Consider Me Officially "De-Motivated"

I got a phone call from my boss today. Seems she and her boss (our CEO) had an extended conversation that started with "I love what PPG is doing..." You hear the "but" coming, right? Because there's always a "but". Sometimes, it's just a "but", sometimes a "but" and a "butt in". But there's always a "but". This time, 'twas the latter.

Apparently, the CEO and her pet project managers don't understand my contract review emails, notwithstanding the numerous times I rewrite them, gradually reducing need for extended reading comprehension skills. I'm now to write my reviews at a "third grade reading level"... because, it seems, all these over-educated planners and engineers aren't really literate beyond that.

I suspect, however, given their own writing styles, this stems less from a lack of literacy than from a lack of spine masked as a lack of critical thinking skills. No matter how many times I explain I am not an attorney and that practice of law without a license is illegal, they still don't want to be responsible for their own decisions whether to pursue changes or live with the contract as is.

I was brought up to my heart and soul into the things I do, to give an employer everything in my power to give them. And, in return, I was taught, an employer would be fair and appreciative. It's taken me all these years to figure out that 90% of the employers out there have little integrity and less honor when it comes to their employees. As a GenX, I should've been more cynical but I feel betrayed.

I need to stop caring whether I do the job the right way. Because it's getting in the way of my ability to actually do the job.

once upon a time

heels click
across
the tiled corridor

hair twists smoothly
upward
skirt falls
neatly
jacket tailored
appearance
polished

not just
competency,
excellence

efficiency,
organization
appreciated

i was
good
at what i did

SEATTLE!!!

John had his first jury trial in nearly 20 years of practice (he's a civil lawyer, not a criminal defense one) this week. He won.

I can't say how proud I am of him. He was so stressed out about it and the guy is a good friend of ours, a steeplejack, who has been unable to work for ages due to a car accident that the other driver admits was the other driver's fault. So proud of him, not just for winning, but for facing up to his nerves and doing it anyway.

Good job, Buddy; I love you.

I'm Walking On Sunshine And It's Time to Feel Good

I don't feel particularly respected at work. Half the time you could just eliminate "particularly" from that last sentence and it would be accurate. Hell, at least a quarter of the time beyond that you could actually say I feel rather disrespected at work! What I do, because it doesn't actively bring money through the door, isn't valued by most at our company. I and the other admin folk have actually been termed "pie eaters" (as opposed to the professional staff who were called "pie makers").

I work for a planning and engineering consulting firm. I review contracts - which means I read them from a legal perspective, basically an inhouse paralegal kind of thing. (I was a legal assistant for over a decade.) I negotiate language with our clients to try to protect our interests.

We're a small firm and are usually subcontractors to larger firms that contract with state agencies, etc.. We bill our client, our client bills the state, the state pays our client, then our client pays us. Unfortunately, our clients sometimes sit on our bills rather than sending them upstream promptly; sometimes they don't even look at them for months. So, I crafted a bit of language that I try to negotiate into all our contracts that requires them to review our bills promptly and then submit them to the state promptly.

Most of our clients fight including the language. It can be an uphill battle for sure. But, tonight, I I was reviewing a contract between one of our clients and the state tonight. The client had negotiated my language into their contract with the state. You know you've written some good stuff when someone steals it for their own use.

A little respect is nice... even if it comes from a client and you wouldn't even know it unless you stumbled on it. I did stumble on it and - hey - I know it's a small thing but I'm flattered!

A Dash of This, A Pinch of That

• Why is my camera always on the other side of the room when I want it? I looked over while Evie was eating dinner tonight. She was skewering her hot dog slices on the pointed tip of a big fat crayon before using the crayon as a utensil. Note to self: be sure to provide a fork in the future!

• Matthew appears to be back on the weight gaining track. He'd lost, then gained in the hospital, then lost some more as of the end of last week. My thought is that second loss was due to me stopping the morphine (damn!) - either the increased pain level inhibited milk let-down or maybe he was missing the dope hitting his system through the milk. At any rate, hopefully we're back on the gain train for good now.

• The Syracuse Medical Cootie Problem continues - this time, the ER visits spread outside the family to my sister's friend (chest pains, she's ok now).

• Oh, and we, too, were visited by the Syracuse Medical Cooties. Evie wound up in the ER at the children's hospital Saturday night after having possibly eaten part of a mushroom in the yard. (She's fine - a dose of activated charcoal and some observation.) Two observations on the event: (1) the CT Poison Control people are great and (2) it's very helpful that our pediatrician is a bigwig at the children's hospital. He called to let them know John was coming with Evie and he didn't have to wait on queue at all.

• Feeling a bit isolated these days. It's funny how even the small interactions with store clerks or the preschool teachers can make one feel connected to the world and how deprived one feels when one can't even leave the house. I do realize, of course, that people are busy and this, too, shall pass; but, as my friend Marla says, "yeah, like a kidneystone!"
  

