23:47 - 16.08.05
Gambols
Mentally I need diversions from the "real world". It gets too overwhelming otherwise, sometimes. I think that's why I like the fantasy genre of novels I've read out loud to my sons over the decades. I think too, having spent decades studying the mythologies of cultures around the globe, that there are underlying themes and principles that consistently appear in all of them, dressed up in the local characters. Same with any religion one chooses to assess. That aspect fascinates me. It is as though there is this underlying template that informs the collective unconscious of what is known as humanity. It erupts and makes its mark on a locale through one of it's more receptive and gifted storytellers or artists, taking on the form necessary for the time and place, to communicate one of those principles. Maia or angels or aliens too, I think.
Right now, with the planet Pluto retrograde grinding across my astrological ascendant, I find myself seeking those source energies to ride out the storm and maybe even to try and ride them like a wave; choosing where to land on that metaphorical beach at the end of this particular journey. Through the tales of the Mabinogian/Lloyd Alexander, the Harry Potter books, the Lord of the Ring Series, the Earthsea chronicles and the Dark is Rising canon with a side of Shakespeare now and then for levity, there are certain touchstones or reference points that keep me moving forward, or at least trying to tread water. I was looking for that tonight a bit and found it in a series of interviews with JK Rowling about the possible contents of her seventh, and maybe, final Harry Potter book. I can see what is emerging both in the physical and in the non-ordinary world of the collective unconscious without compromising or contaminating either. Be in the world but not of it, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Work today? Well, Mercury released it's trickster hold a bit and I got to the early bus confortably, all properly dressed and packed. Both bus and train were nearly empty again so I snoozed most of the way, savouring the extra twenty minutes or so of napping. Pretty cool when one can choose and safely navigate the sleep walk transfers between stops too, eh?
Finished up the set of screenshots requested by our Texan counterpart yesterday. Sent it off and found that an email arrived not long after from my supervisor, setting the time for the next teleconference - next week. My schedule is pretty clear, but it appears there had to be some chivvying done among the other three's to get a common time freed up. I had randomly called back some boxes from storage at the end of last week just to check if the descriptors I was using to code were accurate enough to place any faith in the security of the work I'm doing.
It took until early afternoon to assess the contents of just five for two reasons. The first was all the other activity going on in the department. First there was the farewell get together we had for the one young woman who is going off to Montreal for her last year of university. She has been working for the group parttime for four years and it was obvious there was a great deal of affection among the members of the team. Sad, but happy too. Then the electrician and the team of men who look after the physical configuration of our workstations were back. Still the problems with cabling for the telephones and our computers. That Fred! That darn ghost even kept changing the time stamp on my cell phone. Who else could change it in clear sight, when all I do is leave it out to take bio breaks. If I know I'll be gone any longer, it gets locked inside my purse inside my storage unit. Odd.
Then there was the heating system. Yesterday I froze most of the day, while today I seriously considered removing the topper I was wearing over my sundress. The sundress choice was just wishful thinking this morning. Those lacy grey fog blankets of yesterday had turned into thick woollen fog clouds, but I refuse to wear winter gear mid-August. Hence the topper. You see, the sun dress really is a bit too skimpy for the office - at least for me. Taking it off would have revealed way more of my skin than has seen the light of day in front of the males working away to keep our technology running than I have done in decades. It wasn't that they would notice or care, since a lot of my younger coworkers wear considerably less, but it matters to me. The clothes I usually choose render me invisible against the office background for most people and that's the way I like it. Uh huh, uh huh. It is apparent there are a couple of people in the work area next to mine engaging in the thermostat wars - control of working conditions on a subliminal level - but the heat today was really impairing my ability to work. Looked longingly at the control switch, but decided not to engage in the tussle. Bleagh. Hefting boxes in heavy clothes when the temperature must have been at close to 28C/mid 80's F just wasn't conducive to speed.
Finally there was another staffer coming in to find documents of a technical nature that were needed right away. Again I'm not supposed to do client service, so I went and found the second in command as I was instructed to do. She just told the lady that she and my supervisor weren't really familiar with that discipline or the material that was housed on this floor, so could the lady let them know when she figured it out? Now this was going on concurrently with the work crews shutting down our computers and reconstructing some of our space and the blasts of heat coming from the power struggle over the work atmosphere. I found myself wishing I had just looked after the poor woman myself, so she could get her job done. Truth was there were two or three ways to extract the information the staffer explained she wanted to the second in command other than the approach that had originally been seen as most likely to achieve results. Other than butting in on their conversation from the depths of the boxes I was digging through, and maybe making it appear that the second in command didn't know what she was talking about, my only other option was to wait and make those suggetions later after they had exhausted all their efforts without success. What she needed was standard data that has to be housed in the department. It should have been a very 5 minute response and retrieval. Instead it took an hour. Distractions.
The boxes themselves weren't helping matters any. Those descriptors on the screen, once the techs and workmen had finished their tasks so we could log back in to our accounts, may have contained one or two words that matched up, but very little else did - including the dates. Getting the months wrong is bad enough, but being out by several years is even scarier. The dates are pretty cut and dried items. That given, one can imagine how poorly the rest of the descriptions were done. Basically out of a random sample, none of the descriptors allowed me to code without touching the actual contents, with any degree of accuracy. I know it isn't my company or my documents, but it made me feel as though my whole project was takig on an air of an exercise in futility. I reminded myelf that it was just one class of records that is the problem, but they constitute close to half of all the boxes. Guess those discussions about gambling in Las Vegas that went on in the farewell tea, could have been applied during work today. Who says you need to leave town to toss the dice?
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