The Average Blogger

Away in a Manager (No, Not a Typo.)

So after managing my little heart out during the power outage of June 7-9, I spent last Wednesday and Thursday in management training.

There weren't a lot of surprises during the two days of distraction. The first day we learned how not to get sued and how to parse annual reports. The fun thing about this is that we are owned by a British company, so fully half of our consultants flew across the pond to school us. Given that the jet lag seemed to exacerbate their use of slang, that aspect was pretty entertaining. The Don't-Get-Sued guy was a Boston lawyer who grew up in Philly, but it was a David Tennant wannabe (whose hair became spikier and wilder as the afternoon dragged on,) who did his level best to teach us how to read a balance sheet. I don't know if it was the hair or the content being delivered, but I still find our annual report fairly impenetrable, and from what the guy said most of it is a big fat smoke and mirrors show anyway, so I'm not sure what the point was. Though all the concrete stuff he did say about our parent company looked to be fairly positive.

The second day was actually only the first of two sessions  -- the second session will  last for two days in August.  We took a poor-man's Meyer's Briggs, which was interesting because you basically pop online, take a 5-minute multiple-choice survey ("I am: organized/spontaneous/emotional/insane")  and then the software spits out 15 pages of results detailing not only Who You Are but also Who You Act Like You Are.

It was no shock when the thing informed me Who I Am charts as a perfect V, with the high points indicating "I like to be in charge" and "I like to make decisions based on facts and logic and efficiency." The absolute low point, also unsurprisingly, reflected that "I don't want to share my personal probs and I certainly don't want to hear yours, please shut up and go back to work."  

It was mildly amusing to see that Who I Act Like I Am entirely wiped out this clearly defined V by a hugely concerted effort on my part to demonstrate calm, laid-back patience.

My favorite line was from a description of the category I fell into ("Developer,") that read: Others see the Developer as someone who knows her business and requires a lot from herself, but someone who
is also critical and peculiar.

I have concluded that "critical and peculiar" should be my epitaph.

So anyway, after we took this survey, we spent about 30 minutes going over our results with the group. Then the whole thing morphed into team-building exercises.  For someone who hates talking, I sure spent a lot of time representing the group to the rest of the room.  (Though perhaps that is the "likes to be in charge" aspect coming through.)  All this stuff about "how to build trust" and "how to get results," and "what are some key factors to employee development?" 

Then, at the end of the day, we basically gave ourselves three things to work on for the next couple months, and in August we all get to go back and lie about how much effort we put into it.

There actually was some value to the whole thing, but a lot of that seemed to stem from just yapping with the other participants. The lead consultant -- who looked a lot like I reckon my dad would if my dad lived in Shrewsbury and had gone into consulting -- wasn't really dispensing a lot of advice from on high. I guess maybe he felt himself more a facilitator? In any case, he mostly stayed out of the way while the rest of us sort of puzzled out why Offering Food at Meetings Is Good and how Maybe If People Constantly Misinterpret Your E-Mail, You Should Pick Up a Phone FFS. 

So all in all, there were maybe 45 minutes of value in 16 hours of sitting.  But you know what? They gave us lunch.  So I was happy. It's the little things, you know?

Stuff and Nonsense

Two weeks ago -- I was in a big push to put out a 1200-page book profiling all members of Congress and their districts, wrapping up with a 16-hour marathon before the deadline.

Then I worked all the weekend shifts so everyone else got a 3-day weekend.

Then I took Tuesday off to go deal with My Crap -- oil changes, grocery store, you know, FUN stuff.  As I was shuttling the kid to a golf session, I get a call that the power is out at the office.  Well, OK.  The power goes out sometimes, even in first-world countries. 

It doesn't usually stay out for 3 days, though. 

So there was scrambling around and finding alternate accommodations for the people putting out that night's paper. I logged on from home and helped with that, then cataloged the various things that were broken. I logged off around 1 a.m., then checked back in at 4, only to find most of the stuff was still broken.  And stayed broken til about noon.  But we got most of our stuff out the door in varying degrees of quality.

Stayed under the laptop for most of Wednesday, with a mental health break around 3, and then checking back in at 6. Went to bed around 10 that night.

