I suppose that being prepared has its rewards, but it was a bit disappointing that, there I was, all prepared to have the conversation about my promotion, the group that was to be set up and the compensation package... when I discovered that the boss wasn't... so now we must wait until Friday.
Last night was G's birthday celebrations with the daughters... it went very well... they even threw in a belated Father's Day gift for me. Did you know that they don't make belated Father's Day cards?
I am sitting on the 28th floor of one of the Calgary office towers, waiting for the CIO to arrive to be briefed on our Workforce Mobility Training Program... and it just occured to me that I have no idea whether or not the Help Desk upgraded his machine. Bloody hell, but this could be another embarrassing one....
Luckily, he had been 'dealt with', but, as a true technocrat, he had already adjusted his settings blowing out part of the installation. So we still had to call the Service Desk to get him reconfigured.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
How does one react?
So, I did go in to work this morning to contribute to an RFP that is under development. And while there, I found myself with the gawd-awfullest feeling that what I've been trying to accomplish with the new practice initiative is going to be torpedoed. Now, its not the concept or the practice itself, but the new supervisor has promised to take the draft job description to HR and to get the value of the manager placed on the pay grid. Something in the back of my mind says that they're going to come back to me with a let's-get-through-the-next-three-months-and-then-we'll-talk answer.
I think that my answer to that will be a simple, straightforward thanks-but-no-thanks. I earn enough, and I earn enough for the company where I am. I am not about to double the stress and triple the responsibility 'on spec'. I will point out that putting me into that sort of situation puts them at serious risk of creating yet another disgruntled worker... one who will have no doubts about walking away if the opportunity presents itself. If they are not willing to invest in the business opportunity properly, then I don't see how I can rationalize the investment from my side.
My actual comeback would to ensure that they waive all handcuff agreements if someone were to try to woo me away. That should get their attention and drive home the point, eh?
I think that my answer to that will be a simple, straightforward thanks-but-no-thanks. I earn enough, and I earn enough for the company where I am. I am not about to double the stress and triple the responsibility 'on spec'. I will point out that putting me into that sort of situation puts them at serious risk of creating yet another disgruntled worker... one who will have no doubts about walking away if the opportunity presents itself. If they are not willing to invest in the business opportunity properly, then I don't see how I can rationalize the investment from my side.
My actual comeback would to ensure that they waive all handcuff agreements if someone were to try to woo me away. That should get their attention and drive home the point, eh?
Post Weekend...
Another Canada Day weekend has come and gone... and this one was a very nice, relaxing and yet productive weekend.
The weekend started off with my darling letting me sleep in on Canada Day... actually, it was less about letting me sleep in than just leaving me alone. At some point in the middle of the night, my darling woke up, and then couldn't get back to sleep because of my snoring. (Who me? Snore? Nah, couldn't be!) So she took herself off to the spare room to sleep... then, when the sunlight woke her again, she made herself a cup of tea and sat out on the deck. This is not something that she does a lot of, so it was a 'good thing'. By the end of the weekend she was quite relaxed, able to sit quietly, contemplatively, without twitching.
It wasn't quite a 'rush' to get up, showered, dressed and off to the 11 am Canada Day celebrations, but it wasn't exactly a leisurely pace, either. G. wasn't really interested in going down to the park, but I absolutely insisted; it was her staff organizing the event, and I felt that she should at least put in an supportive appearance. In the end, she was glad that we did go... we spoke with the Mayor, a couple of council members, were at least recognized by the local MLA and MP, and gave the organizing team a pat on the back for all the work they had done. We avoided the outdoor farmer's market, however... it would have been a little bit much!
Feeling just a wee bit guilty about having slept in, we scooted over to J & A's to drop off the tools needed to get on with their deck railings. I needn't have felt so guilty... they were having a very leisurely morning, themselves, having slipped off to the gym for a morning workout. Dropped the tools and left, quickly, not wanting to get involved in their building process, when I had my own tasks to deal with...
