00:11 - 09.09.05
Ghostly
Well, Fred the Ghost has been at it again, dear diary. You might have noticed no entries for a couple of days. The computer crashed with no Mercury retrograde to blame either. The good news was that the monster I saw under the stairs was just a couple of cases of ice beer, or wine, whatever. But I'm getting ahead of the story for this week. We had to explain the presence of Fred to my new co-worker who is from the same agency as me after he played a particularly nasty trick on me about an hour before quitting time today. Telling her about the beer seemed the kindest way to ease her in to our other reality. She allowed that she didn't believe in ghosts, but that there was at least one in her house and maybe two, one of whom would stand over the end of her bed at night. A bad dude who creeped her out. She finally asked the members of her church to come by her home for prayers and blessings. She said that the ghost who was a problem hadn't been back since. Uh huh.
So, to begin at the beginning of the work week. It started with my alarm clock and I can't blame the cats on this one. It went off at what appeared to be the correct hour, blaring loudly, but playing country music. Yeeuck - one of those boo hoo songs. Rushed around getting ready to go, glancing at the clock on the microwave as I went by toward the front door. Wait a minute - or an hour more like. It was an hour earlier than I normally catch the bus - 5 in the am. Couldn't even justify going to the stop and getting in to work early, since I already catch the first bus of the day - not to be confused with the markets "catch of the day". Went back into my bedroom after feeding a herd of cats, reset the alarm and snoozed for 45 minutes. Half a normal sleep cycle, like my body would recognize one of those, eh?
Did up the weekly report trying to be ready for the now regularly scheduled meeting with my supervisor's second in command. Was just saving it to the shared directory, when my email notice came up. Second in command is ill. Given that her new part time helper was to begin work that morning, it hadn't made sense to me to meet first thing anyway. Just continued on coding, watching my supervisor scrambling to train the new lady. Offering to help pick up the slack in her other tasks if there was something useful I could do. No just try and finish off my assignment is all she needs. Helped a couple of staff visiting the records department since there was no backup other than me, even though my supervisor has said to ignore them. Can't do that when they have jobs to finish too. One of the scientists was quite nice and really patient with our rickety old fiche reader. It kept jamming on him while he was printing. That Fred. Long weekend must have meant extra time to think up more tricks.
Rode home on the train with the neighbour from across the street and one of her co-workers. That one had just been to a workshop on better accounting techniques for the industry I work in. She just rolled her eyes when asked how the day went. We got to talking about our children and grandchildren. Her son is going into high school. She was telling tales of how difficult it was to get him to accept that his concept of "clean" didn't cut it with the real world. She heard the old "mean mom" phrase and was pleased her son had got the message. I allowed how that had been the frustration of my weekend - oh yeah - and that it seemed to be a regular behaviour at that age. She said her son was a high functioning autistic, but her examples of "dysfunction" didn't sound any different than what I, or any of my friends, had experienced with our teen sons. That would continue to be a theme of discussion all week on bus/train travel with whichever friend I rode with too. The long weekend blues. None of their sons are anything but "normal" either. I got off a stop early explaining that I had to go get a quote and make arrangements with the hardware people to fix my roof and my fence. Met my brother in-law there. He walked me through the process. Having a family member available to vet me through the hurdles helped a lot - I think. I asked if there was any way the work could be done by the end of September - hoping to avoid snow delays - and they just laughed. With the building boom going on in this city, maybe next spring might be more realistic. Great.
