me, of late….

well, the last few weeks have been crazy, and there are no signs of things slowing down for the foreseeable future, however, today i have decided to take a big ‘ole sigh and reflect a bit…

one of my major stressors lately has been work. there was this position open that works integrally with me, and over the last couple of years, it’s been kind of a mess. the position was created when two departments were split and this new management position created. the first person who had it wasn’t what i would call dedicated and it took marriage and a child to make her go away. she’s a really nice person and i saw her just last week, but as a manager, she seemed more interested in being friends with anyone than being an acutal supervisor. this is the person who overseas the customer and student services portion of the department i work for. then, they put someone in the position on a temporary status who decided she liked it and wanted to continue. for the first time since i have been here (almost six years), they did not choose the person who has been functioning in the position to fill it permanently. this sort of pissed me off, because i have a lot to do, and frankly, i don’t have time to break in another new manager. not to mention the fact that three times now i have trained someone in a management position who makes significantly more money than i do. what’s wrong with this picture?!?!!?

so, the new manager. well, my first thing against him was that i don’t think he should have gotten the job. the second thing against him is that he’s a man, which i think is horrible for this position because generally speaking, men do not multi-task well, and it’s a pretty big requirement of this job. but, being the team player i am, i said i would do whatever it took to make him successful. so, he starts about a month ago, and i start training with him right away. he doesn’t write anything down, and he won’t read any of the information that has been given to him in order to make him learn his job easier. sort of the "wisdom of others" type thing, some written by me and some by the person who had the position in an interim capacity. then, his wife works on campus too, and she comes over, calls and emails CONSTANTLY. i don’t know where she works, but her office is OBVIOUSLY not like ours because this is our busy time and we just don’t have time for this. so last weekend, i gave up my saturday to help out with registering one of the largest kids programs we have. we trained about 15 to process registrations and did about 1500 in one day, less than eight hours. well, that creates a tremendous amount of paper that subsequently has to be mailed out because it’s seven weeks of summer camp for kids and we have to confirm, print statements, and send out health forms. this office has been understaffed for months, and this is the time when it shows the most. so, monday, the man tells me he’s going to be there at 6:30, so i show up at that time to make sure he doesn’t ruin anything….he shows up at 9 and stays for half a day and leaves and noon because he doesn’t feel well. tuesday, he says he will be in early, doesn’t show up until 9, goes for coffee with the wife at 10, lunch at noon, then to get a soda at 2, and home at 4. ummm. no. wednesday, he shows up again at 9, then at 10, the wife calls him and tells him he has to do carpool something with the kids, so he has to leave for three hours because he lives in BFE. in the meantime, i am running his department for him and managing the getting out of all this material in the face of being short staffed and all the staff who’s there being stressed because they aren’t used to all this. the rest of the week was similar. i am frustrated with him, but we got out all the paper at the end of the week last week, and now it’s time for him to exist on his own. i think he made a poor decision with an internal promotion also, but he will have to live with that also. i have washed my hands of the situation and now intend to be a distant support and a fly on the wall. he is on his own, and this is my time to breathe in, breathe out, and watch everything blow up. i have done what i could =)

this week is going to be fun stress =) i have three rehearsals this week for three shows this coming weekend for the dance recital at the community college where i take my bellydancing class. if anyone wants to see a small video of me dancing, here it is: http://dropshots.com/day.php?userid=57017&cdate=20060409

there are rehearsals mon-wed-thurs and shows fri-sat-sun. should be fun-fun-fun!!

i am in the center of the stage, the big yellow-looking costume with the black waist thingie. please keep in mind that this video was taken by one of my dance sister’s husbands who was also trying to wrangle two children along with the video camera. if you get vertigo easily, you might not wanna look….ahahahaha. good luck with that =) 

my daughter’s birthday was kind of uneventful. she was gone for most of the weekend, and allowed us to buy her lunch and give her presents for her birthday, then she took off with her friends again. i suppose that’s the nature of the beast when you are talking about teenagers, but it still hurt a little bit.

i think that’s all i want to write, right now.

i should probably do more, shorter entries, rather than these epic ones, but i got to write when i can =)

take care all!

peace!