My own task went well... I scrubbed the deck, getting it ready for staining. (And I'll cut to Monday, shall I?) When I did manage to be able to start the stain job on Monday am, I screwed up, somehow... not sure how, but the job is terrible! Now let me just clarify a couple of things. The deck is a 14'-0 x 5'-0 cedar plank deck. It was washed down with SuperDeck Deck Wash, and left to dry for 48+ hours. Beginning at about 10:00 am on July 3, I began brushing on SuperDeck Transparent Stain, Redwood. By 4:00 pm I knew we had a problem. The temperature when I started was +27C... by mid-afternoon, the temperature had risen to slightly past 30C. Almost as soon as I finished I realized that there was a problem... it wasn't absorbing. If anything, the sun was wicking it back to the surface of the wood where it has pooled. We now have a orangish red deck with small tacky areas on it. I have tried spotting a couple of the areas with paint thinner, which kinda worked, but I'm not too happy with the idea of scrubbing down the entire deck with paint thinner... although I am seriously considering it...
G. watched me through the entire process (part of her zen meditation exercises for the weekend?) and assures me that I did nothing wrong during the application. In fact, she was getting impatient with me, wondering why I didn't just slap some stain on the thing and get on with it... but I wanted to be careful to put it on sparingly, with great care... and to do what the lid says: Do Not Over Apply. Well, it appears that I did over apply for the conditions. Damn! Damn! Damn!
Okay, so back to Saturday and Canada Day. After I scrubbed the deck, we lounged in the sun and readied ourselves for dinner. Dinner was a 'special occasion' at J and N's... to celebrate G's birthday, 'cause they will be out of town on the day. They even gave G a new Lafluma (spell that how?) deck chair. Gee, at least this year they phoned me in advance to find out if I had one hidden away for G... Luckily I hadn't picked it up yet, so, what the hell, G will get more significant jewellry this year.
Sunday we ran out to Hole's Greenhouses and found a very nice hydrangea for the front of the condo... which I got to do the planting on...and then entertained my older brother, my uncle and his wife over dinner, for which I got to do the cooking/barbecuing. It was a lovely, relaxed evening.
S's mother (S is wife of the uncle P) had a radical mastectomy on this past Thursday as a preemptive strike against breast cancer. She lost her older sister to the disease at this time last year, largely, so she says, because they dicked around with lumpectomy after lumpectomy until the disease killed her. So she chose the more drastic approach in an attempt to save her life, or at least make the rest of it more about her and less about the disease.
Now all this talk about breast cancer gave me the impetus to keep pushing to have G. phone our friend C. in England... a recent breast cancer survivor... and insist that she visit us later this July. The mental health is what is at issue... she'll give us an answer shortly.
Being the good consumers we are, we decided to go and spend money on Monday, this time at one of our favourite gadget shops: Lee Valley Tools. We picked up a couple of self watering bulbs to test on the roses in the containers, and an IV drip system for the lavender and the hydrangeas.
G's birthday is tomorrow. So far she will be getting a small watering can for in-condo use, a large watering can for outdoor use, and a lovely diamond and tanzinite bracelet, from me. J., our eldest, is flying in from Victoria as a surprise, and will just sorta turn up at G's office for lunch. It should be another good day...
The weekend started off with my darling letting me sleep in on Canada Day... actually, it was less about letting me sleep in than just leaving me alone. At some point in the middle of the night, my darling woke up, and then couldn't get back to sleep because of my snoring. (Who me? Snore? Nah, couldn't be!) So she took herself off to the spare room to sleep... then, when the sunlight woke her again, she made herself a cup of tea and sat out on the deck. This is not something that she does a lot of, so it was a 'good thing'. By the end of the weekend she was quite relaxed, able to sit quietly, contemplatively, without twitching.
It wasn't quite a 'rush' to get up, showered, dressed and off to the 11 am Canada Day celebrations, but it wasn't exactly a leisurely pace, either. G. wasn't really interested in going down to the park, but I absolutely insisted; it was her staff organizing the event, and I felt that she should at least put in an supportive appearance. In the end, she was glad that we did go... we spoke with the Mayor, a couple of council members, were at least recognized by the local MLA and MP, and gave the organizing team a pat on the back for all the work they had done. We avoided the outdoor farmer's market, however... it would have been a little bit much!
Feeling just a wee bit guilty about having slept in, we scooted over to J & A's to drop off the tools needed to get on with their deck railings. I needn't have felt so guilty... they were having a very leisurely morning, themselves, having slipped off to the gym for a morning workout. Dropped the tools and left, quickly, not wanting to get involved in their building process, when I had my own tasks to deal with...