More of the same Thursday -- up at 5, bashed around on copy and whatnot til about 2.  Figured we were in decent shape so I went out and got a coat of water sealant on my deck and assorted other wooden fixtures around the house. Checked back in, then went to a movie when all looked OK.  Checked in again that night and when things were still good, I made cupcakes for the office, since the power had finally been restored and the office was being resurrected.

Got up at 5 Friday and worked til 9.  Got to the office around 11, and pitched forward on management and trench stuff until 6, when the 1200-page book returned to haunt me in soft-proof stage -- we needed four copies printed. So while one person printed the original from her machine, I made 3 photo copies using help from another person and 3 different copiers.  That wrapped up around 7, when I went to confab with my boss.  We finished worktalk around 8, then hung out a bit longer for decompression venting.

Then I went home and re-read the 1200 page book and was a little horrified by how many things were wrong in it.  Today I got to the office at 5 a.m. -- my new and improved schedule now that JB is starting his new gig as the King of Op-Ed and Special Projects -- so we'll  make all those book fixes and send it back to the printer.

And then, by god, I hope to leave by 3 and be on my way to what people around here laughingly refer to as a "work-life balance."

Meanwhile, the poor Young Prince has been a bit neglected, as you might guess.  He watched us work all week, during the book, and then his classroom performance went straight to hell.

So in the middle of all this power outage drama, we had a meeting at the school with assorted authority figures -- his teacher, the PE coach, (with whom the kid had gotten into a few scuffles and we couldn't figure out why,) a counselor (whose name is Miracle Ryder, which cracks me up no end, but hey, maybe she is, what do I know?), the assistant principal and the principal. The long and short of it? Thomas is still recognized as very smart, but he's also still a total doof about proving it.  In the course of a one-hour meeting, it was suggested that he might qualify for both the gifted program and for special ed.  At the same time.  

So after that, we went to great lengths to make sure SOMEONE was chasing the kid around the yard and reminding him that we have performance expectations for him, and that he's smart and we know it, but he needs to prove it to other people by writing as well as he talks. I think he was truly astonished when I said to him, "Look.  You read at a 7th-grade level. You think at a high-school level.  You talk like an adult.  But you write like a preschooler. Unless you WANT people to think you're a dummy, you've GOT to fix this and start writing as well and quickly as you speak." I know I had never put it across to him like that before, and I'm hopeful it made a dent.  But I won't know for a couple more days.  He's got a book report he has to work on this week, and I'm curious to see how he does on his first pass unassisted.

Meanwhile, he still insisted he doesn't have time to finish his timed math tests.  Well, I proved to him that he had that one wrong too.  I said, 'How long does she give you?" And he said, "three minutes."  (Note, I seriously doubt it's 3 minutes. It might be 5, or 10, but probably not 3.) Anyway, I said, 'OK, then, let's see if it really is too hard for you to do in 3 minutes."  And I started the stopwatch and read the problems aloud to him.  Even with four or five, 'Ummmmm, Ummmmm... wait wait!! Oh! 12!" kind of stalls, he still answered them all in 2.5 minutes.  "I did??? That was less than 3 minutes??"  "Yes. So, OK, no more excuses, right?" 

So he came home the next day and was very excited that he had filled in answers for every problem on his timed test.  Apparently the teacher and I both gave the same answer: "Good! Hope you filled in the RIGHT answers for every problem!" 

I love his teacher.  I totally want to be her friend once she has fulfilled her professional obligation to my small cretin. Sigh. Only two weeks to go.  I wonder what fun will commence then!

All Moved In

So, last week was the Young Prince's spring break.  It was also my company's first week in the new building. This worked out well, on several levels.

My slave performed his labor admirably -- no complaining, except when he was worried about dropping something heavy; digging into boxes and putting stuff away unbidden, crawling under my desk to plug in assorted lamps and chargers. And when the labor was over, he maintained his delightful behavior by not running amok, but simply plopping down under my desk and reading his book until given dispensation to play his video games.  He was less pleased with the four math worksheets I threw at him every day, but he even did those without too much grief. Better, from his view, was his reward for getting them done: My new office (which I like very much and find quite a nice home away from home,) has a television -- with a plug for headphones -- so he also had cartoons aplenty. 

