A full day...

[fajrdrako]

First I got to work early, which was good, but made for a long day. The Para Transpo driver who took me home was very chatty; we were talking about pets, and I showed her my budgies when we got to my place. She's a dog-lover, as I am, and has a hobby farm. Cool.

Then commodorified came over and we went for a walk. Yes, an honest to goodness walk. Sort of. She was very helpful in advising me about why my hips were hurting and how to stop staring at my feet as I walked, and how to keep my body from stiffening up. I ended with walking barefoot in the grass by the duck pond.

Afterwards, maaseru and I went out for ice cream.

Then I phoned a friend of mine who hadn't spoken to me since November. At first she was a little stiff, but we were united in worry over our friend Harry (currently in the hospital, and in pain) and we ended up talking for a long time. It made me feel better about things: best case scenario.

Comments

Is Life Weird, or What?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Casting back over that verbal muff-up: it's totally gone and behind us now, and last night was a back-to-normal chat with this coworker (a former union steward who was telling me Las Vegas stories). And the blueberries continue to be delicious.

Best to both Harry and Sheila. I so wish I could do anything to help.

Hey, uh, oddly enough, today my plant manager told me and my area-coworkers that she intends to abolish all nine of our jobs tomorrow. Then I get online and read your post from the fifteenth...? Ai, enough of the shared karma! I could take my dropping a tabletop on my right foot the night you were getting out of surgery... I can take all the other direct coincidences... but this is much too much. I wouldn't wish my wacky job situation on you. Here I thought the OLT was old enough, and enough of an Ottawa fixture, that it was -- er -- idiot-proof, may I say? Don't try to screw up something that's working well? I am so sorry the flow of events has taken the OLT and you to this point. I know you will stand up and walk away from it towards something that welcomes you gladly.

Back to my plant manager...: She cannot actually do those job changes tomorrow; she has to have the approval of our union president, and he's not been contacted (he's on vacation till the 21st). She seems to think that she can write it all up and then simply tell our chief steward, who will nod and smile and say ok...? Nope! The chief steward is not legally permitted to authorize any such major job changes. So: I still have my current position. And will calmly wait to see what happens next. (And I can't be laid off: it's in our national contract. For that I am unspeakably grateful.)

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

last night was a back-to-normal chat with this coworker (a former union steward who was telling me Las Vegas stories).

Excellent!

Best to both Harry and Sheila. I so wish I could do anything to help.

Yes. Me too.

today my plant manager told me and my area-coworkers that she intends to abolish all nine of our jobs tomorrow.

You're kidding!

Then I get online and read your post from the fifteenth...? Ai, enough of the shared karma!

Let's share some good Karma, okay? Winning lotteries, good health, artistic successes - ?

Here I thought the OLT was old enough, and enough of an Ottawa fixture, that it was -- er -- idiot-proof, may I say?

Ahem. May I remind you of Murphy's Law?

I know you will stand up and walk away from it towards something that welcomes you gladly.

That's a good thought. I like that thought.

So: I still have my current position. And will calmly wait to see what happens next.

Me too! Good luck to us both.

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

< today my plant manager told me and my area-coworkers that she intends to abolish all nine of our jobs tomorrow. >

You're kidding!

Oh, no, I'm not kidding. But notice how un-upset I am over it. It was a joke, basically. The plant manager can make no such job changes without running them by the president of the local, and she NEVER EVER DOES THAT AT ALL EVER because she's nothing but a silly doofus ("doofus" is my word of the summer!). But there she was, walking in on me and my coworker in the break room, not even calling all three of us into the office as she properly, professionally should have; and then I flat-out asked her if she had run this by the union, and she said something like, I will tomorrow and then I'm posting the jobs. Well, that didn't happen. I know it didn't, even though I was not there to see it not happen. She was meeting with the Clerk Craft Director, not the president, who is on vacation till Monday. Doofus!

