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 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
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Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| The union shop steward has been promoted to management. Today she was organizing records to get things in order for her successor. We had fun reminiscing, and laughing over some of the grievances she has dealt with. Our favorites . . . 1. A manager was grieved by her entire department for requiring her staff to use vacation time when they failed to return to work following a training. Apparently they stayed for the free lunch, and then went home. 2. A group of employees grieved the fiscal department for not issuing pay checks after they failed to submit time sheets. 3. A manager was grieved for harassment after telling an employee that she "looked really good for her age." The employee felt the remark was racist. 4. Fiscal was grieved for denying a personal mileage reimbursement claim for a worker because she hated all of her colleagues and would not ride in an agency car with any of them. 5. A manager was grieved for creating a hostile work environment when he responded to an email in all caps. I am so glad to be a non-supervisory manager now. No one grieves me anymore.  |
| Warning: Do not attempt to operate heavy equipment or drive a motor vehicle after reading this entry. Sometimes I have to write about the boring work stuff just to purge it from my system. I thought this was Tuesday. Ignoring all evidence to the contrary, I went through the first several hours convinced it was Tuesday. Even argued the fact - though not successfully - with the boss-man.  It's been that sort of week. Actually it started last week with the discovery that large chunk of our billing was not being processed, and therefore wasn't getting paid. Now I would have thought this would be something our fiscal department might have been on top of, but the short answer , , , not so much. 1. They are very busy. 2. Historically the rate of billing rejections has been so low that they decided years ago that it wasn't worth the man power to sift through the Remittance Advice and track denials 3. There have been so many changes, and in their efforts to ignore said changes, they might have missed the fact that things have changed. 4. Did I mention that they are really busy? 5. They were distracted by the enormity of having a half million dollar deficit at the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year. Now, our agency can and has been described as "quasi-governmental." I can only assume that the problems we experience are reflective of a far greater dysfunction on up the line. There was a small meeting last week between the boss-man, his boss, the CFO (chief financial officer), and regrettably . . . me. Yeah, I was trying out some new reports that had come available and I noticed that out of approximately 6000 claims submitted in a billing cycle, only six had been paid. I inquired to the boss-man, and that seems to have set things in motion. Now I am up to my neck in trying to make sense of Claim Status Reports, and all of them are telling me the same thing. Our half million dollar deficit is the result of us not getting paid. Here's the funny part: 1. No one knows why the claims are being rejected. 2. No one knows how to resubmit a claim (Remember, there were never enough rejections to make it worth doing in the past) So the CFO proposed that we freeze hiring and request a higher rate to alleviate the cash crunch. Sigh. 1. Out of 22 positions, 3 are vacant. That is three positions that are producing no billable work, and 19 others who are too overwhelmed to give a shit about billing 2. A higher rate doesn't help if the billing is rejected. Too make a long story longer, the boss-man's boss has decided that the CFO and I need to work together to resolve the issue. And this is why I don't even know what day of the week it is! |
| "Ma'am, before I can let you vote, I'm going to have to ask that you remove your shirt." Ummmm . . . yeah, it could happen! Ignoring a slew of bigger issues, the democrats and republicans in Pennsylvania have decided to polarize, bicker, and file suit over the issue of voter attire. The question: Should voters be allowed to wear political clothing and buttons into the polling place? Apparently, some counties are planning to turn away voters who arrive at the polls wearing their political views on their sleeves - or chests, or back, etc. - unless they cover up, or remove the offending expression. The argument is that there is a slippery slope here. It will start with shirts and buttons, but where will it stop? Musical hats? At least one republican leader expressed fears that it could go that far. Since musical hats are a sure sign of The End of Days, we should all be afraid. Very afraid. What will prevent the candidate's supporters from creating an intimidating, presence within the polling place? At my polling place, as the voters sign in, they give us each a colored square of paper to indicate our party. We stand in line with our colored squares waiting for a booth to come available. Now, do you suppose a person with a little red square might feel unnerved by a large group of blue-square-clutching, Obama-t-shirt-wearing voters? Some say "yes." They are mostly Republicans. Some say "no." They are mostly Democrats. The official position of the state is that attire supporting a candidate is allowable as long as the show of support is entirely passive. The official position of half the counties in Pennsylvania is "Screw you! We'll do what we want. What are you going to do anyway? Sue us?" Personally, I think it is a way to divert attention away from the real issues of voting irregularity in Pennsylvania, but that's a different story for a different day. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_el_pr/what_voters_wear |
| I like going to Home Depot except for the garden center where the mice live a little too good of a life on the abundance of broken bags of birdseed. When I visit the garden center people look at me with anxious concern because I feel the need to periodically stamp my feet just to frighten off any mice that might be planning a siege. Once I am inside the store I can relax in the relative safety - in spite of all the big red signs warning of potential dangers.  I like Home Depot (and Lowes too, but Home Depot is closer) because it is a place of infinite possibilities. I do not have a shred of know how, but somehow I can wander the aisles with the cheery optimism that I could learn how to put in a tile backsplash if I really wanted to. Thankfully, I don't want to! Mostly I go to Home Depot for mundane things . . . filters for the air conditioner, paints, and brushes, plastic sheeting, duct tape . . . things of that sort. But, I watch a lot of TLC, and sometimes suffer from delusions of competence. I mean, how hard can it be to build shelves. The nail gun part looks like great fun. Anyone remember the show that featured all the screwed up home improvement projects that homeowners had started? On that show, they sent in a team of skilled people to salvage the botched projects, and to give all the DIY folks at home handy tips for avoiding the same mistakes. I loved it when the advice amounted to something simple like "Dude! Buy a level." Now that was some reality television! I don't think that show lasted very long though. As much as I like Home Depot, my son hates that store, so his cooperation on this outing was rewarded with a trip to McDonalds. The woman at the counter was impatient and I felt very rushed as I completed the Happy Meal transaction. When she slid the box across the counter to me she seemed to read my mind. "I don't have time to be polite. You can see how busy we are." Seems to me she could have said "Thank you and have a nice day" in that same amount of time. It was supposed to be a HAPPY MEAL. Instead I got an I-don't-have-time-to-care-about-your-freaking-happiness meal. |
| Yesterday morning my son had his first melt down of the school year. I still don't know what the issue was exactly, but he became increasingly tearful as his bus time approached. He claimed at first that he was too sick for school. He managed to force a couple stage coughs. Tony had the day off, and was willing to keep him home, but I don't want to reinforce the behavior. Zack continued to up the ante. By the end, he was claiming that he hears scary voices in his head when he is at school. Tony asked what the voices said. "They said the same things that I was thinking." Tony says it is very common for autistic children to report hearing voices because they have difficult sorting out their own inner dialogue. Tony kept him home. He wasn't worried about the voices, but he was worried over Zack coming so unhinged. I guess we'll see what Monday brings. It's possible that Zack takes after his Mommy because I'm hearing all kinds of voices in my head lately. Of course, in my case they belong to the characters I'm developing for nano, but they are still incredibly distracting. |
| A happy day because it is after all Friday. Also a happy day because it was the last for a certain colleague at work. I skipped her going away luncheon. She left a large file of her work in my mailbox with a note on it "to do," and ended her day an hour early. I deactivated her user account the minute she logged off our system. On the way out the door she gave a final shout-out to the department. "Peace Out, Bitches!" It's how I'll always remember her. |
| Writing is a lot like parenting. As wrapped up in it as I may be, and as much as I'd love to share - in detail - the challenges and joys of each stage of development, no one can be expected to share my unbridled enthusiasm . . . with the possible exception of my mother. And that's why I keep a separate writing journal. I don't have characters for this would-be book yet, or a plot for that matter. Suprisingly, the one thing I have in spades in confidence. I just did a 15 minute writing exercise, and I got through 698 words in 15 minutes. At that rate, I could hit my daily word count in just 38 minutes a day unless I messed up the math. I have more confidence in the writing than the math! Disclaimer: You may want to quit reading now because the remainder of this is going to sound very petty and vindictive because it is. Let's see . . . what else? Oh yes! The title of this entry. Gleeful? Well I am. I am full of freakin' glee. Why? Well Friday is the last day of work for a certain nemesis of mine and I couldn't be happier about it if I was personally conducting her exit interview. The sweetest part is that she took so much sick time in the last month - to be certain she used it all - that she is now "in the hole" and will have to pay the agency back for the time. Also, her absenteeism has resulted in a great deal of incomplete work that she must finish before her final check will be issued. She was so irate today that she nearly walked off the job. Unfortunately, the smoke from the burning bridge was so thick she could not find the exit. My guess is that she will have committed multiple acts of medicaid fraud by the end of the week in her effort to doctor records so it will appear she's been doing her job all along. I figure my enjoyment of this is earning me a special place in hell. I imagine I might even get a booth. Something with a tri-fold display board, and endless brochures and pamphlets and TV showing a video in an endless loop. Yep, I envision it being a lot like the annual community Business Expo, only with fewer free pens. There are no free pens in hell. |
A manager in my department told me today that she is so worried about the current economic crisis that she is getting up an hour early to watch the news coverage before work. I'm glad to know she's on top of it because that really frees up my time. No sense in both of us worrying about it.  So instead I am pondering the ways in which we use language. How many times do you say "I'm sorry" on any given day? Do you say it when you don't really mean it? Do you say it when you haven't done anything that calls for an apology?" I do! I say so frequently that it seems to have lost all meaning. For example: "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch that last part. Could you repeat the number?" "I'm sorry, my computer is taking a long time to load this page. I'll have that information for you in just a minute." "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to move our meeting to another conference room." "I'm sorry but your proof of insurance has expired. I'm going to have to ask you to update our records." "I'm sorry, but a two day waiting period for a semi-automatic hand gun is just plain stupid! How am I supposed to know where that bastard will be on Friday?" I think women are much more likely to do this than men. Men seem to have trouble saying I'm sorry even when an apology is called for. As often as not, when they do apologize, it comes out rather backwards. For example: "Sorry you all had to crowd into the backseat, but I was thinking about leg room, not the size of your asses." "Sorry if I implied that you're being a bitch, but did you every consider hormone replacement therapy." "I'm sorry I didn't say anything about your new hairdo. I DID notice it. I just figured you probably hated it, so I wasn't going to mention how short it is." You get the idea. Now, I'm going to end this abruptly and unapologetically. Times up. |
| Last night I was watching TV. In truth, while I've been sick, I've watched way too much TV. I even caught myself watching an infomercial. It's a good thing I wasn't feeling well enough to get up and find my credit card, because I was seriously tempted to commit myself to three easy payments that could change my life. So back to last night . . . I saw one of the commercials for eharmony (online dating service). There new slogan is "Go ahead. It's okay to look." Well hell, how can anyone pass that up? Except, Tony says that it wouldn't be okay for me because I'm already married. I just wish we'd had that conversation before I put all that time and effort into my profile. |
| Was it Thursday? The days of this week all kind of run together, but I think it was Thursday when I told Tony I wasn't going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. I had well thought out reasons. 1. I have so many projects going, and I'm trying to get my life in order. 2. I'm still less than halfway through my rewrite of last years novel. 3. How will I ever finish anything if I keep leaping into new projects before I complete those I've already started? All very legitimate reasons not to participate, right? Why invite more craziness, or chaos into my life? At first I was relieved by my decision, but by Friday I was feeling sad and I knew that I'd be feeling left out come November. Why not go for it? I scratched the idea of writing a sequel to last years unfinished effort. Too much pressure there, but why not write something fun? I decided that I would think about it, and if I came up with an idea that seemed fun enough to give me momentum, and rich enough to yield 50,000 words of material, I might just go for it. I didn't really think I would come up with anything though. By Friday afternoon I had a loose concept and working title rolling around in my head. Then, in the bedtime twilight when the brain enjoys the unfettered, purposeless meander toward sleep, the beginning concept picked up momentum and ideas like a snowball rolling down a mountainside. Long story short, it looks like I'm going to NaNo after all. And I will kick ass! |
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