My own task went well... I scrubbed the deck, getting it ready for staining. (And I'll cut to Monday, shall I?) When I did manage to be able to start the stain job on Monday am, I screwed up, somehow... not sure how, but the job is terrible! Now let me just clarify a couple of things. The deck is a 14'-0 x 5'-0 cedar plank deck. It was washed down with SuperDeck Deck Wash, and left to dry for 48+ hours. Beginning at about 10:00 am on July 3, I began brushing on SuperDeck Transparent Stain, Redwood. By 4:00 pm I knew we had a problem. The temperature when I started was +27C... by mid-afternoon, the temperature had risen to slightly past 30C. Almost as soon as I finished I realized that there was a problem... it wasn't absorbing. If anything, the sun was wicking it back to the surface of the wood where it has pooled. We now have a orangish red deck with small tacky areas on it. I have tried spotting a couple of the areas with paint thinner, which kinda worked, but I'm not too happy with the idea of scrubbing down the entire deck with paint thinner... although I am seriously considering it...
G. watched me through the entire process (part of her zen meditation exercises for the weekend?) and assures me that I did nothing wrong during the application. In fact, she was getting impatient with me, wondering why I didn't just slap some stain on the thing and get on with it... but I wanted to be careful to put it on sparingly, with great care... and to do what the lid says: Do Not Over Apply. Well, it appears that I did over apply for the conditions. Damn! Damn! Damn!
Okay, so back to Saturday and Canada Day. After I scrubbed the deck, we lounged in the sun and readied ourselves for dinner. Dinner was a 'special occasion' at J and N's... to celebrate G's birthday, 'cause they will be out of town on the day. They even gave G a new Lafluma (spell that how?) deck chair. Gee, at least this year they phoned me in advance to find out if I had one hidden away for G... Luckily I hadn't picked it up yet, so, what the hell, G will get more significant jewellry this year.
Sunday we ran out to Hole's Greenhouses and found a very nice hydrangea for the front of the condo... which I got to do the planting on...and then entertained my older brother, my uncle and his wife over dinner, for which I got to do the cooking/barbecuing. It was a lovely, relaxed evening.
S's mother (S is wife of the uncle P) had a radical mastectomy on this past Thursday as a preemptive strike against breast cancer. She lost her older sister to the disease at this time last year, largely, so she says, because they dicked around with lumpectomy after lumpectomy until the disease killed her. So she chose the more drastic approach in an attempt to save her life, or at least make the rest of it more about her and less about the disease.
Now all this talk about breast cancer gave me the impetus to keep pushing to have G. phone our friend C. in England... a recent breast cancer survivor... and insist that she visit us later this July. The mental health is what is at issue... she'll give us an answer shortly.
Being the good consumers we are, we decided to go and spend money on Monday, this time at one of our favourite gadget shops: Lee Valley Tools. We picked up a couple of self watering bulbs to test on the roses in the containers, and an IV drip system for the lavender and the hydrangeas.
G's birthday is tomorrow. So far she will be getting a small watering can for in-condo use, a large watering can for outdoor use, and a lovely diamond and tanzinite bracelet, from me. J., our eldest, is flying in from Victoria as a surprise, and will just sorta turn up at G's office for lunch. It should be another good day...
Thursday, June 29, 2006
And it just keeps getting weirder all the time
The furor over my misguided email has died down quite a bit, but the problem defined by it still exists, and slightly more exacerbated because of my email. I give a heavy sigh, shrug my shoulders a bit, and then move on. One of the nicer things about the whole incident is the demonstration of support by the rest of Board for me, and my leadership. It doesn't help that it has (potentially) cost us a good volunteer Treasurer.
Work today started off encouragingly enough, and then quickly started swirling around the bowl...
My first session was attended by one (1, un, uno) person. Although we had a good time, and he was suitably impressed by the efforts of the programming team, it is always disheartening when there is only one. As one of my co-workers pointed out, however, I am still getting paid, the company is still billing me out at the usual rate, and it is the client's loss, not ours. Still, self-esteem and all that...
I then tried to confirm my haircut this afternoon with my favourite stylist to discover that they somehow misplaced my appointment, and no, they just can't fit me in today; how 'bout tomorrow at the same time?
I was then made aware of an email (that I am refusing to open and read, for the moment) from a client who is apologizing for leaving us with the wrong impression. After a strategy session on Tuesday, we talked through what the potential role was for me/our company, and we came up blank... everything was basically handled, and being corralled by an 'a-type' lady, and quite competently. Now they are saying that the impression was a mistake, and that they require quite a bit of 'backfill' on an organizational-get-the-manuals-and-the-paperwork-done level. And I had taken the opportunity, based on the impression we were given, to fill my calendar with other outstanding client work.
And now I am sitting in the training room waiting for my next session attendees. They are, at this moment, 14 minutes late... all of 'em. Even the remote access/netmeeting registrants are not logging in. Now, to be entirely fair, there are only two of them scheduled for the afternoon, but nevertheless, that's still 100% no shows! Its at times like these that I despair of the client's ability to motivate their staff, or to at least 'market' the training I provide in a way that makes it as appealing and exciting as I work so hard to make it.
Work today started off encouragingly enough, and then quickly started swirling around the bowl...
My first session was attended by one (1, un, uno) person. Although we had a good time, and he was suitably impressed by the efforts of the programming team, it is always disheartening when there is only one. As one of my co-workers pointed out, however, I am still getting paid, the company is still billing me out at the usual rate, and it is the client's loss, not ours. Still, self-esteem and all that...
I then tried to confirm my haircut this afternoon with my favourite stylist to discover that they somehow misplaced my appointment, and no, they just can't fit me in today; how 'bout tomorrow at the same time?
I was then made aware of an email (that I am refusing to open and read, for the moment) from a client who is apologizing for leaving us with the wrong impression. After a strategy session on Tuesday, we talked through what the potential role was for me/our company, and we came up blank... everything was basically handled, and being corralled by an 'a-type' lady, and quite competently. Now they are saying that the impression was a mistake, and that they require quite a bit of 'backfill' on an organizational-get-the-manuals-and-the-paperwork-done level. And I had taken the opportunity, based on the impression we were given, to fill my calendar with other outstanding client work.
And now I am sitting in the training room waiting for my next session attendees. They are, at this moment, 14 minutes late... all of 'em. Even the remote access/netmeeting registrants are not logging in. Now, to be entirely fair, there are only two of them scheduled for the afternoon, but nevertheless, that's still 100% no shows! Its at times like these that I despair of the client's ability to motivate their staff, or to at least 'market' the training I provide in a way that makes it as appealing and exciting as I work so hard to make it.
And another heavy sigh...
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
What a mess!
Well, have I ever made a mess!
Last evening, when I couldn't get my mind to close down enough to let me sleep, I fired up my laptop and built a rather nasty email... and while it calmed my mind enough for me to sleep, it also took enough of my focus that I a) didn't notice that the 'automatically connect' function on the wireless card automatically connected, and b) that I did not save it as a draft as intended, but rather fired it off into the void... where it has been richoceting all bloody day!
The sentiments in the email were correct, but the way I crafted it was inappropriate. It has resulted in the wrong person resigning from the Board... and its got me completely on the defensive.
Bloody hell!
Last evening, when I couldn't get my mind to close down enough to let me sleep, I fired up my laptop and built a rather nasty email... and while it calmed my mind enough for me to sleep, it also took enough of my focus that I a) didn't notice that the 'automatically connect' function on the wireless card automatically connected, and b) that I did not save it as a draft as intended, but rather fired it off into the void... where it has been richoceting all bloody day!
The sentiments in the email were correct, but the way I crafted it was inappropriate. It has resulted in the wrong person resigning from the Board... and its got me completely on the defensive.
Bloody hell!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Midsummer's plus six...
Now, before any of you bright bunnies out there examine this photo too closely and decide to take issue with it, let me just say that it was NOT taken at the soltice... in fact it was taken in September of 2005... but I was looking for an excuse to get a picture into the blog, and hey... midsummer's eve presented itself.
I must admit that I am not being as conscientious about posts to this blog as I had originally intended. Its sorta like starting an exercise program or a diet... you always have really good intentions, but, well, life gets in the way... you're too busy this week, or the day was really rough and you'd rather just flop and comfort yourself with something unhealthy but satisfying...
But we have decided to do a number of 'healthy' and satisfying things lately... such as purchasing a hot tub (what a brilliant investment!), restructuring our lingering debt (why did we wait so long?), consciously reducing the amount of time we watch tv (funny, but I don't really miss it much), and cutting loose a really annoying person who called herself a 'friend' (by far the most satisfying of the bunch).
Next on the agenda are any one of a number of things, not the least of which is to try to dedicate time to this blog...
...although I haven't really been paying much attention to the wider world of late. Focussing inward is important, as well as being aware of what damage the world is doing to itself. So, as part of the focusing inward, I think that I'm going to try to examine my "Short List" (see the previous post) one item at a time...
Enjoy the day...
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