This was especially good given he spent three days cooped up here -- not just two, as originally anticipated.

The other nice part of having him here was that it meant the family could go out exploring as a unit. As it stands, the only thing I haven't found yet is a stairwell. (And a list of new phone extensions, but that's a diferent matter.) The rooftop "terrace" is very nice, there are a couple different places to eat close by even if you exclude Union Station, and the fitness room is much nicer than I was expecting.  The kid was a little miffed I wouldn't let him burn off some energy in there, but since I'd had to sign 2 forms promising not to sue if I fell off the treadmill I figured the Powers With Security Cameras would take a dim view of my throwing my kid on there.

Now, of course, his break is over and I'm just feeling guilty that we didn't do anything more fun than explore a new office building and let him rot his brain on TV while I read reams of copy and sat through several meetings.  So perhaps tomorrow we will make it up to him in some as-yet-undetermined fashion, weather depending.

And next year's spring break will be much, much better. And hopefully warmer.   

Overloaded

So, last week I wound up working til 3 a.m. on Friday because of the congressional pissing contest over spending for a fiscal year that is already half over.  Then I worked Saturday night. And Sunday morning. And Sunday night. 

And lo, I was cranky.

Monday had a moment of brightness: I took the Young Prince to open a savings account and he actually seemed to grasp the concept. I asked what he was going to save up for. He said he wasn't sure, but he had 10 years to decide. The bank lady suggested a car. I suggested college.  The YP said, "Hm. Maybe both.  A hybrid car so I can save money on gas and a college close to here so I can come home and eat."  It's almost like he has been listening to us over time.

Tuesday was the usual whirlwind of school/drama class/swim lessons/home just in time to eat and go to bed. There was also a bit of angst because the YP decided he was empowered to argue with his teacher about fractions.  That does not fly, and he was set straight with absolutely no room for argument -- with his teacher or his mother.

Wednesday I got up at 4:30, did my morning obligations for my job, and raced out the door at 7:10 a.m. to chaperone a field trip to the science museum in Richmond -- arriving at 7:30 to catch charter buses that didn't actually leave until about 8:45. It was a lot of fun, and the YP and I had a pretty good time. He loved the exhibits, he stayed with me and rode herd on his two little friends,  and all was ginger-peachy until the last 20 minutes or so of the (two-hour, one-way) bus ride, at which point I think The Tired hit both of us, which manifested in him getting mouthy and me getting impatient. Yet we both kept it fairly contained til we got to our own car, at which point all hell broke loose and the boy was very nearly tossed back out to walk home.  As penance, he did two hours of math homework -- more or less unbidden; I'd simply told him he could figure out a way to make it up or he could go straight to bed.  Instead he spent two hours working on double-digit subtraction.  So ... yay?

And Thursday, of course, he came home with a note that he'd behaved beautifully. This pattern, it never ends. Fortunately, next week is spring break, so we can all sort of regroup. I'll have more time to focus on how to get the best out of him, and he'll have more time to show me his best.

Meanwhile, I have also been going through my office and packing it up for the umpteenth time in this job, as we are moving again. 

When I was pregnant, my company had signed the papers to move out of an office down the street from where we are now. I packed up my boxes, went on maternity leave, and two months later I went back to work with a relatively new baby/company mascot and a brand-new desk in a brand-new building that shaved three blocks off my commute. Since then, I have changed desks three times, moved down a floor and into an office, then up a floor and into another office.  And now we are moving to a new building, closer to the Capitol, smushing in with all the employees from both branches of our outfit, with all this Change to process.  New commute, new parking rules, new place to sit, new floorplan, new neighborhood.

I should be excited.  Frankly, I'm just wiped the hell out.

Which is kind of weird, because life in general is a lot less complicated than the last time my office moved. Heck, I've even got slave labor to carry assorted boxes up to my new digs -- even if he is a rather short and scatterbrained slave.

So Monday, the Blogger family is reverting to an old tradition and piling into the car and heading into the city as a unit. Not Your Average Blogger will fix up his new space -- a window seat! -- and the YP and I will set about organizing my space, then we will all head over to the Capitol complex for our annual visit: NYAB and I will get updated press passes; we will visit my favorite building; we will probably wolf down some lunch. Then we will head back to work, where I will read copy and the kid will work on his fractions.Without arguing.