Yesterday started out fine. Hit the stairway for my lunchtime exercise routine. Then Fred got involved again. When I reached the second floor landing, the door separating the walkway to the street had been pulled to. Well, I thought, just someone in a hurry maybe. Continued on, but something didn't feel right - there was a muffled quality to the sound in the sealed fire exit and the light levels seemed quite a bit lower. I slowed up a bit and peered down the railings toward the street level landing. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck, but I rationalized that by noting that that landing was very small and enclosed. Claustrophobia, maybe. I reached the landing and started toward the door, but something made me turn around. There was something under the stairs. It wasn't moving so I edged toward it - very slowly - calling myself all sorts of nasty names starting with "fool". Oh right, I just coloured that archetype, didn't I? The lesson? Approach all new situations with open eyes for certain, but also with open minds. We often miss whole vistas of experience, because we pre-judge and shut out what is really there. See the world as through the eyes of a child - all new and fresh. On the other hand, prior experience can save us from nasty things - oh like monsters under the stairs. Schroedinger's cat, quantumly speaking. And the monster was? Two cases of what appeared to be ice beer or wine. I decided I wasn't touching anything in case the owner happened to show up. Glanced over my shoulder and that was reinforced by the sight of the door out to the street. It had been propped just so, so someone could reopen it from outside. Normally that door locks so one can't re-enter the stairway from outside. Now what? Do I play it safe and go back up the stairs, hoping that there isn't more than one person involved, or do I open that door "door number three, please Johnny" hoping no one is waiting just on the other side. Chose the door. No one there. Decided I would rush to do my errands, then call the building manager's security line when I returned. Did that and explained the situation, comenting that I had felt safe enough because of the other security measures in that stairwell. "Oh, those aren't activated during the day - we just have security patrols do rounds once or twice each half day." Glad I didn't know that little tidbit at the time. Emailed one of the admin coworkers I know, to ask her who to follow up with in the company I am assigned to, since I didn't really like the response I had gotten. She referred me to one person who was cc'd in the next email. Fine. Continued working away. Around 3:30 I looked up and realized the message light on my phone was flashing. I hadn't heard it ring, even though it is sitting only a foot away. Yes I had my headphones on, but I can hear people speaking to me- most times. A phone is louder than most people. There was a voicemail from my supervisor's supervisor. The man in question was on course, so she was covering for him. She acknowledged the concern, but just asked me not to use that stairway for exercise for now - use one of the others in the tower. Fine.
This morning rode into work with the coworker I had as a walking buddy about two years and seven assignments ago. She has been having problems with one of her coworkers. That coworker is coming in a couple of hours late every day, or not at all. So far this year she had missed more than a full month of "sick days". That doesn't include her holidays or any other events either. When she decides to be "absent", she prepares the work for that day ahead of time and insists that my walking buddy give it priority over her own work. She had been using the fact that she is permanent staff, rather than a consultant like my walking buddy, as leverage. Permanent have seniority over contract staff no matter what their start date - theirs are the same - or their job title - theirs are the same. My friend was commenting that she was quite surprised the day before, when her message light started flashing even though the phone had not rung. She had been sitting at her desk, so she would have heard it. Another pattern developing here I think. I wonder if Fred, our ghost, commutes through the telephone cables. Th message was from the "sick" co-worker. Would my friend mind walking into her office every 20 minutes or so, so that the motion activated lights would go on. My friend had to go in to her office first thing to retrieve the work the absent coworker had left out. She noticed not only written instruction left for her use, but also a note on the coworker's door reading "back in a few minutes". The coworker's voicemail had indicated that she would be late but at work by noon. Another call came into my friend at 11:30 - still no ringing of the phone - stating that the coworker had now found that she was just too ill to come in to work at all that day. Uh huh. My friend is starting to show the stress, although she is normally very laid back. She was talking about sending out her resume soon if her talk with her boss doesn't create some improvements for her. I've just started responding with resumes to some of the unsolicited job postings arriving in my in box, so I offered to pass any onto her that fit her skills. What would she like? She hesitated and said she'd give it to the end of the month. I conceded that I was sending a few out, because I can't rely on my best interests being taken in to consideration during the budget talks going on in this company right now. My supervisor seems to want me to stay on, but I've been this route too many times. I know she is working hard to get the funding she needs for projects next year, but I've already noted some of the politics that are playing out among head office and our city's staff in the same discipline. Competition for limited resources does not favour consulting positions. They're the first to be sacrificed. That's just reality no matter the symbolism of the "Fool" - that greenman.
One little vignette on the way in to work this morning was fun. The four women - the good friends - were all seated in their regular place, joking and laughing as they always do. One exception was a man looking like part of the unit, but not really. One of the other regulars asked the one woman for an introduction. "Oh, The Husband". Giggles and snickers following closely on that pronouncement. He grinned/grimaced and said with resignation permeating his voice "I guess you know all about me?" Yuh huh - with more laughter following.
