I have had various versions of this post rolling around on paper, in my journal, and in my head. None of them seem just right. And I have moaned about it previously here. And if I checked, I would probably realize that those moanings are getting closer and closer in time, becoming more frequent.
This place. I like very little about this place. I have come far enough down this thought process that we know that it is the physical location and amenities associated with this place. It is separate from all that we do love about our lives. We love our friends here, we love our family so very much. I (for the most part) love the schools - ok, maybe one of them I am really fed up with now and very much looking forward to summer break and strong hopes that they figure their shit out for next year when I have two kids there. I love my job and the flexibility it offers. I really like where I am, what I am doing, and I have a great group of people I am working with now and lots of opportunities available to me. I have even had a few recent opportunities to leave for 2 year appointments with other organizations.
Those are hard because AB also needs a job. And it is hard to embed oneself in a job that would be short term. We have talked more seriously about Vienna - that maybe we would go as a one job family. But the logistics start becoming heavy - dogs, kids, and the logistics of switching my work focus for that role. But it is tempting.
I have friends recently who are moving and I am finding myself a wee bit jealous. A woman I have only just started to know at work has announced she and her family are moving to Seattle for her husband’s new position - and that started me dreaming.
The other day AB mentioned that he is just about done with this area. Yeah. I get it.
I keep telling myself that if I was able to renovate the house to create my personal paradise whereby I would not be coming home everyday and feeling the weight of my dissatisfaction with our residence that maybe our issues would be solved. Maybe if I didn’t worry daily about what new things the neighbors are going to complain about? Maybe if I didn’t find this neighborhood and my house so stifling, it would be ok? I need to uninstall Zillow...
My list of places I would leave here to move permanently is quite small. You couldn’t pay me to go back to Colorado. Large cities make me claustrophobic. Traffic makes me nuts. I need beauty. I need the outdoors. I loved Reno, but the job situation there would be abysmal. I crave Alaska and so does my Alaska Boy. But that isn’t as simple either. We have never ever lived near family and only moderately tolerate having our family (that we love very much) visit us. How would we really do living in the same city as family?
For now, here we are. And we are committing to ourselves (in the absence of any extenuating circumstances, or fantastic opportunities) that we are here until Skadi graduates. At that point all bets are off. We are lucky in that our kids don’t seem to have a particular attachment here and if we mention moving they ask excitedly, when and where? I don’t have any notions of having this house for my kids to return to - and am more of the opinion that if I could rid myself of this place right now I probably would... but it requires too much work that needs to be put in - and I have zero time right now.
Ok, so I have put this post here. It is rambley and not terribly well organized. But out there.
My kids were born here, all delivered by a fabulous doctor, all attended a wonderful daycare (in the larger scheme), are working their way through teachers that, by in large, we adore and have enriched our kids’ lives. We have friends we can rely on and call on. We have food. We can travel nearly anywhere we may want to. I get my kids on the bus and can be home at the end of the day (most days) to watch them get off. AB has Friday’s off. Life is good. Just why can’t this place be the community we would love to love?
Showing posts with label AB work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AB work. Show all posts
Saturday, June 02, 2018
Monday, October 01, 2012
Work blah-ness
Work continues to go reasonably well for me. I have switched over to the "Project Manager" ladder from that of “Scientist and Engineer”. This was initially a hard decision for me. I spent a few years getting rave reviews annually as an S&E3. Then conflicts with a coworker started to gurgle and I suddenly (despite doing the same job) wasn’t exceeding expectations anymore. Nope. I stood up for the project and our very demanding client at the expense of a coworker's perceived security blanket and was immediately noted as a trouble maker and my annual rating suffered, despite the fact that I was bringing in millions of dollars of project work. No, that wasn't the official excuse, it was actually couched as “well you aren’t doing science anymore” – but given that I was doing the exact same thing the year before and received exceeds expectations I knew I was both a victim of the elusive moving target of promotion and also “getting my due” from the coworker experience.
I made a commitment to get back to the science and stop doing the work that people were coming to me to do (lead projects). Well that next year was a hard one for funding. But those people with funding, didn’t stop in asking me to lead things for them and I got to do some really neat little projects and even mentor young staff in their learning to run a project! Then the next annual review came in and once again, I was barely meeting expectations, but was recognized as an “incredible project manager”. Right there and then I requested to be moved over to the other career ladder then upon noting that the elusive moving target to the next level had swung completely out of my reach. And with the usual quickness of government moves, I was transferred over about 6 months later.
I take issue with the S&E ladder and promotions here. For so many years I was “right there” for the promotion. But routinely criticized because I didn’t have my own area of research – I was not an expert at anything really, just did good research for a number of different clients based upon their needs. I had a good reputation for delivery. A Jane of all trades. Someone who could walk in and take whatever research (as long as it wasn’t bio) forward and provide results, present the results, build on the prior research, etc.
Now further down the road and I am seeing all these people with their niche areas of research and funding scrambling for work. What exactly are they encouraging by forcing people to hone in on one area of research in order to get promoted? What happens when you have one client for your niche area and that client goes belly up? I have known too many people who were laid off this year when their clients quit providing and they couldn’t switch gears. I see it ongoing into FY13. That type of promotion? Not sure I want it.
I have been here 10 years and I have this place pretty well figured out. I have accepted that I will never promote to the next level, but am working my tail end off to promote within the project manager sphere.
But you know what? I could go anywhere and manage projects. I could go somewhere where the project manager actually has the authority they are supposed to in the project manager model and not in some obscure space where no real authority exists without one standing up in manager after manager’s office and pounding my fists that “something is wrong here”.
AB came home the other day with the mildly grim news that his contract with his current employer will end in Sept 2013. The big question of the day was would he wait till his end of contract to start looking (thereby securing his end of contract bonus) or start looking early. And when is early?We knew this job was not permanent from the start.
Then we started talking different options. Maybe not just the “next contractor in line” here locally. What if… since my job was no longer reliant on “being a scientist and having a lab”. What if we jumped ship?
Then AB went “home” to Alaska for a funeral. And the talk became more serious. There are numerous engineering firms in Alaska, I could “probably” secure a position as a project manager… and AB is very employable as an engineer. And the idea began to grow with us. Maybe we put off the backyard renovation in favor of saving money to move? How much would we need to move? Could we find an employer or two that would pay relocation? What about a headhunter?
And the idea of moving to Alaska grew with me. AB and I asked ourselves, what do we have here? The answer? Our friends. We have our friends. Sure we have a nice house in a good neighborhood and good schools. But the only thing not replaceable is our friends. But we would be moving somewhere with FAMILY. We haven’t really ever lived near grandparents – wouldn’t that be nice for our kids? Ok, so I have a flexible job with good benefits. But really, is that irreplaceable? I don’t know.
And so the idea took root.
And then AB got a phone call out of the blue the other day offering him the position of his dreams (for this location and what he has currently been doing) at “name your salary” and the expectation that he would be in that role for 2 years after which he would move up the management ranks and “into town” (eliminating his 1 hour each way commute). We hmm’d and ha’d it. We kicked it around for a few days until we finally agreed that he had to at least explore the option. AB sent in his resume with a salary request that made us both chuckle a bit. I mean, if they want him, maybe they would consider it? And if not, if they just laughed us away, where would we be? The same position we are now. Not a bad place.
And so now we wait.
And AB has a bit of a fear that they will actually accept it and his current company (a subsidiary of this parent company offering the job) will immediately know and may counter offer. Then what?
As I put it to AB – we make a decision.
So Alaska? On hold and potentially put off indefinitely.
That’s ok. I like my job. I have work this year (many people I know do not). I have interesting projects I am working on that are going somewhere and a relationship I am building with a potential new client.
But that itch to try it out somewhere else needs scratched. Wanderlust again.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other
I haven’t done a decent update in awhile. I have a huge list of blog topics, but a lack of time to actually write them. And for me it is kind of like a snowball effect. It starts out little, and then as time goes on the snowball gets bigger and bigger as it threatens to run me over. Maybe I have been run over. In some effort to start new after being run over, I will try and get caught up, let's see how I do.
Major Purchase:
We bought a travel trailer in early May. AB and I love camping, we both grew up camping, we want our kids to enjoy camping. But I have reached a point where a dome tent with two kids and two dogs on an air mattress just takes all pleasure out of it. Over the last few years we have identified what exactly we want in a trailer and this spring we surprised ourselves and pulled the trigger. We had been looking for used 4-season bunkhouses and knew what was reasonable to pay for them. Last fall we negotiated on a used unit, but gave up when they failed to negotiate more than $500 lower off the sticker price. This spring we bought a new one for that same price.
We have taken the trailer out twice, and the kids love it. We are still learning it, but after our first longer trip (3 nights this past Memorial Day weekend) we have it pretty well figured out. And I am even getting good with my handsigns. AB is even better at interpreting my handsigns.
We weren’t actually quite where we wanted to be financially before buying it. But in the last year I have given a lot of thought to what living means. I look at my mom’s life and while she had a good life, I look at the things left undone. The things she hoped to accomplish. No one knows our fate. But I have embraced living more in the last year. Taking off and doing the things we want to do instead of just talk about them. I want my kids to love the outdoors and to tramp around the forests like my sister and I did as kids as well as AB and his family did, and have those experiences that we both remember so fondly. I have to make that happen. Purchasing the trailer is making that happen for us.
And my 16 year old self is so laughing at me for “RV’ing”.
Leif:
Leif is wrapping up his last year at the Montessori school he has been at since he was one year old. 6 years here, the end of a legacy of sorts. Wah. My baby Is growing up.
Leif is so very excited to move on to bigger and better things, though he is so very tentative. He really isn't sure about this whole riding the bus without me thing. He will be in public first grade this coming fall. This summer he is looking forward to some science camps at the local branch university and Adventure camp through our health club.
Leif is such a sweet, loving, tender hearted little boy. Poor kid doesn’t understand girls at all and is constantly confounded by them. He surprises me daily with the things he knows and remembers.
The other day Leif and one of his friends was playing at the park as Skadi practiced TBall. I looked over and saw him crawling up the outside of the slide tube. When I went over to him I asked him if that was very safe. He thought for a bit and then replied, “No, but it was impressive.”
We opened a 529 account for the kids awhile back and because I am a geek I maintain a spreadsheet that forecasts the funds growth on a quarterly basis. I set it up and forecasted out and then calculated the year that Leif will go to college. When I realized that I didn’t have to scroll down 3 pages to get to that year it made me a bit ill. My baby is growing up. College is only one Excel page view of quarters away! GAH!
Skadi:
Oh Skadi Skadi Skadi. My sweet little girl… sometimes. The other time she is something else.
We are struggling with Skadi in preschool, out of preschool, through the night… What can I say? It’s darn good that she is as cute as she is! I contemplated last week pulling her out of the Montessori preschool she has been at for three years now. I was *this* close to pulling the trigger. Then AB went in and talked with the teachers a bit and we decided to sit in the holding pattern for a bit. See how things go through the summer.
I talk and talk to that child.
“You had fun on your McDonalds field trip, right?” (She agrees.) “If you don’t behave you will continue to lose field trips and won’t be able to go do these fun things.” (She agrees to be good.)
She is a smart girl. She is pretty mouthy – the other day threats looming that she was bordering upon losing the “Beach Party Day” at school she dared to tell her teachers they could go ahead and take away the privilege from her, she didn’t care, because she planned to tell her mommy to keep her home and we would have our own party and not invite them, so there.
Sigh.
And no, that is so not happening.
She is quick on her feet with her words, but reminds me a lot of my grandmother when she talks, “betend” is “pretend”. “Yesternight” is last night. “Two-head” is still forehead.
This weekend while camping I went over and started poking (or in AB’s words, “fiddling”) with the campfire. My husband is a bit particular about his campfires and with the wet weather this weekend, he had his work cut out for him. Skadi sees me and said, “"Mom, hurry up fiddling with the fire before daddy gets back and sees you!"
The other day Skadi came out of the bathroom and announced, “Mom, I think I am finally old enough to learn how to pee like a boy.”
And then there are days unlike the start of this section where I so agree with her and know she is my daughter, “Leif: "I want to listen to Les Miserables, the Battle Scene in Act 2."
Skadi: "I want to listen to Dancing Queen."
AB:
AB recently had the joy of jury duty. I have always wanted to serve on a jury panel. Yes, seriously. My friends and coworkers look at me like I am nuts when I say this. But for some reason I would like to see first hand our legal system in action. After AB was on a jury panel for a week he can unequivocally say that there is little "action" and that he hopes to never have to rely on our judicial system.
Anyways, I was still jealous. He actually got picked after offering up every reason why he shouldn’t… “I know the prosecutor”, “I work at the same place as the defendant and he looks familiar to me”, “I don’t want to serve, but I know it is my civil duty” (among a group of people who said they did want to serve nonetheless)… but alas he was picked and got to hear abuse stories that still make him cringe. Yeah, maybe I don't want to serve on a jury... I have a friend that served on one about a farmer stealing another one's goats - and a friend's wife who served on a jury about poaching of eagles... nope, AB got a real nasty one.
Work:
My work. Blah.
It’s hard to get very enthused about it when people around me are struggling to find enough work to prevent themselves from being laid off. I am normally in a position to help people out a bit, but this FY, not so. I don’t have much buffer myself. I have even set up an Excel sheet to plan out my upcoming work to make sure I can cover myself. I may be embracing 3-day weekends this summer more than I have in the past.
One of my topics on my list to blog about is the whole “best friend” at work thing. We do these polls that estimate our happiness as a group with our place of employment. Historically my group scores high, which is pretty cool. One of the questions on the poll asks if you have a best friend at work. For years I have been in a position to answer yes to that simply because one of my best friends works here, though I have never had the occasion to work with her. The fact still remains that I have a best friend at work.
In the last few months I have actually had occasion to fully embrace the notion of having a best friend at work in the context of the question. What they want to know is do you have someone you work with that you can go and talk to about what is going on. Sure my good friend down in the other building, who I can’t actually talk to about what I do on a daily basis qualifies to a certain degree. As do the couple of women in my hallway who I can go and talk about daycare or restaurants or hotels, but once again have never really actually worked with them. In the last year I have found my best friends at work… two unassuming guys I work with regularly that I don’t think anyone would really peg them as my “best friends”. But the last 6 months or so they have heard me whine, bitch, cry and complain – and I have heard it from them too. Ok, so they don’t cry. And I only almost cried once.
It’s a big step for me actually. I work on a lot of varied projects with lots of different people and rarely a single core group as so many people do. I get good reviews from people and word of mouth (I believe) is why I am not short on work right now when so many people I know are. I have gotten to know a lot of different people and get called up to do lots of varied projects. I have talked with the two about teaming more regularly and we have a few concepts in the pipeline. I enjoy working with them, appreciate their strong work ethics and we work well as a team. What more could you ask for?
There is a lot of tension here as work is becoming more scarce. Project work has become competitive when jobs are suddenly at stake. While I am funded right now, it is the end of the fiscal year that scares the daylights out of me. Most of my “little” projects wrap up between now and then due to either lack of funding or meeting our completion date. I have a big proposal that was sent out to my least favorite client this morning. One of the guys I wrote the proposal with told me last week that the program manager was already telling him congratulations on it. So I am crossing my fingers that project comes through, though I fully expect another CR and thus actual money won’t arrive until well into FY12 I am sure.
Work… eh, it’s ok. But AB and I have started talking… wonder what else is out there? Where in the world could we wander to? Do we want to live here forever and ever?
Goals:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Yes typically speaking about this time of year my goals start going by the wayside. Summer is just hard to maintain that “do the work around the house” attitude when we have so much we are doing outside and the days are long.
As of today though the quilt is very nearly ready to haul down to the long arm to be quilted. That will be my big checkmark.
AB cleaned the garage pretty well… I intended to help. And I intended to get down and dirty by digging out every last little remnant and adorning the garage with plastic bins and random storage notions.
Well the garage is clean and that is that. My motivation to go out there and work at it more is nill. Not when I have my MIL coming for a visit, a trailer that needs to be cleaned and mopped for the next Father’s Day trip and laundry stacked up to the ceiling upstairs.
June optional goals… if I have time I plan to:
June goal #1 – Think about the outdoor patio kitchen and get some drawings with ideas down on paper.
June goal #2 – detangle my jewelry and figure out something for actual storage of bling that I use on a regular basis.
Major Purchase:
We bought a travel trailer in early May. AB and I love camping, we both grew up camping, we want our kids to enjoy camping. But I have reached a point where a dome tent with two kids and two dogs on an air mattress just takes all pleasure out of it. Over the last few years we have identified what exactly we want in a trailer and this spring we surprised ourselves and pulled the trigger. We had been looking for used 4-season bunkhouses and knew what was reasonable to pay for them. Last fall we negotiated on a used unit, but gave up when they failed to negotiate more than $500 lower off the sticker price. This spring we bought a new one for that same price.
We have taken the trailer out twice, and the kids love it. We are still learning it, but after our first longer trip (3 nights this past Memorial Day weekend) we have it pretty well figured out. And I am even getting good with my handsigns. AB is even better at interpreting my handsigns.
We weren’t actually quite where we wanted to be financially before buying it. But in the last year I have given a lot of thought to what living means. I look at my mom’s life and while she had a good life, I look at the things left undone. The things she hoped to accomplish. No one knows our fate. But I have embraced living more in the last year. Taking off and doing the things we want to do instead of just talk about them. I want my kids to love the outdoors and to tramp around the forests like my sister and I did as kids as well as AB and his family did, and have those experiences that we both remember so fondly. I have to make that happen. Purchasing the trailer is making that happen for us.
And my 16 year old self is so laughing at me for “RV’ing”.
Leif:
Leif is wrapping up his last year at the Montessori school he has been at since he was one year old. 6 years here, the end of a legacy of sorts. Wah. My baby Is growing up.
Leif is so very excited to move on to bigger and better things, though he is so very tentative. He really isn't sure about this whole riding the bus without me thing. He will be in public first grade this coming fall. This summer he is looking forward to some science camps at the local branch university and Adventure camp through our health club.
Leif is such a sweet, loving, tender hearted little boy. Poor kid doesn’t understand girls at all and is constantly confounded by them. He surprises me daily with the things he knows and remembers.
The other day Leif and one of his friends was playing at the park as Skadi practiced TBall. I looked over and saw him crawling up the outside of the slide tube. When I went over to him I asked him if that was very safe. He thought for a bit and then replied, “No, but it was impressive.”
We opened a 529 account for the kids awhile back and because I am a geek I maintain a spreadsheet that forecasts the funds growth on a quarterly basis. I set it up and forecasted out and then calculated the year that Leif will go to college. When I realized that I didn’t have to scroll down 3 pages to get to that year it made me a bit ill. My baby is growing up. College is only one Excel page view of quarters away! GAH!
Skadi:
Oh Skadi Skadi Skadi. My sweet little girl… sometimes. The other time she is something else.
We are struggling with Skadi in preschool, out of preschool, through the night… What can I say? It’s darn good that she is as cute as she is! I contemplated last week pulling her out of the Montessori preschool she has been at for three years now. I was *this* close to pulling the trigger. Then AB went in and talked with the teachers a bit and we decided to sit in the holding pattern for a bit. See how things go through the summer.
I talk and talk to that child.
“You had fun on your McDonalds field trip, right?” (She agrees.) “If you don’t behave you will continue to lose field trips and won’t be able to go do these fun things.” (She agrees to be good.)
She is a smart girl. She is pretty mouthy – the other day threats looming that she was bordering upon losing the “Beach Party Day” at school she dared to tell her teachers they could go ahead and take away the privilege from her, she didn’t care, because she planned to tell her mommy to keep her home and we would have our own party and not invite them, so there.
Sigh.
And no, that is so not happening.
She is quick on her feet with her words, but reminds me a lot of my grandmother when she talks, “betend” is “pretend”. “Yesternight” is last night. “Two-head” is still forehead.
This weekend while camping I went over and started poking (or in AB’s words, “fiddling”) with the campfire. My husband is a bit particular about his campfires and with the wet weather this weekend, he had his work cut out for him. Skadi sees me and said, “"Mom, hurry up fiddling with the fire before daddy gets back and sees you!"
The other day Skadi came out of the bathroom and announced, “Mom, I think I am finally old enough to learn how to pee like a boy.”
And then there are days unlike the start of this section where I so agree with her and know she is my daughter, “Leif: "I want to listen to Les Miserables, the Battle Scene in Act 2."
Skadi: "I want to listen to Dancing Queen."
AB:
AB recently had the joy of jury duty. I have always wanted to serve on a jury panel. Yes, seriously. My friends and coworkers look at me like I am nuts when I say this. But for some reason I would like to see first hand our legal system in action. After AB was on a jury panel for a week he can unequivocally say that there is little "action" and that he hopes to never have to rely on our judicial system.
Anyways, I was still jealous. He actually got picked after offering up every reason why he shouldn’t… “I know the prosecutor”, “I work at the same place as the defendant and he looks familiar to me”, “I don’t want to serve, but I know it is my civil duty” (among a group of people who said they did want to serve nonetheless)… but alas he was picked and got to hear abuse stories that still make him cringe. Yeah, maybe I don't want to serve on a jury... I have a friend that served on one about a farmer stealing another one's goats - and a friend's wife who served on a jury about poaching of eagles... nope, AB got a real nasty one.
Work:
My work. Blah.
It’s hard to get very enthused about it when people around me are struggling to find enough work to prevent themselves from being laid off. I am normally in a position to help people out a bit, but this FY, not so. I don’t have much buffer myself. I have even set up an Excel sheet to plan out my upcoming work to make sure I can cover myself. I may be embracing 3-day weekends this summer more than I have in the past.
One of my topics on my list to blog about is the whole “best friend” at work thing. We do these polls that estimate our happiness as a group with our place of employment. Historically my group scores high, which is pretty cool. One of the questions on the poll asks if you have a best friend at work. For years I have been in a position to answer yes to that simply because one of my best friends works here, though I have never had the occasion to work with her. The fact still remains that I have a best friend at work.
In the last few months I have actually had occasion to fully embrace the notion of having a best friend at work in the context of the question. What they want to know is do you have someone you work with that you can go and talk to about what is going on. Sure my good friend down in the other building, who I can’t actually talk to about what I do on a daily basis qualifies to a certain degree. As do the couple of women in my hallway who I can go and talk about daycare or restaurants or hotels, but once again have never really actually worked with them. In the last year I have found my best friends at work… two unassuming guys I work with regularly that I don’t think anyone would really peg them as my “best friends”. But the last 6 months or so they have heard me whine, bitch, cry and complain – and I have heard it from them too. Ok, so they don’t cry. And I only almost cried once.
It’s a big step for me actually. I work on a lot of varied projects with lots of different people and rarely a single core group as so many people do. I get good reviews from people and word of mouth (I believe) is why I am not short on work right now when so many people I know are. I have gotten to know a lot of different people and get called up to do lots of varied projects. I have talked with the two about teaming more regularly and we have a few concepts in the pipeline. I enjoy working with them, appreciate their strong work ethics and we work well as a team. What more could you ask for?
There is a lot of tension here as work is becoming more scarce. Project work has become competitive when jobs are suddenly at stake. While I am funded right now, it is the end of the fiscal year that scares the daylights out of me. Most of my “little” projects wrap up between now and then due to either lack of funding or meeting our completion date. I have a big proposal that was sent out to my least favorite client this morning. One of the guys I wrote the proposal with told me last week that the program manager was already telling him congratulations on it. So I am crossing my fingers that project comes through, though I fully expect another CR and thus actual money won’t arrive until well into FY12 I am sure.
Work… eh, it’s ok. But AB and I have started talking… wonder what else is out there? Where in the world could we wander to? Do we want to live here forever and ever?
Goals:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Yes typically speaking about this time of year my goals start going by the wayside. Summer is just hard to maintain that “do the work around the house” attitude when we have so much we are doing outside and the days are long.
As of today though the quilt is very nearly ready to haul down to the long arm to be quilted. That will be my big checkmark.
AB cleaned the garage pretty well… I intended to help. And I intended to get down and dirty by digging out every last little remnant and adorning the garage with plastic bins and random storage notions.
Well the garage is clean and that is that. My motivation to go out there and work at it more is nill. Not when I have my MIL coming for a visit, a trailer that needs to be cleaned and mopped for the next Father’s Day trip and laundry stacked up to the ceiling upstairs.
June optional goals… if I have time I plan to:
June goal #1 – Think about the outdoor patio kitchen and get some drawings with ideas down on paper.
June goal #2 – detangle my jewelry and figure out something for actual storage of bling that I use on a regular basis.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Leading the conference life
It seems that nearly every profession holds conferences. Opportunities for people within the industry to get together, tell about what they are doing, shake hands, exchange business cards and hear about the cutting edge technology. It seems we always hear about medical conferences, but conferences penetrate many, many areas. On Sunday when I was flying down to Orlando a group of guys next to me were coming down for their conference, with their company, John Deere. My company doesn't host conferences in neat areas...
AB's does. Well, I suppose if you can call Baltimore neat. But last summer we compared notes about his conference and my - albeit limited - conference experiences. At his conference there was free flowing alcohol and bars that were opened with the purpose of partying at the hotels.
You can't do this for my organization.
It's called bribes and kick backs and we learn all about it on an annual basis in our required ethics training.
I am not a common fixture on the conference circuit. This past year I have travelled seven times and only one was for an open (as in nearly anyone can attend) conference. I attend client meetings and program reviews routinely. But conferences? Not really.
In the past few years I have obtained a new client who likes a lot for us to share all the great and wonderful things we have done on the projects and so when this conference came onto my radar - coincidentally about the same time I had been discussing Disneyland and Disneyworld with my friends - I jumped.
Ok, I will admit that being a bit out of the loop on the public conference circuit, that I wasn't quite sure what to expect. And like all walks of life, you get all types of people. Ok, so with scientists - maybe you get a bit more of a certain type of people... those people that may or may not look like Einstein and are absolutely brilliant, but a bit lacking in the social sense.
I have had the pleasure of hanging out with my good friend R, this week. I think she is a bit more versed in the conference routine and so it has been nice to have her here. Oh and while she is brilliant, she isn't one of the socially awkward ones and in fact is a bit outgoing. (Which I am not.) I suck at walking up and introducing myself.
The conference has been nice - the food has been mostly hit, with a few misses. Truly, the fact that they are feeding us at all is nice and unexpected.
We both had posters to present. For those of you unfamiliar with the routine, a poster session is where you are given a few hours to stand in an approximately 4' x 8' x 2' piece of real estate and answer questions presented to you by anyone who walks up and inquires about your research. Poster... this is your prop. It's what shows the project or projects you are presenting and displays your groundbreaking (or not) research.
This is also the opportunity for all those socially awkward people to purchase alcohol at the end of the long day.
Given my introverted nature, I am not terribly fond of poster sessions. I would actually rather stand up in front of a crowd and at a podium for 20 minutes and present my research to people than stand for 2 hours and be one on one with people. Just my preference.
This may go back to my first ever poster sessions as a grad student.
One of them I was scooped. My very first poster session I talked at length to a group of guys from Stanford about my research who then published my research 6-9 months later. Scooped.
The second poster session I had a leach of a Japanese professor who wouldn't leave me alone. He smelled of alcohol, patted my butt and then offered me a post-doc position in his lab in Japan and suggested I come back to his room to discuss "opportunities". I quickly grabbed the older male Chinese post-doc in my group and with some difficulty (he spoke little English) managed to convey to him to not leave my side.
No such experiences at this conference. One man (who was slurring his words a fair bit) thought my research would make for a fascinating CSI episode and suggested I should write a screenplay and sell it. My two hours went by fairly quickly, thankfully.
We are halfway through the conference and I would call it a success. I met one of the reviewers for the proposals I have out currently who smiled, told me he thought he recognized my name, but he was very sorry he could not speak to me anymore about my research once I told him I had these two proposals pending.
I have shaken hands, exchanged business cards, tried not to act too naive or inexperienced. I have stood at grad students posters and smiled while they eagerly explained their research to me while it dawned on me that I am at least 15 years their senior and wasn't it just yesterday that I was doing this? I met up with current and former coworkers and even a parent of one of the students working on one of my projects - who looked amazingly young and once again reminded me that maybe I am not as young as I think I am.
It's been a good week. But frankly, I am counting the hours until AB arrives with the kids and the Disney and Harry Potter fun begins.
AB's does. Well, I suppose if you can call Baltimore neat. But last summer we compared notes about his conference and my - albeit limited - conference experiences. At his conference there was free flowing alcohol and bars that were opened with the purpose of partying at the hotels.
You can't do this for my organization.
It's called bribes and kick backs and we learn all about it on an annual basis in our required ethics training.
I am not a common fixture on the conference circuit. This past year I have travelled seven times and only one was for an open (as in nearly anyone can attend) conference. I attend client meetings and program reviews routinely. But conferences? Not really.
In the past few years I have obtained a new client who likes a lot for us to share all the great and wonderful things we have done on the projects and so when this conference came onto my radar - coincidentally about the same time I had been discussing Disneyland and Disneyworld with my friends - I jumped.
Ok, I will admit that being a bit out of the loop on the public conference circuit, that I wasn't quite sure what to expect. And like all walks of life, you get all types of people. Ok, so with scientists - maybe you get a bit more of a certain type of people... those people that may or may not look like Einstein and are absolutely brilliant, but a bit lacking in the social sense.
I have had the pleasure of hanging out with my good friend R, this week. I think she is a bit more versed in the conference routine and so it has been nice to have her here. Oh and while she is brilliant, she isn't one of the socially awkward ones and in fact is a bit outgoing. (Which I am not.) I suck at walking up and introducing myself.
The conference has been nice - the food has been mostly hit, with a few misses. Truly, the fact that they are feeding us at all is nice and unexpected.
We both had posters to present. For those of you unfamiliar with the routine, a poster session is where you are given a few hours to stand in an approximately 4' x 8' x 2' piece of real estate and answer questions presented to you by anyone who walks up and inquires about your research. Poster... this is your prop. It's what shows the project or projects you are presenting and displays your groundbreaking (or not) research.
This is also the opportunity for all those socially awkward people to purchase alcohol at the end of the long day.
Given my introverted nature, I am not terribly fond of poster sessions. I would actually rather stand up in front of a crowd and at a podium for 20 minutes and present my research to people than stand for 2 hours and be one on one with people. Just my preference.
This may go back to my first ever poster sessions as a grad student.
One of them I was scooped. My very first poster session I talked at length to a group of guys from Stanford about my research who then published my research 6-9 months later. Scooped.
The second poster session I had a leach of a Japanese professor who wouldn't leave me alone. He smelled of alcohol, patted my butt and then offered me a post-doc position in his lab in Japan and suggested I come back to his room to discuss "opportunities". I quickly grabbed the older male Chinese post-doc in my group and with some difficulty (he spoke little English) managed to convey to him to not leave my side.
No such experiences at this conference. One man (who was slurring his words a fair bit) thought my research would make for a fascinating CSI episode and suggested I should write a screenplay and sell it. My two hours went by fairly quickly, thankfully.
We are halfway through the conference and I would call it a success. I met one of the reviewers for the proposals I have out currently who smiled, told me he thought he recognized my name, but he was very sorry he could not speak to me anymore about my research once I told him I had these two proposals pending.
I have shaken hands, exchanged business cards, tried not to act too naive or inexperienced. I have stood at grad students posters and smiled while they eagerly explained their research to me while it dawned on me that I am at least 15 years their senior and wasn't it just yesterday that I was doing this? I met up with current and former coworkers and even a parent of one of the students working on one of my projects - who looked amazingly young and once again reminded me that maybe I am not as young as I think I am.
It's been a good week. But frankly, I am counting the hours until AB arrives with the kids and the Disney and Harry Potter fun begins.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Hitting our strides
I had to check our horoscope tonight. AB and I are both Cappies and when big things happen I like to go back and retroactively check to see if I should have seen it coming.
This is ours today: "Your vision is as clear as a bell today. It's time to finally make a big decision."
Ok, that says nothing. Because everything today had nothing to do with either of us making decisions. It's all about the fruits of our labor coming to fruition.
AB called to tell me that he was moving back into his old group and that yay, he didn't have to be the one to make that decision, it was being made for him. As it turns out, while he will be in his old group, he also may bump his head on the moon. He won't go back to working as a grunt in his group - nope he will be in a very visible position near the top of the ranks where he will "get to know upper management very quickly". He will be the final check for all the safety, industrial hygiene and environmental work on the entire site. It's huge.
Today I managed to hit eight of eight. Today mid-day I got an e-mail announcing that one of the concept papers I submitted to the client I swore I would never work for again made the cut.
Then five minutes later I got the second one. The second concept paper I sent them made the cut.
Five minutes later the last one arrived. All three concept papers I submitted made the cut and are now on the list for full proposal.
Three full proposal packages due March 13.
Two days after we close on our house.
Convenient, eh?
Oh and my eight of eight comment? This fiscal year I have submitted eight concept papers and all eight have been accepted for full proposal.
My funding stats aren't so pretty. The only two I have heard on weren't funded by the client. I will hear on the next three sometime in the next few weeks. And these last three? Sometime this summer. But if a couple of them make the grade than I will need to hire at least one post-doc.
My last kudo came when I got a phonecall from a manager with NASA who would like to come visit my team in the first part of March to discuss an opportunity to work with them on the upcoming proposed moon and Mars missions.
Yes, I did dance in my office.
And my team leads' use of profanity was strictly in a positive sense. "F---- YEAH!"
We rock.
This is ours today: "Your vision is as clear as a bell today. It's time to finally make a big decision."
Ok, that says nothing. Because everything today had nothing to do with either of us making decisions. It's all about the fruits of our labor coming to fruition.
AB called to tell me that he was moving back into his old group and that yay, he didn't have to be the one to make that decision, it was being made for him. As it turns out, while he will be in his old group, he also may bump his head on the moon. He won't go back to working as a grunt in his group - nope he will be in a very visible position near the top of the ranks where he will "get to know upper management very quickly". He will be the final check for all the safety, industrial hygiene and environmental work on the entire site. It's huge.
Today I managed to hit eight of eight. Today mid-day I got an e-mail announcing that one of the concept papers I submitted to the client I swore I would never work for again made the cut.
Then five minutes later I got the second one. The second concept paper I sent them made the cut.
Five minutes later the last one arrived. All three concept papers I submitted made the cut and are now on the list for full proposal.
Three full proposal packages due March 13.
Two days after we close on our house.
Convenient, eh?
Oh and my eight of eight comment? This fiscal year I have submitted eight concept papers and all eight have been accepted for full proposal.
My funding stats aren't so pretty. The only two I have heard on weren't funded by the client. I will hear on the next three sometime in the next few weeks. And these last three? Sometime this summer. But if a couple of them make the grade than I will need to hire at least one post-doc.
My last kudo came when I got a phonecall from a manager with NASA who would like to come visit my team in the first part of March to discuss an opportunity to work with them on the upcoming proposed moon and Mars missions.
Yes, I did dance in my office.
And my team leads' use of profanity was strictly in a positive sense. "F---- YEAH!"
We rock.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Safety First
Last night I was reading a book to Leif. Ok, he picked out a Christmas book about decorating for Christmas. I read the page about the little girl putting the star on top of the tree.
Leif stops me.
"But this is very dangerous, she is standing on top of the ladder and that is dangerous and not how you use a ladder properly. You should only climb about this high and still have space to hold on with your hands," he tells me.
"AB!!!!!" I yell!
Leif stops me.
"But this is very dangerous, she is standing on top of the ladder and that is dangerous and not how you use a ladder properly. You should only climb about this high and still have space to hold on with your hands," he tells me.
"AB!!!!!" I yell!
Friday, January 02, 2009
Difference
In one way, AB and I are very different.
I have a vault of a memory when it comes to faces. Not always names, but I recognize faces very easily. I remember kids from kindergarten to college and I can usually place them too.
This has been very interesting with regards to sites like Classmates and more aptly, Facebook. Truly I look through my list of people from high school on Facebook and I know most all of them. And I didn't go to a small high school. Search my work place and I can pinpoint most of the people who list my company as their place of employment work. I know faces. And if we went to the same high school, I remember you.
I knew this was unusual probably about high school. I remember being in some get together study group after school one day. I was sitting in the classroom with many of the crowd I didn't hang around with, but knew because we had classes together - or so *I* thought. Somehow we got on topic of knowing people and I was surprised that even though I had classes with most of these people, they didn't know who I was or that we had other classes together. I was a quiet teenager and I tended to stick to myself, not participate a lot and hang out across the street from the school in "the park" and not on campus. I never saw it as my fault people didn't remember me, but instead their oblivion.
At my 10 year class reunion I got a lot of blank looks as people were greeting me. It was as though they were trying to be nice as I called them by name, but truly had no idea who I was. I remember one girl who hung out in the park with us actually admitted - "I have no idea at all who you are". The first honest person all night.
Sure, I look a lot different from high school. But my ability to recognize faces is sometimes annoying. Take the other morning for example. I had friended a guy from high school on Facebook who was in my crowd our junior year - he was a year older than us. I can tell you what his parents house was like (gorgeous and white), what kind of dog he had (bull terrier that looked like Spuds Mackenzie), that he drove a red Honda CR-X, who he dated (Cinnamon) and that after he dumped her he dated Lynette for awhile (and this appalled me), that he cut his hair after he made a deal with his dad that if he cut it, dad would buy him the Honda CR-X. I even remember intimate details of a relationship of his and the details he shared with my guy friends about this girl in my gym class in a not so favorable light.
Surely he would remember me, we hung out together, went camping as a group together...
Nope.
He accepted my friendship request and honestly (which really does make me happy to know these things) sent me a note telling me he had no idea who I was.
I have come to accept for some time now that I will remember people and they don't remember me. I don't always friend people that I know right away on Facebook because I carry a little paranoia in my head that they won't have any idea who I am and will just think I am a stalker freak. It is only people I know HAVE to know me, that I jump on friending. And when they remember me it makes me happy and feel a little normal!
Now the flip side.
My husband.
He remembers NO ONE. He remembers his crowd. He accepts friends on Facebook and then spends weeks trying to figure out why he should know this person. He even carried on a long conversation with one guy on Facebook and still claims he has absolutely no idea who he is! I keep telling him to tell people this up front. It doesn't mean you aren't open to a friendship, but maybe they can help you jog your brain.
Another aspect - EVERYONE and their dog remembers my husband. (Seriously dogs remember AB.) He actually gets a little annoyed by this probably in the same way I get a little annoyed at never being remembered. We go to the grocery store and invariably someone will come up and greet him and chat. We walk off as I chastise him for not introducing me and he admits, "I didnt introduce you because I had no idea who they were, I probably work with them".
Totally foreign to me. I can't cover myself as well as AB does. He is good at going with the flow when someone recognizes him and he doesn't them. Me? IF this ever happened to me I would stand there blankly.
AB often wonders why people remember him.
LOL.
I remind him that his port wine stain is pretty much a dead giveaway as well as his somewhat unique name.
I have a vault of a memory when it comes to faces. Not always names, but I recognize faces very easily. I remember kids from kindergarten to college and I can usually place them too.
This has been very interesting with regards to sites like Classmates and more aptly, Facebook. Truly I look through my list of people from high school on Facebook and I know most all of them. And I didn't go to a small high school. Search my work place and I can pinpoint most of the people who list my company as their place of employment work. I know faces. And if we went to the same high school, I remember you.
I knew this was unusual probably about high school. I remember being in some get together study group after school one day. I was sitting in the classroom with many of the crowd I didn't hang around with, but knew because we had classes together - or so *I* thought. Somehow we got on topic of knowing people and I was surprised that even though I had classes with most of these people, they didn't know who I was or that we had other classes together. I was a quiet teenager and I tended to stick to myself, not participate a lot and hang out across the street from the school in "the park" and not on campus. I never saw it as my fault people didn't remember me, but instead their oblivion.
At my 10 year class reunion I got a lot of blank looks as people were greeting me. It was as though they were trying to be nice as I called them by name, but truly had no idea who I was. I remember one girl who hung out in the park with us actually admitted - "I have no idea at all who you are". The first honest person all night.
Sure, I look a lot different from high school. But my ability to recognize faces is sometimes annoying. Take the other morning for example. I had friended a guy from high school on Facebook who was in my crowd our junior year - he was a year older than us. I can tell you what his parents house was like (gorgeous and white), what kind of dog he had (bull terrier that looked like Spuds Mackenzie), that he drove a red Honda CR-X, who he dated (Cinnamon) and that after he dumped her he dated Lynette for awhile (and this appalled me), that he cut his hair after he made a deal with his dad that if he cut it, dad would buy him the Honda CR-X. I even remember intimate details of a relationship of his and the details he shared with my guy friends about this girl in my gym class in a not so favorable light.
Surely he would remember me, we hung out together, went camping as a group together...
Nope.
He accepted my friendship request and honestly (which really does make me happy to know these things) sent me a note telling me he had no idea who I was.
I have come to accept for some time now that I will remember people and they don't remember me. I don't always friend people that I know right away on Facebook because I carry a little paranoia in my head that they won't have any idea who I am and will just think I am a stalker freak. It is only people I know HAVE to know me, that I jump on friending. And when they remember me it makes me happy and feel a little normal!
Now the flip side.
My husband.
He remembers NO ONE. He remembers his crowd. He accepts friends on Facebook and then spends weeks trying to figure out why he should know this person. He even carried on a long conversation with one guy on Facebook and still claims he has absolutely no idea who he is! I keep telling him to tell people this up front. It doesn't mean you aren't open to a friendship, but maybe they can help you jog your brain.
Another aspect - EVERYONE and their dog remembers my husband. (Seriously dogs remember AB.) He actually gets a little annoyed by this probably in the same way I get a little annoyed at never being remembered. We go to the grocery store and invariably someone will come up and greet him and chat. We walk off as I chastise him for not introducing me and he admits, "I didnt introduce you because I had no idea who they were, I probably work with them".
Totally foreign to me. I can't cover myself as well as AB does. He is good at going with the flow when someone recognizes him and he doesn't them. Me? IF this ever happened to me I would stand there blankly.
AB often wonders why people remember him.
LOL.
I remind him that his port wine stain is pretty much a dead giveaway as well as his somewhat unique name.
Friday, July 18, 2008
And then again... maybe not
AB and I returned from Alaska a little despondent. Not so thrilled to be back here. We were thrilled to be home, but felt a little disconnected. For AB it was going "home", back to Alaska where he grew up and dreams of moving back that did it for him. He routinely reminds me that among his friends, he was probably the least likely to leave Alaska. Yet here he is 18 years after leaving and no signs of moving back. He rode in the car with his dad who conveniently pointed out engineering firms along their route.
A friend once related to us that he felt that if you grew up somewhere "cool", it was harder to live in a place with seemingly less to offer as an adult. Where I grew up and went to college - in Northern Colorado - I would call a cool place. Actually it was a great place to grow up, recently rated #1 on the best places to live in the US and is an area coveted by many to live. I understand why.
Looking at where we live now, versus that region... or Alaska... Well this place just seems not to rank as high on the cool scale.
What I love about this region is the size and the family friendly nature and not to mention the really great social circle we have immersed ourselves in. Then there is the wine... very nice to live in "wine country". We have strong, stable jobs here making good money and our kids are in a most fabulous private daycare/preschool.
Why then, given all this, am I sometimes left with an emptiness about where we reside?
For me, what it doesn't have is immediate access to the mountains, to forests of spruce, to mountain streams. And for AB, beyond that, it doesn't have the ocean. Being that I didn't grow up next to the ocean, I could take or leave it. Though I admit a growing fondness for going over to our family cabin on the Sound. I love the tides, the beachcombing and the completely different environment from anything I grew up with. But the big one that it doesn't have is our family.
After returning we somewhat consciously made a decision to start exploring options either in Colorado or Alaska. AB passed his FE/EIT exam making him a full fledged engineer and in theory at least, eligible for many other careers than his current one.
Then yesterday happened.
It seems as though whenever our minds start wandering to the other side of the fence, we get jolted back.
AB came home excited about a new opportunity. Seems that his lead in safety and environmental was in a bragging mood and was joking around in a meeting with the lead engineers who were complaining that none of their new hire engineers passed the recent FE/EIT. AB's lead decided to chime in that he had a safety and environmental guy who went up and passed it on his first attempt.
A sort of "my guys are smarter than yours" thing going on.
A couple days later and AB has been actively recruited by the engineering leads. The neat thing about it is that they are giving him the opportunity to "try it out". AB basically has nothing to lose. If he doesn't like it, it doesn't work out, whatever, he can go back to his job in safety and environmental (which his lead is hoping for). Smart of AB's company actually... after having passed the exam, AB knew he was more marketable with other companies as an engineer. Now? He is looking forward to trying a new position on for size within his company.
We got home yesterday and it was like a competition... who got to share their exciting news first?
I usually win that battle because I can just start talking when AB walks in the door. I have had that little unwind time to relax and formulate what I am anxiously awaiting to tell him.
My opening line to him went something like, "you know you are going to have a great day when your client asks what you would do with unlimited funds and there isn't a hint of sarcasm to her voice!"
My task over the next two weeks is organize my teams thoughts, revisit our Gantt charts and define our critical paths on our suite of projects to determine how much it will take to shorten it. (Like how I am using all this project management lingo?? Gettin' good at this I tell you.) Do we need to hire on a few more scientists to get the work done? It's that important to the client. She closed the call by telling me she has a new and unrelated project to start up and could I please assemble another team for this new project? I have to admit how much I enjoyed e-mailing a group of people who are virtual unknowns to me asking them if they want a project. Rare does a project fall in your lap unsolicited from a client. I enjoyed being the bearer of that news to unsuspecting people.
Later that afternoon I got an e-mail from my much adored deputy sector lead. He is routinely reminding us that he is retiring soon. I am often surprised that he seems to think we are going to forget. When in fact, actually, we will mourn his leaving and are right now just pretending that he will be here forever. His e-mail was actually to a few people with me copied on it, letting people know who he was going to be transferring a subset of his files to.
Me.
Now I am just trying to figure out how to word this for my staff development review paperwork that is due next Friday.
A friend once related to us that he felt that if you grew up somewhere "cool", it was harder to live in a place with seemingly less to offer as an adult. Where I grew up and went to college - in Northern Colorado - I would call a cool place. Actually it was a great place to grow up, recently rated #1 on the best places to live in the US and is an area coveted by many to live. I understand why.
Looking at where we live now, versus that region... or Alaska... Well this place just seems not to rank as high on the cool scale.
What I love about this region is the size and the family friendly nature and not to mention the really great social circle we have immersed ourselves in. Then there is the wine... very nice to live in "wine country". We have strong, stable jobs here making good money and our kids are in a most fabulous private daycare/preschool.
Why then, given all this, am I sometimes left with an emptiness about where we reside?
For me, what it doesn't have is immediate access to the mountains, to forests of spruce, to mountain streams. And for AB, beyond that, it doesn't have the ocean. Being that I didn't grow up next to the ocean, I could take or leave it. Though I admit a growing fondness for going over to our family cabin on the Sound. I love the tides, the beachcombing and the completely different environment from anything I grew up with. But the big one that it doesn't have is our family.
After returning we somewhat consciously made a decision to start exploring options either in Colorado or Alaska. AB passed his FE/EIT exam making him a full fledged engineer and in theory at least, eligible for many other careers than his current one.
Then yesterday happened.
It seems as though whenever our minds start wandering to the other side of the fence, we get jolted back.
AB came home excited about a new opportunity. Seems that his lead in safety and environmental was in a bragging mood and was joking around in a meeting with the lead engineers who were complaining that none of their new hire engineers passed the recent FE/EIT. AB's lead decided to chime in that he had a safety and environmental guy who went up and passed it on his first attempt.
A sort of "my guys are smarter than yours" thing going on.
A couple days later and AB has been actively recruited by the engineering leads. The neat thing about it is that they are giving him the opportunity to "try it out". AB basically has nothing to lose. If he doesn't like it, it doesn't work out, whatever, he can go back to his job in safety and environmental (which his lead is hoping for). Smart of AB's company actually... after having passed the exam, AB knew he was more marketable with other companies as an engineer. Now? He is looking forward to trying a new position on for size within his company.
We got home yesterday and it was like a competition... who got to share their exciting news first?
I usually win that battle because I can just start talking when AB walks in the door. I have had that little unwind time to relax and formulate what I am anxiously awaiting to tell him.
My opening line to him went something like, "you know you are going to have a great day when your client asks what you would do with unlimited funds and there isn't a hint of sarcasm to her voice!"
My task over the next two weeks is organize my teams thoughts, revisit our Gantt charts and define our critical paths on our suite of projects to determine how much it will take to shorten it. (Like how I am using all this project management lingo?? Gettin' good at this I tell you.) Do we need to hire on a few more scientists to get the work done? It's that important to the client. She closed the call by telling me she has a new and unrelated project to start up and could I please assemble another team for this new project? I have to admit how much I enjoyed e-mailing a group of people who are virtual unknowns to me asking them if they want a project. Rare does a project fall in your lap unsolicited from a client. I enjoyed being the bearer of that news to unsuspecting people.
Later that afternoon I got an e-mail from my much adored deputy sector lead. He is routinely reminding us that he is retiring soon. I am often surprised that he seems to think we are going to forget. When in fact, actually, we will mourn his leaving and are right now just pretending that he will be here forever. His e-mail was actually to a few people with me copied on it, letting people know who he was going to be transferring a subset of his files to.
Me.
Now I am just trying to figure out how to word this for my staff development review paperwork that is due next Friday.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Our place in the space-time continuum
Did I spell continuum right? Spell check tells me I did. This has got to be the only word with two u's in a row. Anyways, on to business.
Our weekends have been busy lately. Every year as summer slows down I always look forward to the weekends lightening up some. This winter that doesn't seem to have happened. There is always that little inkling of being ready to go back to work on Monday to relax a little.
Oh my goodness - I wrote "being ready to go back to work on Monday"... Yes, things are going better for me at work lately. The fall is such a hard time as it's transition time for projects. Once we get past the holidays though the money starts rolling again and new projects are spinning up. I have my big project that is very nearly managed into the ground by a high up who is absent much of the time. I am tossed up between trying to step up to the plate, take control and be the hero that rescues the day and gets us back on track (or not) - I am afterall now the project manager for a project between three and five times this one in monetary value and with 12 staff members working on it. Or do I bide my time, do my job for the next 6 months while shrugging my shoulders saying "I offered to manage the project but you guys said I was too young".
Yeah, I talk big, but I am not that type of person.
Yet.
I have a few more years before I get that cynical. I have a meeting where I am sure I will find the words seeping out of my lips offering to take over project management. Frankly I will be surprised if it happens, but then I can at least say I offered twice.
I picked up a new task and managed to finagle 2/3's of the project's budget for my task. Finagle... ok, I didn't finagle much, they gave it. While it seems like a lot in the coffers, lining out what needs to be done and my time and the engineer's time, and it is pretty small potatoes. But I have the opportunity to make a big splash if it works. And it opened a door for me that I never expected with sharing the job of being a custodian of a brand new, big money, new capability instrument. That and being labeled as the go to girl for gas handling systems since I have had two more inquiries since. Not exactly what I want to do in the long run, but it's kind of fun to design and build things.
I still have one proposal sitting out there in "strong consideration" and I just sent out another that I am very hopeful on. I am in a happy place with work right now.
AB as well. He hasn't said it yet, but he loves his job. So being gone 12 hours a day is rough (mostly on me). Going to bed by 9pm sucks (for both of us). Vanpooling an hour each way isn't fun. But he is excelling at his job and appears to be a shooting star - that hopefully doesn't burn out anytime soon. He is working Safety, but was offered the chance to move back into Environmental - more related to his Masters degree. In one instant he was excited to do Environmental work, but in the next is a little mournful of "but I really like what I am doing right now". Deciding what is best career-wise is hard. I tell him to just do what he likes... but his response is that he likes it all. Which is a new world compared to where we were a year ago today.
He has five weeks of vacation a year on top of having Fridays off. Every Friday off. Unless he wants to work overtime - which is nice too. This has been great. Today, for example, he was pouring Pinot Noir all day. A little tasting might have been going on too... A week from Monday he is staying home with both kids for President's Day and says he is looking forward to it. I, otoh, am completely lacking time off of all types and will be toiling away in my office.
Moving onto the kids...
Skadi is leaning towards deciding that she is a one nap girl. Leif didn't jump on this boat until he was a few months older and I remember bemoaning the fact that daycare was forcing him into one nap and he needed two. On Monday, Skadi's teacher told me they are struggling with forcing her into two naps and she just wants one long one. In the middle of the day. Which I hate to admit, we have often been doing on Saturday out of convenience to our schedule. She is so the second child...
But this nap in the middle of the day? The same time *I* go see her daily.
I wasn't ready to give up my lunchtime visits yet. I am fully in denial that she turns one year old in just six weeks on Easter Sunday. (Yes, Easter is THAT early this year.) Her best friend has hung out in the Infant room despite having turned one a few weeks ago. This has been nice for Skadi, and after a discussion today I am going to push that she stay in this room until she moves to Leif's school. Her teacher said it is not an unreasonable request given the overload of kids in the room up and the waiting list in front of her from her present room going into the next higher room.
She isn't walking yet and I don't see much motivation to walk in her anytime soon. Why spend the time standing up and getting somewhere on two feet when you can crawl there three times as fast? She cruises along the furniture, people's legs, the cupboards. But she doesn't stand by herself much yet and has yet to get herself to standing from being on the ground without help.
She is set to start at Leif's school in June and is fought over with regard to teachers. One teacher (Leif's teacher from last year) informed me it was decided, she was hers. But today I ran into Leif's 1-2 year teacher who said, "not so fast!' - and proceeded to make my little girl giggle.
I could have selected her teacher - AB asked why I didn't. I narrowed down the selection to the two teachers, both fantastic but very different people. This is one of the few times in the daycare/preschool period where I feel completely at ease with whoever cares for her. I figured I would let them battle it out. I told AB that the person who wanted her the most would win - and I want my daughter's teacher to want her from day one.
I left out the tiny little fact in talking to the two teachers fighting over her that she isn't her easy-going brother. She is a true redhead - personality, temper and all!
We will just let them be surprised!
I had good news earlier this week in dropping Leif off that he seems to have transformed again. All week he was a pleasant child who napped and did the things the teachers asked and didn't push buttons. She said he was just back to being a joy to be around. I don't understand the mood changes. But we have seen it at home too.
I don't have much new or original (not already blogged about) to report on Leif's end. Right now he has an obsession with being "big". Most mornings he wakes up and after telling me he had a good sleep, he tells me, "I grew a little bit and now I am bigger". This morning he told me that "this leg grew longer last night". He kills me! It pains me to hear his desire to be big. I want to tell him to just enjoy being little for now, no need to grow up too soon! And I probably will start telling him this. Though I distinctly remember hearing this myself and promptly ignoring it.
When I was talking with my Co-PI this morning he had a rationale for this, Leif still has his entire life ahead of him, everything for him is looking forward. While we as adults spend a lot of time, good or bad, looking backwards.
Our weekends have been busy lately. Every year as summer slows down I always look forward to the weekends lightening up some. This winter that doesn't seem to have happened. There is always that little inkling of being ready to go back to work on Monday to relax a little.
Oh my goodness - I wrote "being ready to go back to work on Monday"... Yes, things are going better for me at work lately. The fall is such a hard time as it's transition time for projects. Once we get past the holidays though the money starts rolling again and new projects are spinning up. I have my big project that is very nearly managed into the ground by a high up who is absent much of the time. I am tossed up between trying to step up to the plate, take control and be the hero that rescues the day and gets us back on track (or not) - I am afterall now the project manager for a project between three and five times this one in monetary value and with 12 staff members working on it. Or do I bide my time, do my job for the next 6 months while shrugging my shoulders saying "I offered to manage the project but you guys said I was too young".
Yeah, I talk big, but I am not that type of person.
Yet.
I have a few more years before I get that cynical. I have a meeting where I am sure I will find the words seeping out of my lips offering to take over project management. Frankly I will be surprised if it happens, but then I can at least say I offered twice.
I picked up a new task and managed to finagle 2/3's of the project's budget for my task. Finagle... ok, I didn't finagle much, they gave it. While it seems like a lot in the coffers, lining out what needs to be done and my time and the engineer's time, and it is pretty small potatoes. But I have the opportunity to make a big splash if it works. And it opened a door for me that I never expected with sharing the job of being a custodian of a brand new, big money, new capability instrument. That and being labeled as the go to girl for gas handling systems since I have had two more inquiries since. Not exactly what I want to do in the long run, but it's kind of fun to design and build things.
I still have one proposal sitting out there in "strong consideration" and I just sent out another that I am very hopeful on. I am in a happy place with work right now.
AB as well. He hasn't said it yet, but he loves his job. So being gone 12 hours a day is rough (mostly on me). Going to bed by 9pm sucks (for both of us). Vanpooling an hour each way isn't fun. But he is excelling at his job and appears to be a shooting star - that hopefully doesn't burn out anytime soon. He is working Safety, but was offered the chance to move back into Environmental - more related to his Masters degree. In one instant he was excited to do Environmental work, but in the next is a little mournful of "but I really like what I am doing right now". Deciding what is best career-wise is hard. I tell him to just do what he likes... but his response is that he likes it all. Which is a new world compared to where we were a year ago today.
He has five weeks of vacation a year on top of having Fridays off. Every Friday off. Unless he wants to work overtime - which is nice too. This has been great. Today, for example, he was pouring Pinot Noir all day. A little tasting might have been going on too... A week from Monday he is staying home with both kids for President's Day and says he is looking forward to it. I, otoh, am completely lacking time off of all types and will be toiling away in my office.
Moving onto the kids...
Skadi is leaning towards deciding that she is a one nap girl. Leif didn't jump on this boat until he was a few months older and I remember bemoaning the fact that daycare was forcing him into one nap and he needed two. On Monday, Skadi's teacher told me they are struggling with forcing her into two naps and she just wants one long one. In the middle of the day. Which I hate to admit, we have often been doing on Saturday out of convenience to our schedule. She is so the second child...
But this nap in the middle of the day? The same time *I* go see her daily.
I wasn't ready to give up my lunchtime visits yet. I am fully in denial that she turns one year old in just six weeks on Easter Sunday. (Yes, Easter is THAT early this year.) Her best friend has hung out in the Infant room despite having turned one a few weeks ago. This has been nice for Skadi, and after a discussion today I am going to push that she stay in this room until she moves to Leif's school. Her teacher said it is not an unreasonable request given the overload of kids in the room up and the waiting list in front of her from her present room going into the next higher room.
She isn't walking yet and I don't see much motivation to walk in her anytime soon. Why spend the time standing up and getting somewhere on two feet when you can crawl there three times as fast? She cruises along the furniture, people's legs, the cupboards. But she doesn't stand by herself much yet and has yet to get herself to standing from being on the ground without help.
She is set to start at Leif's school in June and is fought over with regard to teachers. One teacher (Leif's teacher from last year) informed me it was decided, she was hers. But today I ran into Leif's 1-2 year teacher who said, "not so fast!' - and proceeded to make my little girl giggle.
I could have selected her teacher - AB asked why I didn't. I narrowed down the selection to the two teachers, both fantastic but very different people. This is one of the few times in the daycare/preschool period where I feel completely at ease with whoever cares for her. I figured I would let them battle it out. I told AB that the person who wanted her the most would win - and I want my daughter's teacher to want her from day one.
I left out the tiny little fact in talking to the two teachers fighting over her that she isn't her easy-going brother. She is a true redhead - personality, temper and all!
We will just let them be surprised!
I had good news earlier this week in dropping Leif off that he seems to have transformed again. All week he was a pleasant child who napped and did the things the teachers asked and didn't push buttons. She said he was just back to being a joy to be around. I don't understand the mood changes. But we have seen it at home too.
I don't have much new or original (not already blogged about) to report on Leif's end. Right now he has an obsession with being "big". Most mornings he wakes up and after telling me he had a good sleep, he tells me, "I grew a little bit and now I am bigger". This morning he told me that "this leg grew longer last night". He kills me! It pains me to hear his desire to be big. I want to tell him to just enjoy being little for now, no need to grow up too soon! And I probably will start telling him this. Though I distinctly remember hearing this myself and promptly ignoring it.
When I was talking with my Co-PI this morning he had a rationale for this, Leif still has his entire life ahead of him, everything for him is looking forward. While we as adults spend a lot of time, good or bad, looking backwards.
Monday, November 26, 2007
That period of time I didn't know how to write about... aka Part 5
Last night AB came by to tell me goodnight. He asked me what I was blogging about and when I told him about how Skadi laughs hilariously at my nipple he told me how weird I was. Then he asked me if I had finished my story on how we got together. Funny how that had prompted him to start reading my blog - if only for my take on the early portion of our relationship.
I admitted to him that I didn't know how to end it and asked for suggestions. He didn't know either. You see we dated for about 3 months and then he broke up with me (boo) over the phone (double boo), a week before Valentine's Day (triple boo). I had decided it wasn't meant to be and wanted nothing to do with him. I refused to call him and avoided him at school. He didn't come to my intramural volleyball games and I was glad that he was no longer my lab partner.
I took to flirting with my Inorganic Lab TA... which was going surprisingly well.
Then one day AB called me. He asked me if I had listened to a particular Mark Cohn song... sure I had. I had introduced him to Mark Cohn. Then he continued to talk, and talk. He told me on one of the subsequent long calls that his best friend, JB, was coming to town with his then girlfriend and they were all going to Moab for Spring Break. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't invited and wrote him off in my mind... again. I did have to work - I always worked spring break, but an invite would have been nice.
They got back from Moab and he brought the two over to my apartment so I could meet them. We got back together at that point and dated for about 6 months until the following fall. We survived rolling my car that summer and I had graduated. AB had switched majors and still needed to complete two more semesters. I planned to stay in my job at the dermatologist that year and figure out what I wanted to do.
The next time he broke up with me that fall he came to my door. He had walked all the way over to my house (after much razzing about the phone call break-up), thinking the whole way. There he broke the news to me, we were over, done, kaput.
This one lasted a little longer. I don't remember exactly when we got back together, but I remember we weren't together when we took his sister to see Phantom of the Opera that fall for her birthday present. We had bought tickets earlier that summer and wouldn't you know it we split up. But I still really wanted to see Phantom and so I kept my ticket.
That night I did make sure he knew that I had other options out there - as far fetched as they were. My old best friend from high school, Brian, had recently contacted me and we had written a few letters back and forth. For a little bit I pondered if there could be something there. I knew there wasn't really, but I let AB think there might be.
He spent that Christmas in Alaska with his family which I remember because he called me at my mom's house and I remember telling my mom, "I don't know why he called, we aren't together".
She replied, "because it is Christmas and he is a nice guy". Or something to that effect.
Sometime after that we were back together. Spring Break again arrived - this time JB (who wasn't with his girlfriend anymore), AB, Brian and Josh were headed to Moab. I had to work, AB knew it and it was a guy's trip. I stayed home again. AB came back with a short crew cut - ditched the long feathered look from high school. (About time.)
AB graduated and was job hunting. We had no idea where he was going to end up, and I was applying to grad schools my first time around. I chose high end grad schools - I had a mediocre GPA - there really wasn't a chance.
After a couple jobs making little to nothing AB decided he had to go to Alaska to work on the North Slope and earn real money. I was denied entry to the grad schools I selected and was facing another year working in skin cancer surgery.
The move to the North Slope was a tough one on our relationship. I recanted this with AB the other night, curious on his take as I was reitterating our first two years of our relationship. I didn't know where I would be the next year. He was unhappy in Colorado, but had a job offer in Alaska. I wasn't moving to Alaska. We made the mutual decision to break up.
We both cried. I remember going for walks sobbing. Both of us. I didn't want him to go, but I couldn't ask him to stay either. I felt I didn't have anything to offer him there.
AB recalls that he got to Alaska and had a week before his stint on the slope started. He got outfitted and headed up. He called me regularly to let me know what was going on. Regularly turned into almost nightly for those next nine weeks he worked. I was still smitten. But feared the heartbreak.
He was nearing his time off and he asked if he could come back to Colorado and stay with me for those 2-3 weeks of time off. So there it was, we were back together and that third break up - in two years - lasted an entire 11 weeks. If that really.
I flew up to be with him in Alaska for Christmas that year. We attended one of his friend's weddings and had a really nice time. I fell in love with Alaska.
And AB.
We started talking about our plans for the future. AB had been working and making very good money and we could suddenly afford to do things on his off time, like travel to go skiing. I made travel plans while he was up on his slope time. I worked at my job, applied for grad schools, then he would fly down and we would have 2-3 weeks of being together.
Finally I got my grad school letters.
I had to decide between attending at Moscow, Idaho and Reno, Nevada. I remember calling and trying to arrange a visit to Moscow and was met with such opposition, I became immediately nervous. It wasn't that they didn't want me to visit, it was that getting there, posed a difficulty and was expensive enough they couldn't pay for the whole trip.
This was a red flag for me. If I couldn't get there for a visit, how was AB going to get there? We had at that point decided that we did want to be together and wherever I chose to go to grad school, he would fly to. He was not stuck on Colorado and his family had moved to Alaska again. He would pay half the rent and utilities and we would live together.
I thought this a good compromise for my first year knowing I really needed the time to get established in my program and to study. During his time up there, I would study my rear off and work hard. Then I could slack off a little for his 2-3 weeks off.
I arranged our visit with Reno to coincide with one of his off times. We drove to Reno and then drove into San Francisco to visit JB thereafter.
Reno it was. I liked the program, the profs, the students. And we liked the proximity to San Francisco.
At this point we were back to being a couple and no more break ups ensued. We got through that rough patch initially. Then when AB was working on the Slope it became obvious that despite being broken up, we really did want to be together and not only that, we would work to plan our lives on the same path.
This was the corner we turned in our relationship that changed things for good.
I admitted to him that I didn't know how to end it and asked for suggestions. He didn't know either. You see we dated for about 3 months and then he broke up with me (boo) over the phone (double boo), a week before Valentine's Day (triple boo). I had decided it wasn't meant to be and wanted nothing to do with him. I refused to call him and avoided him at school. He didn't come to my intramural volleyball games and I was glad that he was no longer my lab partner.
I took to flirting with my Inorganic Lab TA... which was going surprisingly well.
Then one day AB called me. He asked me if I had listened to a particular Mark Cohn song... sure I had. I had introduced him to Mark Cohn. Then he continued to talk, and talk. He told me on one of the subsequent long calls that his best friend, JB, was coming to town with his then girlfriend and they were all going to Moab for Spring Break. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't invited and wrote him off in my mind... again. I did have to work - I always worked spring break, but an invite would have been nice.
They got back from Moab and he brought the two over to my apartment so I could meet them. We got back together at that point and dated for about 6 months until the following fall. We survived rolling my car that summer and I had graduated. AB had switched majors and still needed to complete two more semesters. I planned to stay in my job at the dermatologist that year and figure out what I wanted to do.
The next time he broke up with me that fall he came to my door. He had walked all the way over to my house (after much razzing about the phone call break-up), thinking the whole way. There he broke the news to me, we were over, done, kaput.
This one lasted a little longer. I don't remember exactly when we got back together, but I remember we weren't together when we took his sister to see Phantom of the Opera that fall for her birthday present. We had bought tickets earlier that summer and wouldn't you know it we split up. But I still really wanted to see Phantom and so I kept my ticket.
That night I did make sure he knew that I had other options out there - as far fetched as they were. My old best friend from high school, Brian, had recently contacted me and we had written a few letters back and forth. For a little bit I pondered if there could be something there. I knew there wasn't really, but I let AB think there might be.
He spent that Christmas in Alaska with his family which I remember because he called me at my mom's house and I remember telling my mom, "I don't know why he called, we aren't together".
She replied, "because it is Christmas and he is a nice guy". Or something to that effect.
Sometime after that we were back together. Spring Break again arrived - this time JB (who wasn't with his girlfriend anymore), AB, Brian and Josh were headed to Moab. I had to work, AB knew it and it was a guy's trip. I stayed home again. AB came back with a short crew cut - ditched the long feathered look from high school. (About time.)
AB graduated and was job hunting. We had no idea where he was going to end up, and I was applying to grad schools my first time around. I chose high end grad schools - I had a mediocre GPA - there really wasn't a chance.
After a couple jobs making little to nothing AB decided he had to go to Alaska to work on the North Slope and earn real money. I was denied entry to the grad schools I selected and was facing another year working in skin cancer surgery.
The move to the North Slope was a tough one on our relationship. I recanted this with AB the other night, curious on his take as I was reitterating our first two years of our relationship. I didn't know where I would be the next year. He was unhappy in Colorado, but had a job offer in Alaska. I wasn't moving to Alaska. We made the mutual decision to break up.
We both cried. I remember going for walks sobbing. Both of us. I didn't want him to go, but I couldn't ask him to stay either. I felt I didn't have anything to offer him there.
AB recalls that he got to Alaska and had a week before his stint on the slope started. He got outfitted and headed up. He called me regularly to let me know what was going on. Regularly turned into almost nightly for those next nine weeks he worked. I was still smitten. But feared the heartbreak.
He was nearing his time off and he asked if he could come back to Colorado and stay with me for those 2-3 weeks of time off. So there it was, we were back together and that third break up - in two years - lasted an entire 11 weeks. If that really.
I flew up to be with him in Alaska for Christmas that year. We attended one of his friend's weddings and had a really nice time. I fell in love with Alaska.
And AB.
We started talking about our plans for the future. AB had been working and making very good money and we could suddenly afford to do things on his off time, like travel to go skiing. I made travel plans while he was up on his slope time. I worked at my job, applied for grad schools, then he would fly down and we would have 2-3 weeks of being together.
Finally I got my grad school letters.
I had to decide between attending at Moscow, Idaho and Reno, Nevada. I remember calling and trying to arrange a visit to Moscow and was met with such opposition, I became immediately nervous. It wasn't that they didn't want me to visit, it was that getting there, posed a difficulty and was expensive enough they couldn't pay for the whole trip.
This was a red flag for me. If I couldn't get there for a visit, how was AB going to get there? We had at that point decided that we did want to be together and wherever I chose to go to grad school, he would fly to. He was not stuck on Colorado and his family had moved to Alaska again. He would pay half the rent and utilities and we would live together.
I thought this a good compromise for my first year knowing I really needed the time to get established in my program and to study. During his time up there, I would study my rear off and work hard. Then I could slack off a little for his 2-3 weeks off.
I arranged our visit with Reno to coincide with one of his off times. We drove to Reno and then drove into San Francisco to visit JB thereafter.
Reno it was. I liked the program, the profs, the students. And we liked the proximity to San Francisco.
At this point we were back to being a couple and no more break ups ensued. We got through that rough patch initially. Then when AB was working on the Slope it became obvious that despite being broken up, we really did want to be together and not only that, we would work to plan our lives on the same path.
This was the corner we turned in our relationship that changed things for good.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Who is that man over there?
For those of you who don't live here, and therefore have not seen AB... he shaved his beard off.
The best we can figure is that he has had it for 12 years. It has been a permanent fixture our 5.5 years here. He never shaved it off while living in Reno. Which takes us back Colorado and college. He thinks he shaved it off while working on the Slope (aka in Prudhoe Bay). He hasn't worked there in 12 years we calculate.
He waited until he had an evening where Leif could watch. We thought it would be less shocking to him to see if come off.
Leif, not so thrilled. Skadi was intrigued - though I think it was the shaving cream on the face that amazed her. Leif reminds AB daily he doesn't have hair on his face anymore. Then tells him to grow it back now.
Don't worry Leif... daddy is already working on that!
He had to shave it for work to get fit tested for a resp mask. The condition of him growing it back is that he has to maintain shaving implements at work. Done.
AB tells me that the biggest problem he has is that his face looks old. The last time he has seen his lower jaw he was much younger. Seeing his face age so substantially in a matter of minutes was disturbing to him.
I still turn around and nearly jump seeing a guy I don't know. Some people don't look *that* different with and without facial hair. Not AB. Most everyone we know is surprised by the transformation.
The best we can figure is that he has had it for 12 years. It has been a permanent fixture our 5.5 years here. He never shaved it off while living in Reno. Which takes us back Colorado and college. He thinks he shaved it off while working on the Slope (aka in Prudhoe Bay). He hasn't worked there in 12 years we calculate.
He waited until he had an evening where Leif could watch. We thought it would be less shocking to him to see if come off.
Leif, not so thrilled. Skadi was intrigued - though I think it was the shaving cream on the face that amazed her. Leif reminds AB daily he doesn't have hair on his face anymore. Then tells him to grow it back now.
Don't worry Leif... daddy is already working on that!
He had to shave it for work to get fit tested for a resp mask. The condition of him growing it back is that he has to maintain shaving implements at work. Done.
AB tells me that the biggest problem he has is that his face looks old. The last time he has seen his lower jaw he was much younger. Seeing his face age so substantially in a matter of minutes was disturbing to him.
I still turn around and nearly jump seeing a guy I don't know. Some people don't look *that* different with and without facial hair. Not AB. Most everyone we know is surprised by the transformation.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Fleeting thoughts and randomness
The Big Bang Theory... AB and I thought it looked funny from the previews. But there is a point at which the jokes border a little too much on reality.
I work with these people day in and day out. But I am not one. Really.
Denial is a nice state to reside.
---------------
NM: "Let's get you a shirt for today Leif."
Leif: "I want to wear this one!" (Pulling out the Denver Broncos jersey.)
NM: "Are you sure you want to wear that one? (Knowing full well we live in Seahawks territory.)
Leif: "Yes, this one." (We put it on.)
Leif: "GO SEATTLE SEAHAWKS!"
(AB was amused.)
----------------------
NM: "Leif hold still, you have something stuck on your nose."
Leif: "They are called frackles mommy."
-----------------------
And right now only semi-funny... but probably very funny to those who work for the government.
AB on the phone: "I just had to fill out all those forms once again including that stupid one I have filled out at least four times now that they kept losing before."
NM: "Which one?"
AB: "You know, that optional one that is required for employment, the one that says 'I am still a white guy?'"
--------------------
Last night at dinner.
Leif: (Stands up on his chair at dinner.) "I have to call bompa NOW!"
NM: "You just talked to bompa, why do you need to call him now?"
Leif: "Because I tell him he is a lion for Halloween and grandma is a tiger for Halloween."
NM and AB: Chuckling at the thought of my mom and stepdad as a tiger and lion for Halloween. They would do anything for their grandson... wouldn't they?
--------------------
AB's permanent position with his present company starts on October 9th. In order for him to transition to the new position his last day of internship is tomorrow and he has one week off. This works well with our planned exodus to the coast. So new plans...
We leave for the coast on Friday morning and planned return for Tuesday afternoon. We could change our minds and stay through Wednesday... like I have anything pressing at work. But in the interest in conserving vacation time... since I am sans any other type of leave, the present plan is to return Tuesday. I need a comfortable buffer of time off.
I work with these people day in and day out. But I am not one. Really.
Denial is a nice state to reside.
---------------
NM: "Let's get you a shirt for today Leif."
Leif: "I want to wear this one!" (Pulling out the Denver Broncos jersey.)
NM: "Are you sure you want to wear that one? (Knowing full well we live in Seahawks territory.)
Leif: "Yes, this one." (We put it on.)
Leif: "GO SEATTLE SEAHAWKS!"
(AB was amused.)
----------------------
NM: "Leif hold still, you have something stuck on your nose."
Leif: "They are called frackles mommy."
-----------------------
And right now only semi-funny... but probably very funny to those who work for the government.
AB on the phone: "I just had to fill out all those forms once again including that stupid one I have filled out at least four times now that they kept losing before."
NM: "Which one?"
AB: "You know, that optional one that is required for employment, the one that says 'I am still a white guy?'"
--------------------
Last night at dinner.
Leif: (Stands up on his chair at dinner.) "I have to call bompa NOW!"
NM: "You just talked to bompa, why do you need to call him now?"
Leif: "Because I tell him he is a lion for Halloween and grandma is a tiger for Halloween."
NM and AB: Chuckling at the thought of my mom and stepdad as a tiger and lion for Halloween. They would do anything for their grandson... wouldn't they?
--------------------
AB's permanent position with his present company starts on October 9th. In order for him to transition to the new position his last day of internship is tomorrow and he has one week off. This works well with our planned exodus to the coast. So new plans...
