This week has been really busy so far. Seven more business days until the fiasco that is fiscal year end is over. We should have a party. Oh yeah, they do that here, but I don’t actually want to go to it.
During these last few weeks on many projects the managers start rationing out hours or commiting people to a certain number of hours per week in order to meet spending goals. During the rest of the year this is a rarity. On my projects we have general commitments of X% of time a year and a task to complete. The micromanaging of FY end is annoying, but necessary I have come to learn. The good project managers manage without cutting their project staff, an end of the stick I have been on and that really sucks.
This morning I came in to a note from the PM for a project I had committed 12-15 hours a week until FY end to. He insisted that I make sure to get that many hours as he didn’t want to run a surplus. The e-mail was a panicked “STOP! No more charging!” He, of course, admitted that he knew he committed me to this, but had failed to continue checking his budget and nearly overran the project. Big no no. (Oh and a bad project manager move…)
What that does to me is suddenly affect how I am managing my hours towards both my personal time charging goals as well as affect other projects in a cascading type event whereby I need to find other places to spend time. It actually isn’t a problem for me this time around, amazingly enough. I have a project I have been sorely neglecting, wishing in some sort of way it would just go poof and waft away… it hasn’t. And I have to bump my hours up on my big project, which I need to do anyways to meet my year end deliverables. So alas, I have work to fill my time card.
So there is my work whine. Working as a government employee during the last two weeks of the fiscal year and through the likely continuing resolution that will ensue starting October 1 while we wait for the budget to be settled is a really unpleasant experience. Money to start on October 1, 2006 will arrive in sometime mid-January 2007 (just after 1st 2007 quarterly reports are due) whereby we will have still been expected to accomplish the same amount but with no money. And pushing our 12 month year into a mere 9 months. This leaves people scrambling for work starting October 1 since no money is actually available from the big clients until the budget is settled. Except for lucky people like me who have small lab projects that actually get fed on October 1. Then I will be hoarding my stash of three little projects, clinging to them with all my worth, swatting hands away like flies. I have layed out my vacation time for the next three months in anticipation for continuing resolution. I just need to keep my eye on the future and my necessity to ration my vacation time so that I have 6 days available come March… so I can supplement my STD and have 3 months off for maternity leave… paid. (Ah yes, I whine about the life of a government employee... we obviously have it very hard.)
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So if you have stuck with me this long through the ramblings of life as a scientist, well then a reward. Leif’s daycare teacher told me a story this morning that both warmed my heart and made me insanely curious.
As Leif was falling asleep yesterday he mumbled to K about “mommy baby tummy”. Aww, the things I say at home DO sink in! K told him, “yes sweety, your mommy has a baby in her tummy and it will be either your sister or brother”. True to his routine thus far he replied to her “my sister”, then went on to mumble “mommy baby tummy, my sister” until he fell asleep.
Awww! I nearly teared up right there. Of course now curiosity has gotten the better of me and there is some little part of me that kind of wants to know what we are having, a girl or a boy. I love Christmas presents, I love anticipation, and I love driving my friends and family up the wall with not knowing. ;-) But Leif’s presence and seeming certainty on this subject adds an element of curiosity to things for me. Should we find out and then have 20 weeks to help him get used to the idea of a brother, should he just maybe be wrong? Should we find out just to satisfy my curiosity that maybe my child is really an oracle? Or go with our gut and not find out again because it is my little nugget at the end of labor hearing, “It’s a”? Yeah, I am pretty sure we will stick with the later, but it does have me thinking!
Potty training is going forward. Tonight we were cleaning up the kitchen and Leif went to the bathroom by himself without saying a word to us. He took off his diaper and then apparently realized the little stool wasn't there and it was in the other bathroom. (Note to self, BUY another stupid $6 stool from Target.) He ran across the house, grabbed it, ran back and climbed up, and as far as we could tell, he went! There was much clapping and hooraying and a request for "chocolate", which seems to be the motivating factor. Oh well, antioxidants I suppose... Bribery? I would never!
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So I walked out to the pantry shelves in the garage this evening to retrieve a can of green *gag* beans. For Leif. I cannot stand the canned variety myself, but Leif adores them. I walked in the garage and turned on the light unsuspectingly enough and there it was. A little brown beady eyed little thing staring at me from the shelf. A mouse!
I screamed. This I am not proud of. I was scared, he surprised me. I am not afraid of mice. I have worked with mice both living, dead, and in parts at various points in my life. I am a scientist afterall. But this little guy standing in the midst of my food staring me down was enough to get my goat. AB came running (while Leif continued to play with the toaster unsupervised... rolling my eyes).
Tomorrow, mousetraps. Which I thoroughly hate the idea of. Maybe we should get a cat instead?
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