I am, you may now see, stuck in a situation headed by someone both unprofessional and basically unable to perform her duties either competently or legally. And she thinks we're the ones who are making the problems at the place. Ai. This is a textbook example of incompetence in middle management brought about by giving jobs to people who have done you favors in the past, regardless of their abilities to perform the duties of the position. Every supervisor in our place is like this: someone whom someone owed a favor. I don't get upset any more. I just pay attention and make mental notes.

Let's share some good Karma, okay?

I think we're due. Well, today I was sitting on my porch trying to wake up enough to set out to do errands, feeling oddly and totally overwhelmed by negative intuition (maybe the above-mentioned plant manager is snarling curses at me from afar! wouldn't be surprised), and just as I was wondering if I would ever catch a break all day, I heard a noise. A hum. Then I saw the hummingbird approaching my feeder, which I was sitting right next to. I froze. It came close and backed off, several times, and still I didn't move. Finally it came in and drank, then backed off. It did this about ten times. Cute! At some point, I realized I was also holding my breath, in my effort not to scare it away. So I breathed again. Goodness, it was an amazing little creature.

So -- there, a little bit of good karma! In the hum of a tiny little bird's wings. At least I took it as such.

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<i> < today my plant manager told me and my area-coworkers that she intends to abolish all nine of our jobs tomorrow. >

You're kidding!</i>

Oh, no, I'm not kidding. But notice how un-upset I am over it. It was a joke, basically. The plant manager can make no such job changes without running them by the president of the local, and she NEVER EVER DOES THAT AT ALL EVER because she's nothing but a silly doofus ("doofus" is my word of the summer!). But there she was, walking in on me and my coworker in the break room, not even calling all three of us into the office as she properly, professionally should have; and then I flat-out asked her if she had run this by the union, and she said something like, I will tomorrow and then I'm posting the jobs. Well, that didn't happen. I know it didn't, even though I was not there to see it not happen. She was meeting with the Clerk Craft Director, not the president, who is on vacation till Monday. Doofus!

I am, you may now see, stuck in a situation headed by someone both unprofessional and basically unable to perform her duties either competently or legally. And she thinks we're the ones who are making the problems at the place. Ai. This is a textbook example of incompetence in middle management brought about by giving jobs to people who have done you favors in the past, regardless of their abilities to perform the duties of the position. Every supervisor in our place is like this: someone whom someone owed a favor. I don't get upset any more. I just pay attention and make mental notes.

<i>Let's share some good Karma, okay?</i>

I think we're due. Well, today I was sitting on my porch trying to wake up enough to set out to do errands, feeling oddly and totally overwhelmed by negative intuition (maybe the above-mentioned plant manager is snarling curses at me from afar! wouldn't be surprised), and just as I was wondering if I would ever catch a break all day, I heard a noise. A hum. Then I saw the hummingbird approaching my feeder, which I was sitting right next to. I froze. It came close and backed off, several times, and still I didn't move. Finally it came in and drank, then backed off. It did this about ten times. Cute! At some point, I realized I was also holding my breath, in my effort not to scare it away. So I breathed again. Goodness, it was an amazing little creature.

So -- there, a little bit of good karma! In the hum of a tiny little bird's wings. At least I took it as such.

<i> <I know you will stand up and walk away from it towards something that welcomes you gladly. >

That's a good thought. I like that thought.</i>

Yes. I worked on that one. Phrased just right, I think!

And we both have our current positions, and life will continue to turn. Except that I have that same feeling that tomorrow I'm going to return to work right into the face of massive management anger, just in general because I'm a union member who speaks up too often [ha], and also because someone has to be the target of a venting of general displeasure. Well, it won't kill me. It hasn't so far!

You hang in there, too. And try not to give in to the urge to start taking stuff home with you from the OLT storerooms. Not that it won't make you feel better, but ... gee, it's just wrong [g].

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like your hummingbird story.

Quite right: there's nothing to panic over. Things will unfold.