On top of all this, I am mulling the idea of churning out 100 or so jars of jelly to sell at a library fundraiser thingie. The deal is I pay $50 to the fundraiser for table space, then I get to keep whatever money I make selling stuff. I figured I have to sell 25 jars to make up the cost of the table, so anything beyond that is good news for me.

And yet ... didn't I just say I was exhausted? Why am I thinking like this? A new swing and deck stand arrived yesterday that I could put together instead and just laze on for the whole rest of the summer. How come that isn't at the top of my list?

L-7

In the past month:

The YP didn't get into a play he auditioned for.

I didn't get a job I interviewed for.

NYAB and I went to a casino and while we didn't lose all we'd allotted, we didn't come out ahead, either.

But here's the thing.  Doing all that stuff?  Way worth the loss. Sure, a different outcome would have been nice, but things are pretty good as they stand, and the experiences were educational and heartening.  Getting there was more than half the fun.

I'm having a harder time remembering that about the everyday aspects of living, I'm sorry to say.

The kid's school experience is just full of peaks and valleys, but the valleys seem a bit deeper now. We get fewer reports of problems, but what we do hear about is more extreme. Like he saves it all up and lets fly with one really horrible day, as opposed to one or two daily mishaps spread over the course of a few days.

Meanwhile, my job is less volatile, but I think I'm under sea level more than I'm over it these days, and that makes it harder to stomach the really bad things when they pop up out of nowhere. Fortunately, most of those really bad things spring from areas where I have no control and/or the impact on me is minimal, but it's still just more noise to deal with.

And at home? I'm trying to figure out what to do for my birthday. Originally I was supposed to spend my birthday in a leadership training seminar at work, but it got rescheduled. I suppose pretty much anything will be an improvement on that. NYAB had one plan that got a flat refusal from other quarters, and I'm sort of all over the place about it. I understand, but I'm irritated. I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed for NYAB, who basically had his first effort at doing this sort of thing stomped on. I'm probably a little relieved as it lessens the impact of future criticisms from those quarters, but I'm also overreacting in my internal insistence that it'll be more fun without them anyway. So, yeah, I don't know where that lands me overall. Oh, well.

On the plus side, my birthday is also is a harbinger of warmer weather, which considerably brightens moods around here. So glad February is out the door as of this evening!

Blah, Blah, It's Been Said Better Elsewhere

But that doesn't stop me.

I may have mentioned before that I run a department at my place of employ.  One of the perquisites of this vaunted position is that when stuff happens on a weekend, I get to fill in as muscle and tissue on our otherwise skeleton crew. This basically means that from about 5 p.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday, I was immersed in the news out of Arizona, reading file after file about what it meant for various pieces of legislation, what it meant for Congress, what it meant for ... well, just about everyone except, you know, the people who actually suffered in the event.

 And the theme that kept coming back, over and over -- we should not be surprised that this wackjob opened fire in a grocery store parking lot. Why not? Well, because of the inflamed level of political rhetoric.

 Of course. How foolish of me not to realize.

 Because, see, to me that's about as silly as blaming his parents for bad genetics. Or blaming Giffords for not voting the way he thought she should. Or blaming that 9-year-old girl for being in a bad place at a bad time.

 Don't get me wrong, I do think political discourse has reached some ridiculous extremes. I think the anonymity of the Internet isn't always a good thing. Second only to religion, politics is a case where it is really sickening to read what people will post when they aren't worried about the consequences.

 And I suppose if there is a way to make some good come of this horrific event, this is as acceptable an avenue as any. I'm a big fan of anything that goads our generally savage natures into being a little more civilized and polite. I think we all -- and I do mean all: politicians, my colleagues in the media, and most of all the Great Unwashed Commenting Public -- would get a lot farther in getting things done if we could just say, "Hm. You know, from where I'm sitting that argument doesn't really hang together, and here is why, let's figure out how to fix it," than when we do things like, say, compare our opponents to Hitler, or throw bricks through their windows, or start talking about how such and such a policy is the worst thing since forever and we are all going to die.

 But that's sort of the point. Most people don't throw bricks. Most people don't buy a Glock and rip into a crowd of bystanders. In a face-to-face exchange, only those brimming with vitriol who have zero interest in results bother to bring up Hitler.

 My husband is fond of saying that we don't write highway laws based solely on the way Gary Busey rides a motorcycle. I'm pretty sure we should not rewrite our mores based solely on the way Jared Loughner might have interpreted something someone said some time.

 Everything I've read about Loughner pretty much tells me that he was every bit as likely to have looked at his bowl of Cheerios that morning and seen dozens of cross hair symbols floating in the milk. 

 Or, you know, maybe the neighbor's dog gave him a gentle nudge toward the Safeway.

 So if you are one of those people who thinks that this shooting never would have happened if Sarah Palin had just left those dang cross hairs off her campaign site, I'm sorry, you are simply part of the problem, looking for a way to advance your own agenda on the back of a terrible situation.

 If you are one of the people who thinks this is what Giffords gets for voting against Pelosi as minority leader, I find you genuinely disturbing.

But if you are someone who thinks this was a terrible thing and that perhaps the blame lies somewhere other than Mean Words, that perhaps we should be trying to figure out how this looly got himself a gun and that we should maybe be a little more cognizent of the general mental state of those around us, well, you're the person I want next to me on the bus.

If you are a rational human being, one of the Rest of Us, someone who thinks the Internet is awesome as long as you don't read any of the comments under the news stories, who always -- always, no matter what is going on -- wants to see this country trying harder to do better than it already is, who chooses to believe that most people in public office aren't in it as some kind of malicious plot to bring down the other side, who cares about your family and who aches when things like this happen, you are the person I want to know. You are the person I want to vote for.  

A Wonderful, Awful Week

Cookiefest 2010 was delightful. I think I've got the whole thing down to a pretty smooth process now that lets me actually enjoy the prep and the party, and even the cleanup, a little bit.

Congress, however, sucks.  That is all.

If they ever leave and I can stand to be near a computer for non-work-related purposes, I will post more. Meantime, I leave you with this: Another bat turned up in the kid's room Monday night. The exterminator arrives today to tell us we officially have bats in our belfry.  Around the same time, we are getting a shmancy new huge TV set for our bedroom -- which means even if the room is exorcised, the kid will never go in there again anyway, so I'm not sure why we don't just let the bats have it.  

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Blogging While Taciturn...

Doesn't really work.  But that's where I'm at.  Stuff's happened, I'm tired, talking is overrated.

The party was great.  The kids had fun, the laundry room haunted lab was scary but not too scary, the pizza was late but the kids ate it up. Takeaway lesson: Fake blood is a huge hit with the second-grade set -- even the girls, which kind of surprised me. Of course, there was that one kid who barfed when he saw it.  Oh, well. It's not a party til someone gets sick, I guess. I was more dismayed to learn he didn't know his phone number to call his mom to come get him.  (Scuse me while I enjoy this fleeting moment of smug superiority.)

The election ... ran its course.  No partisan speaking here.  The resulting work week seemed generally tolerable for everyone -- except me, which I guess is how it's supposed to go.  I'm not happy about it, and I'd be happier if I had any kind of faith that the solution for next time wouldn't again be "AB works more 40-hour workdays" (yes, literally, 40 hours for one of them -- the rest clocked in anywhere between 10 and 13,)  but for now I'll be happy that it only happens every two years, and that I did find a couple of things to suggest that might make the next time smoother. This week is another stunner, with Veterans Day looking to clock in at 16 hours in the office. Yay. I'm starting to think I need to find a new job. 

In other news, I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping/preparing.  And in two weeks, my good mood will be restored as I haul out all the winter decorations and prettify the house.

Not Your Average Blogger has asked me for my Christmas list.  Here is what I have on it so far: A laptpop and a Swiffer wet jet.  I am pathetic, y'all.  What do you think I should ask for? Give me some better ideas!

Time Keeps Passing

Well, with the help of Not Your Average Blogger, I finally got around to doing some work in our flower bed.  The weeds are no longer taller than the azalea bushes.  Progress. Baby steps. Whatever, I'll try again next year. The rest of the yard looks pretty good. 

Work is about to enter a phase of insanity.  The elections are next week, which means I will basically go to work Tuesday night and not come home until Wednesday night, and then I will shuttle between the office and home but spend pretty much all the rest of my time under a laptop for three straight days.

With all that, what better time to schedule a party?  The kid's annnual Halloween Event will be held Friday this year.  As the kids get older, I'm making things a little scarier for them -- holding it at sundown instead of mid-afternoon, and this year we've set up a "haunted lab" in our laundry room.  I dunno. It's not particularly scary, and yesterday the Young Prince reproached me for always having his events in the basement instead of our living room (I guess it's not a party until someone's thrown up on the couch?) but it should be fun, I hope. I realized yesterday that I committed a cardinal error in not keeping the e-mail lists from his last two years of school -- there would be a much larger guest list.  Oh, well. Live and learn. Ten kids is enough, no?

In other scary news -- we got the report back from the analyst about the Young Prince.  He is now more or less officially ADHD-combined form. (That is, the report is written, but some other doctor is giving it the once-over before they let us see the thing in its entirety.) They couldn't determine if he has some touch of Asperbergers, because all his handlers have such wildly divergent answers about his coping skills.

Well. This changes everything.  Except, really, it doesn't change a damn thing. 

So, we have a label.  And I guess that is something we can use as an excuse when things go badly, and maybe use it for some kind of special classroom consideration or extra indulgence in Important Tests or I don't know what.  But the thing is, the label isn't really any huge help.  It isn't like, "Oh, your kid has asthma, we will give him an inhaler," or "Oh, your kid has scurvy, let's feed him some citrus." There isn't really any concrete diagnosis and course of treatment. It's more like playing whack-a-mole with the various things that pop up.  Fix how he always hummed in class, watch him lose focus on classwork. Fix the focus, watch him start to fight with classmates. Get him so he understands how to work in a group, watch him ... I don't know, start setting fires or something.

And putting a tag on his sometimes-looly behavior doesn't really change the fact that we have expectations that he will manage this looly behavior to the best of his ability. We aren't bothering to tell him that he's got a label now, because what is the point? He'd just latch on to it as some new and strange identifier and reason Not to Do Things. I've always held him to certain standards -- which, admittedly, probably aren't as high as other parents set for their kids, but they are standards nonetheless, and I will continue to set them and hold him to them. I can only assume they are a reasonable standards; sometimes he meets them, sometimes not.  And usually when he doesn't, he understands what he did wrong, we talk about how to do it right, and why he can't keep messing it up. Isn't that how this works for pretty much everyone else?

The most I'm hoping for out of this, I guess, is that these experts who see this all the time and blablabla will actually have some theories and strategies to make things a little easier for the poor kid.  Nobody wants to medicate him at this point, and that makes me happy. We've instituted a lot of changes at home -- way more exercise, some diet changes, other stuff. He seems to be doing better in school this year; our first Meeting with School Officials didn't leave me nearly as miserable and hopeless as previous encounters, though there are still areas that need work, obviously.  But he seems to be doing well on tests,and he brings home positive behavior cards more often than not these days, so something is working -- he's figuring it out, we are making a difference, his teacher is much more on our wavelength than in years past? Whatever, I'll take it. 

And he continues to be off-the-charts smart with the stuff I'm showing him at home, so I can't help but hope we are going the right direction. He's whipped through the kid version of the Odyssey and knows all the monsters by heart.  He is still rabid about Dr. Who, and I can't recommend that show enough as it has sparked his interest in Van Gogh, Italy and Winston Churchill, not to mention outer space and filmmaking. He's perceptive, he sees connections between things that continually surprise me, and I think he's still mostly happy.  He's still proud of us, which is nice -- he's the only kid I see at parties and school events who drags friends over to meet his parents. Perhaps he just needs to be 30 to be functional. Working in small groups doesn't have to be as important then, depending on his career choice.  Right?

 

Work, Sleep, Leave

That's about it for me this week.  I'm in the office from 5 a.m. til at least 6 or 7 p.m. every day this week, then leaving at 5 a.m. Saturday for what will be a much-needed week of vacation.  Actually, it is already a much-needed vacation, but it will be That Much More So by Saturday. 

Have a good rest of July, y'all.