The second in command came by about 10 ish this morning and we had our meeting that had been postponed for two weeks. No one's fault - just summer holidays and sick time getting in the way. Another wave of respiratory and intestinal viruses going around and some more serious stuff too. The one supervisor has surgery tomorrow and the ally was off all last week with that bacterial infection I had in May - the one that cost me nearly 3 weeks of income. The ally is a permanent staff so she gets sick benefits. Doesn't get the work done, but it does mean she doesn't have to fret about how to make her bill payments. Oh well. I explained about a strange series of records I came across the day before. They had no mapping to the one key search field used to call up each set of records I code. It was basically hidden in plain view. That Fred. We thought I only had a bit of clean up left before starting phase two - changes made by head office with respect to retention periods - but that is now in qustion given there are a few thousand records in this series. Could I have them done in the next two weeks. Sure. She asked me how I "found" them. Just a guess when I was looking to see if I'd missed some records in the tens of thousands I've worked through the past 6 months. I knew I would miss some, just by sheer volume. That doesn't account for the non-mapped ones though. After adding another new spreadsheet tracking corporate entities to the shared drive at her request, I switched back to another class of records that need recoding because of anther executive decision. One that I strongly disagree with for ethical reasons. What to do. Put on Christmas carols and sang "the Christmas Star" with Cookie Rankin - well, not sang more like breathed it. Meditation and prayer together for about an hour looking for a workable solution. It came and it was simple. Grace usually is, isn't it? Unadorned and unassuming, needing to be nothing but itself. I should try that.
One of the things that came up in the meeting that threw me was the clothing thing again. Wear this type. Can't, don't own any jeans, nor are they in my budget any time soon. My last bra gave up it's underwire today and I'm not inclined to "let it all hang out". There's just a bit too much of me for that. Can't buy the cheap models either, because they aren't built in my size. I'm only 34" around the rib cage, but all those years of nursing ..... Well, whatever. If that's what has to go on my personnel record so be it. I've worn the clothes I have now - long skirts and sweaters - to do the exact same work for a decade now. I'm keeping my second hand, but serviceable and easily washed and maintained wardrobe, thank you very much.
Maybe I should have tried to find a resolution to that issue by singing with that Christmas Carol again - or not. I'm wondering if that is what set Fred our ghost off this afternoon. You see, my phone popped on the message light again at about 2:30. Mailroom calling to let me know my paycheque had arrived. I was just finishing off that series of records that the second in command had asked to be done and I needed to clear my head. Took off my headphones and laid them across my diskman, like I always do. I still wear the ballcap to protect my eyes from the flourescent lights and it always goes over top my coffee cup when I leve my workstation. This time I had just filled it to the brim with hot steaming mint tea and I wanted to keep it that way. Locked the screen on my computer and my cabinet, then headed for the stairs. Climbing up was ok, my supervisor's supervisor had said. I was back within 10 minutes, but Fred had managed his little coup by then. Somehow the bottle of eucalyptus oil that I keep tucked around the back of my computer monitor had been placed right next to the coffee cup and the headphone wires had been wrapped around the two together. One of my coworkers was asking me a question as I returned, so I didn't look at the wires when I reached over and pulled them to put back on. Guess you can see what happened? Right dear diary? The coffee cup arced up and over and the bottle fell flat, mixing the two substances together. Minty eucalyptus, I guess. Years of parenting six small boys and their buddies has given me very quick reflexes, so I managed to grab the cup before it hit any surface, tipping it back upright. I had napkins stowed in my drawer, like any good hausfrau, plus extra, because I had cleaned my desk at the end of lunch. I managed to sop up the worst of it, ensuring no damage was done to paper or machine, but it was quite "scentuous". Fortunately, I hadn't sat down or I might have been covered from head to toe in the solution too. After, I did damage control that way, I headed to the kitchen and got some papertowels soaked in dish soap to reduce the intensity of the eucalyptus scent. The coworker from the agency came by to ask what happened and the coworker I switched places with back in May started to tell her our ghost stories then. Maybe Fred just wanted a formal introduction to our new coworker. Don't know.
Finished off the afternoon doing up the coworker's timesheet while a couple of other coworkers joined in the storytelling. The perfumed worker had got up and disappeared the moment the cup started flying and didn't return until just as I was leaving for the day, but then Fred has never bothered her. We also talked about one coworker's birthday tomorrow. Morning plans. On the train and the bus it was apparent that some more sensitive types could smell the eucalyptus splashed on to my skirt, but I wasn't certain how strong it was. One young fellow at the bus stop made a lot of rude comments, but his friends all said he was really being a jerk and told him they didn't want to sit withehim any more. I actually sympathized with the one who didn't like the smell, because it could be it triggers an allergic reaction for him. Everyone is different. I sat by my neighbour from across the street and asked her how strong it was. She said she couldn't smell anything. Each to their own. And that is my story dear diary. Good night.
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