23:52 - 23.08.05
short story
Not a lot to say today. When I go to work these mornings I get to watch the sun rise. Beautiful and calming both. It does affect a lot of travellers the same way. More people sleeping on the journey - deeper sleep too. Yesterday a young labourer was so far gone, that even though his cell kept ringing, he didn't even twitch. I finally stepped over to him and woke him up. Kind of risky in some ways, but it appeared he had already missed his stop. It seemed a shame to let him sleep when it could cost him his job. A guess would be that he's trying to make it on his own and probably doesn't have much to fall back on. He reminded me of the character Thor in the movie "Adventures in Babysitting". Very sculpted, Nordic face, same build.
Work was focussed just on coding. A few follow up responses to questions from my supervisor that will allow more coding to be completed without having to dig through boxes. The second in command was quite cranky today and I finally gave up trying to approach her. Must have had some other crisis to deal with I guess. The head of the department was around quite a bit in the morning too. There have been continuous renovations on the floor since I started and she seemed to think that it was taking too much time to get some work done. One of the signs I noticed that hadn't been present when I first began was the one as you enter the department - "under video surveillance". That could be pretty intimidating fo users but it also has implications for workers situated on the floor too. Fair warning given that everything they do is monitored.
There was a lot of fallout still occurring from the meeting about working in open space departments. One of the supervisors felt we had been told not to talk with each other, although the presenter had noted several times that one of the major purposes of this type of layout was to foster collaborative relationships. One doesn't get that without communicating frequently. The problem is that too many staff see that as removing all boundaries and structure from regular human relationships. "Free love" - sorry a '60's thang y'all. Also, because she works so hard herself and is very task oriented, she doesn't realize that a lot of her coworkers aren't working. They are wasting tremendous amounts of time talking about anything but work. The gossip that starts to arise as a result, also is disrespectful of personal boundaries and can cause a lot of harm. When I pointed that out, she cottoned on at once, having been the target of one such person's tongue. One thing that was repeated several times in the presentation too, was that it was not only acceptable, but also preferable, for people to use headphones as a tool to keep focussed on their own tasks. The comment was made too that it was also ok for the person using them not to have any sound on. Hmmm. Apparently there must have been some fairly strong complaints made for that to have to have been emphasized. I still have the fan at my desk to blow away some of the chemicals emanating from the two women working closest to me. Neither will reduce the amount of perfume they wear. In fact both seem to "top up" at least a couple of times a day. That fan serves the secondary purpose of adding in some "white noise" to block any opportunity for eavesdropping from either side of the partitions. In some ways I've left it there to reassure the team working in the next workstation that I am not paying attention to their interactions, but apparently that is resented too.
The woman who the ally told me was coming to see me about the connective tissue condition we both have arrived early this morning. A very nice lady it turns out. Her form of the condition manifests outwardly. Just bumping against something can cause her to need surgery to close the wounds that open up where she is touched. Her primary doctor is a plastic surgeon. I bruise like her, but not to the same extent. My issues tend to manifest internally in the intraorgan connective tissue, making it more difficult to explain to people that there really is a problem. We both agreed that the medical community is particularly unschooled when it comes to treating us. Usually, unless our own doctors are present, we have to maintain a defensive position about what treatments are acceptable or not. For her for example, running stitches to address an open wound actually make the damage even worse - they rip the skin open even more. We both have developed our own coping mechanisms and preventative practices so we swapped ideas as well. I still don't like the fact that a significant amount of gossip had to have occurred for this lady to have even heard about me, but I did enjoy meeting her. I think it is a relationship/friendship that could develop long term. Anyway time for bed I think. Napping on trains is only fine as long as one has enough awareness to wake up at the right stop.
�
�
