's activities or movements. Asbos have become notorious for the heavy-handed and inappropriate way they are sometimes applied by magistrates (it's too new for the dictionary, but "asbomania" is the term used for it by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, in a highly critical report on Britain's human-rights record; another is "Asbo Nation")."
One of the Tibetan Lamas imprisoned and tortured for decades came to the Calgary Tibetan Buddhist temple about two decades ago to talk about his experiences. One of the attendees asked him how he felt his abusers should be dealt with. He stated that he had already dealt with that issue. When he was finally released, he returned to what was left of his monastery/home and retrieved an old and very valuable family heirloom. He then went back to the prison where he had been held and sought out the guard who had been most abusive to him. He gave that guard the heirloom as a gift and thanked him for helping free him - the lama - from much of his old, "bad" karma. I've chewed on that one ever since. As I've mentioned before, I don't see any value in revenge or retribution - waste of precious and very limitd time and energy. That's enough to make me very selfish about wasting it on someone who doesn't deserve my time to begin with. "Walk On", say the Zen masters. But to actually give gifts to those who have hurt you the most, taken away what matters to you most, or destroyed what might have taken you a lifetime to build? I don't think I am enlightened enough to do that yet. Num yo ho. Renj Ge Kyo. Om mane padme hum. Forgive me Father for I have sinned.
About 2 pm this afternoon, I received a very strange email. It came from one of the company scientists in Texas. There were a couple of other people, neither of whom were in the company, in the address line too. There was an attached document that had a webaddress with no comment or explanation to it. Given that factoid, I decided not to touch it further. Went to the desk of the loud supervisor to ask how to deal with it. She asked me to forward it to her. Walked back to my workstation, did what I was asked, then realized that the mostly empty eucalyptus oil bottle had been knocked off my desk and my cell phone had been touched. Someone was trying to look at my contact list again. That's the second or third time in the past two weeks that a short trip away from my desk has had that result. And here I thought ghosts didn't need technology - just flow through the wall baby.
I arrived home to find two police cars out front and an ambulance pulling up. Neighbours were lining the park across the street and the new neighbours in the other part of my duplex were all sitting in the box of their big 4 X 4 watching. Another "getting to be a habit" scenario I could do without. Last week when I mentioned similar "excitement" it had been at a house just a few doors down the cul de sac. Hazardous materials truck indicated a drug lab was suspected in that instance. This time I could see the old neighbours from the other unattached side of the house sitting in their half ton truck. They are related to the new neighbours who took the house over. Apparently they were so drunk they didn't know where they were nor could they climb out on their own. The police were handling it very well, since the potential for violence was very high. What is a bit frustrating is that this had been going on since they moved in 20 years ago and even when I have called in the past, nothing has been done. Today they were taken away in handcuffs. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I thought the conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Saturn was supposed to be a good thang. Not.
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