Your workplace is a good example of the need for unions, and people willing to put effort into maintaining them.

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I liked my hummingbird!

The "butterfly bush" plants are growing well now -- one is very much bushier than the other, and its flowers started to open a day ago. I look forward to seeing creatures sipping nectar there.

Things will unfold. It is fascinating to think that I am in the middle of something as chaotic as any time in my life, yet I know that I have little control, and I'm just watching things happen. I said that poorly. Um... okay, I think you already know what I was saying!

Your workplace is a good example of the need for unions, and people willing to put effort into maintaining them.

It is! Thanks for reminding me so cogently. Thankfully, we are indeed mostly all sticking together on this, and the union seems quite strong. Thank god it's there.

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

If we had a union, things would no doubt be different. As it is... well.

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

After today's workday, I feel as bad as you do. It seems there is a good chance that those of us who believed that these job changes were illegally done, and would be struck down, are wrong, and that they are correctly done after all and thus we all will just have to suck it up and live with what's going to happen. I feel cruddy right now. Not because I'll have egg on my face if it turns out that I was wrong, but because I hate feeling used, disrespected, disregarded, and helpless. Yeah, do I feel like you do, then? Sorrily, yes, I think so.

If you had a union, you might still have to deal with this. Unions can do only so much. But... locate someone connected with the IWW and ask them to help you organize. May not be too late.

I have to tell you about my hummingbird-type moth, now. This other stuff is too depressing!

I came out of the house today on my way to work, to water the plants on the porch. My one butterfly bush has bloomed; it's near the hummingbird feeder. I was standing near there when I heard the sound of a hummingbird's wings (it's very distinctive!). I looked up, didn't see anyone at the feeder. Then I saw somethng very small hovering at the butterfly bush. Wow, I thought, is that a thumb-sized Eastern Whatever Hummingbird that the experts tell us is never seen in Pennsylvania, but which I have seen and my mother has seen and several other sensible people have also seen? I went carefully closer, and saw that it was probably too small for that... it was bumblebee size. And it was hovering at the flowers, moving in the air exactly like a hummingbird. What the deuce! I stepped right up beside the bush and got a good look at it -- unlike a hummingbird, it did not startle and flee. It was about an inch long, a third of an inch wide in the body, and its wings appeared in the same blur-and-triangle that a hovering hummingbird's would. But it had moth antennae! Whoa!! And it was fuzzy. Its body was a fat moth's body. It was olive-drab green on the "shoulders," down about halfway, at which there was a band of buff color, and then the rest was black, with two bright white dots on its left side and two more on its right side, and one rich brown splotch right on its hind end. It let me look at it a good long time. Wow, what an experience. When I got to work I drew it so that I wouldn't forget the details, and I was startled to notice that the dots and blotch gave the appearance of a face, seen from the creature's rear. Nifty.

So. There exists a hummingbird moth that likes to eat nectar in broad daylight! Is that cool, or what?

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I never heard of a moth acting like that. Neat!

Sorry to hear about your work problems. I hope things turn out all right. Meanwhile - it's worrying, isn't it?

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Sphinx, a coworker told me today. I'm fascinated.

Yeah, it's... sigh. Why? What's the point in it all? Someone somewhere looks at a computer print-out and thinks that this or that will be more cost-effective, or efficient. Totally bypassing the fact that people are between those lines. Karl Marx called it "alientated labor": when your work does not give you immediate benefit, as does a farmer's or an artisan's, but instead gives you money and you have to go buy what you need while your employer takes care of choosing what you're going to do next.

Things will turn out all right, I know. For me. And for you, too -- after all, you are in a wonderful city full of openings and can just take a deep breath and step towards something satisfying and good. (Be positive. Oh,yeah.) For me, stuff happens, but I'm not going anywhere. Frustrating, is all. And scary to be at someone else's whim like this. Live and learn.

Re: Is Life Weird, or What?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Not many people have real control over their lives; those who do are lucky.