We leave for the coast on Friday morning and planned return for Tuesday afternoon. We could change our minds and stay through Wednesday... like I have anything pressing at work. But in the interest in conserving vacation time... since I am sans any other type of leave, the present plan is to return Tuesday. I need a comfortable buffer of time off.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
So this explains the trend to have one parent stay home
It is weeks/months like the past few in our household.
With one child, who had been through the ailments and illnesses that accompany daycare, we could deal with us both working. Paying one daycare tuition was acceptable. And splitting time off when someone needed to be home with Leif was tolerable.
Then Skaders arrived. And she is truly one of the two best things that have ever happened to us. (I don't want to give the impression I am blaming her.) Then AB took an internship (read no benefits - vacation, sick time or insurance). All that was fine in the name of getting experience and I carried the family on my insurance. And it paid off. AB is in the process of being hired on fully by a great company (though one that doesn't realize there is a child who could really use the extra dental insurance in the next 7 days).
And here I am going to sound like an excessive whiner, but it is taking its toll. Being the sole one responsible for doctor's appointments and staying home with the kids when sick, while I wouldn't have it any other way given the choice, it is hard with a full time career. I have said it before, I will say it again, I don't know what single parents do. AB works out of town and with no paid leave, it just doesn't make sense for him to try and take off to do this stuff, particularly while he is trying to prove himself to his management.
My manager called me today. As explained previously, my manager never calls. And being that the last time she called I got a mid-year raise I have to admit hearing her voice raised my hopes there for a nanosecond.
Nope, she called to talk to me about my chargeable hours goal for the fiscal year and see what my plan was. I admitted to having missed filling out my timecard yesterday since I was home with a sick kid (that I DID e-mail her about). Therefore my chargeable goal was 8 hours off. And yes, I realize that still left me teetering on the brink, but I actually was (just barely) within guidelines.
She told me she was concerned as I had zero, zippo, nadda sick time left (thank you maternity leave policies that I could rant about). Yet in my e-mail regarding my schedule for the coming week I told her I would be out for a full day for my son's dental work. She fully understood this necessity, but reminded me this would either be on vacation time or she would authorize unpaid leave because I could not flex this time so close to the fiscal year end, nor could I use sick time. (Don't even get me started on my banked time sitting there, waiting to be "used when one most needs it"...)
She was quite polite about it all. She gets it, she has three kids. And she admitted that she knew how hard this is in the first year after a new baby. I don't blame her. I don't know who I blame. Nobody really. Maybe benefits a little for not letting me at those 24 or so banked hours...
Picking up Skadi didn't help a whole lot. She had a rough day thanks to tooth #2 pushing it's way through her little gum. Combined with the recovery from this skin issue she had and I blogged about yesterday. It was just a sucky day for her. I am tired of her getting bumped to the other room for no apparent reason. I am tired of the dipshit second teacher over there who is having serious bouts of pregnancy brain and threw her clothes away today. Brand new outfit in the trash. I stood there and waited for them to find her clothes... thankfully.
It is hard having been on "the other side" and seeing the other option for care conveniently only once the kids are 1 year old. Maybe it was this bad when Leif was there... maybe I just didn't know any better and now I do.
I went home and looked at AB (after going and buying last minute new shoes for Leif on the way home since his broke today at school and he was very upset about it). I told him if I went to 80% time I could take Mondays off, he will have Fridays off and we could drop Skaders to 3 days a week at daycare. He pointed at our son's mouth. Then reminded me of the debt that accumulated from a year of unemployment and three years of tuition for his Masters.
Nevermind.
Lotto anyone?
With one child, who had been through the ailments and illnesses that accompany daycare, we could deal with us both working. Paying one daycare tuition was acceptable. And splitting time off when someone needed to be home with Leif was tolerable.
Then Skaders arrived. And she is truly one of the two best things that have ever happened to us. (I don't want to give the impression I am blaming her.) Then AB took an internship (read no benefits - vacation, sick time or insurance). All that was fine in the name of getting experience and I carried the family on my insurance. And it paid off. AB is in the process of being hired on fully by a great company (though one that doesn't realize there is a child who could really use the extra dental insurance in the next 7 days).
And here I am going to sound like an excessive whiner, but it is taking its toll. Being the sole one responsible for doctor's appointments and staying home with the kids when sick, while I wouldn't have it any other way given the choice, it is hard with a full time career. I have said it before, I will say it again, I don't know what single parents do. AB works out of town and with no paid leave, it just doesn't make sense for him to try and take off to do this stuff, particularly while he is trying to prove himself to his management.
My manager called me today. As explained previously, my manager never calls. And being that the last time she called I got a mid-year raise I have to admit hearing her voice raised my hopes there for a nanosecond.
Nope, she called to talk to me about my chargeable hours goal for the fiscal year and see what my plan was. I admitted to having missed filling out my timecard yesterday since I was home with a sick kid (that I DID e-mail her about). Therefore my chargeable goal was 8 hours off. And yes, I realize that still left me teetering on the brink, but I actually was (just barely) within guidelines.
She told me she was concerned as I had zero, zippo, nadda sick time left (thank you maternity leave policies that I could rant about). Yet in my e-mail regarding my schedule for the coming week I told her I would be out for a full day for my son's dental work. She fully understood this necessity, but reminded me this would either be on vacation time or she would authorize unpaid leave because I could not flex this time so close to the fiscal year end, nor could I use sick time. (Don't even get me started on my banked time sitting there, waiting to be "used when one most needs it"...)
She was quite polite about it all. She gets it, she has three kids. And she admitted that she knew how hard this is in the first year after a new baby. I don't blame her. I don't know who I blame. Nobody really. Maybe benefits a little for not letting me at those 24 or so banked hours...
Picking up Skadi didn't help a whole lot. She had a rough day thanks to tooth #2 pushing it's way through her little gum. Combined with the recovery from this skin issue she had and I blogged about yesterday. It was just a sucky day for her. I am tired of her getting bumped to the other room for no apparent reason. I am tired of the dipshit second teacher over there who is having serious bouts of pregnancy brain and threw her clothes away today. Brand new outfit in the trash. I stood there and waited for them to find her clothes... thankfully.
It is hard having been on "the other side" and seeing the other option for care conveniently only once the kids are 1 year old. Maybe it was this bad when Leif was there... maybe I just didn't know any better and now I do.
I went home and looked at AB (after going and buying last minute new shoes for Leif on the way home since his broke today at school and he was very upset about it). I told him if I went to 80% time I could take Mondays off, he will have Fridays off and we could drop Skaders to 3 days a week at daycare. He pointed at our son's mouth. Then reminded me of the debt that accumulated from a year of unemployment and three years of tuition for his Masters.
Nevermind.
Lotto anyone?
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
What a difference a day makes
Yeah so I was actually looking forward to going to work on Monday. Wouldn't it just figure then that Leif woke up with a fever after a very rough night. Started about 102F, then went to 103F and finally topped out at 104.3F. Yes, I was freaking. He was lethargic and burning up, yet telling me I was hot when I touched him.
A highly anticipated visit to the doctor where he was disappointed not to get another shot (weird child), instead a course of prescribed antibiotics. A good nap, a good night's sleep and what a difference a day makes. He is a different child today.
------------
Last night AB was trying to figure out how to request time off to go interview for a position as an engineering sales rep. He wasn't thrilled about the job, though there were nice perks (car, phone, laptop) but lots of downsides (travel, working out of the home, doing sales). But it was a permanent position.
He went in to work today and was offered a full time permanent position with the company he is interning with! What a difference a day makes.
-------------
I got an e-mail yesterday afternoon that set me off, it said: "Thanks to everyone for the submissions to this year's proposal call. They were all high quality. The first cut was made yesterday. If you didn't make the first cut, you will get an e-mail why." Being that I hadn't received an e-mail about making the first cut, I steamed and snorted, got teary and emotional, then growled and grumbled about how my whole purpose in my directorate (supposidly) is to establish a surface science capability. Well how am I supposed to do that when my proposals never make it past the first stage and no one seems to want to step out of the box and investigate surface science techniques as options for these types of issues? I was steamed and ready to go to my mentor and gripe, oh hell with it, I was going to go to my manager and scream. I was ready to make a call and tell a certain large corporation I was ready for that interview - afterall, AB's job prospects were about as bright as my career last night.
Then this morning I got the list of proposals and PI's. Out of sheer torment I clicked it open to see who exactly got the "go ahead". Yeah yeah yeah... the usual suspects. There's my name. What? There is a "Y" by my name! What the?? After triple checking to make sure that a "Y" meant the "go ahead" to the next step I nearly cried. And then I kicked myself for jumping to conclusions last night and getting all worked up that the powers that be would actually send out "congrats" notices as opposed to a spreadsheet after the first downer e-mail. (Bunch of analytical analytics...) My future may have something in store here... what a difference a day makes.
---------------
Last night we were talking about moving out of the area. Today we talked about resuming our hunt for lots/houses for sale. What a difference a day makes. (And if my FIL is reading, yes Horn Rapids is on our list for this weekend.)
A highly anticipated visit to the doctor where he was disappointed not to get another shot (weird child), instead a course of prescribed antibiotics. A good nap, a good night's sleep and what a difference a day makes. He is a different child today.
------------
Last night AB was trying to figure out how to request time off to go interview for a position as an engineering sales rep. He wasn't thrilled about the job, though there were nice perks (car, phone, laptop) but lots of downsides (travel, working out of the home, doing sales). But it was a permanent position.
He went in to work today and was offered a full time permanent position with the company he is interning with! What a difference a day makes.
-------------
I got an e-mail yesterday afternoon that set me off, it said: "Thanks to everyone for the submissions to this year's proposal call. They were all high quality. The first cut was made yesterday. If you didn't make the first cut, you will get an e-mail why." Being that I hadn't received an e-mail about making the first cut, I steamed and snorted, got teary and emotional, then growled and grumbled about how my whole purpose in my directorate (supposidly) is to establish a surface science capability. Well how am I supposed to do that when my proposals never make it past the first stage and no one seems to want to step out of the box and investigate surface science techniques as options for these types of issues? I was steamed and ready to go to my mentor and gripe, oh hell with it, I was going to go to my manager and scream. I was ready to make a call and tell a certain large corporation I was ready for that interview - afterall, AB's job prospects were about as bright as my career last night.
Then this morning I got the list of proposals and PI's. Out of sheer torment I clicked it open to see who exactly got the "go ahead". Yeah yeah yeah... the usual suspects. There's my name. What? There is a "Y" by my name! What the?? After triple checking to make sure that a "Y" meant the "go ahead" to the next step I nearly cried. And then I kicked myself for jumping to conclusions last night and getting all worked up that the powers that be would actually send out "congrats" notices as opposed to a spreadsheet after the first downer e-mail. (Bunch of analytical analytics...) My future may have something in store here... what a difference a day makes.
---------------
Last night we were talking about moving out of the area. Today we talked about resuming our hunt for lots/houses for sale. What a difference a day makes. (And if my FIL is reading, yes Horn Rapids is on our list for this weekend.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)