• I am grateful for John, who has been an enormous help. It's hard for me to accept the help. I feel guilty that I'm not doing more. I forget (though, to his vast credit, he does not) that feeding the baby is work too. Even though it takes up probably a good 8 hours a day (8-12 feedings of 30-60 minutes each, then the concurrent diaper changes)k, I'm just sitting on my ass while doing it so it makes me feel quite the lazy bum.
  

• Particularly when the girls are being truly wretched. Jealousy, exhaustion - not good for anyone's temper and the combination is really ... unpleasant. Evie is just getting into the tantrum age anyway and has taken to beating on her older sister (to Katie's credit, for the most part, she just bursts into hysterics instead of hitting back).
  

• I'm back at work (since last Wednesday, a week after my c-section) 10 hours a week. Thank the Lord in heaven it's from home but, still, between that in the evenings, watching 3 kids all day, recovering from abdominal surgery, and being woken 2-3x night, I am too tired to even get myself carried away in a good make believe.
  

• Next doc appointment on Wednesday. Should get ok'd to drive but, still, Matthew's too young to really go anywhere - particularly with all the H1N1 crud. But maybe I can get a spare half hour to just go for a drive or something by myself some night. As long as I'm back by the next feeding (an hour and a half apart lately - methinks a growth spurt is coming on).

Alright, enough.
Later.

A Rant About Gender and Pregnancy

First, some (much abbreviated) background, my apologies to those for whom this is a repeat.

I got married at 30. We started trying to have kids at 34, by 35 we were full into the ART (assisted reproductive therapy) swing. At 37, tired of all the hormones, tests, and procedures, we called it a day. At 38, we unexpectedly (very unexpectedly) had a baby girl. At 39, we lost a baby. At 40, we plunged back into the Clomid full force and, at 41, had another baby girl. Afterward, we decided that to just let fate do its thing. I wasn’t going back to hormones (either assistive or preventative), I wasn’t going to monitor for ovulation. After all, fertility has always been an issue for us and, of course, it declines as one gets older. Not to mention, with two kids under 3 and me working nights, how much, er, personal time do we get? As we now know, the Great Good Thing had different plans for us, of course.

Ok, on to today’s rant...

So, my boss calls this morning with some action items (I hate that term) from yesterday’s ExCom (I hate that term too - we’re not the military, for Pete’s sake) meeting. She wants me to make another presentation on why contracts and, more specifically, the language in our contracts is important and to go through our contract procedures with our PMs (project managers, not prime ministers though, of course, some of them think of themselves as the latter). They want me to make this presentation at one of the monthly staff meetings. Now, there’s really only one date that will work as July’s meeting is coming too quickly to put a presentation together on our currently shortened hours and still get the other work done and September is, well, occupied. So, August it is.

In the course of this discussion, she reveals that she’s told ExCom that we’re expecting. I have to say I’m a bit surprised. She was the one that wanted me to keep this quiet (because our COO was p-i-s-s-e-d that I got pregnant last time - that much was made very clear to me at the time: heaven forfend, I should put my personal life above the company) and, given that I work from home, it’s possible I might have kept it secret until well after the fact. (We don’t have maternity leave, per se, and, last time, I was working 10 hours a week within a week of getting home from the hospital.) But, ok, they know. And, she adds, “they’re all happy you’re expecting a boy.”

Ok, this I have a problem with. Like they wouldn’t be happy if it was a girl? Still, I’d think it was just a wording thing except that I’ve talked to several people for whom the only saving grace of this pregnancy is that the baby appears to be a boy.

The pregnancy was received poorly by many people until we/they found out the baby is a boy. From my parents to random acquaintances, people seem to think that we’re crazy/disobedient/inappropriately fecund to have a third but, oh, it’s ok because “John’s getting his boy”. So, WTF? How could our pregnancy possibly affect you? It’s not like my parents babysit or really have much to do with our children at all. It’s not like we’re imposing on friends to watch our kids or run errands, etc. We’re not on public support; we pay our taxes, Katie’s preschool tuition, and our bills. It’s not like I work fewer hours or ask for weird accommodations due to pregnancy... as I mentioned earlier, I was back in the saddle within a week, answering emails, and back at 10 hours a week the following week and back to my full 20 hours a week within 6 weeks. I took no unpaid time off. I took no paid time other than my normal sick leave and normal vacation time: time to which I would have been entitled whether or not I had a baby. So how could our pregnancy, the number of children we choose to have, possibly be any business of yours to judge?

Let me just say this publicly: we were thrilled about this pregnancy from the day we discovered it. We are happy it’s a boy; we would have been happy if it had been a girl - we just care that it’s healthy (which, thank God, he appears to be). Every child is a miracle, particularly when one has had such trouble conceiving... every child.

I guess I am grateful they don’t have to have the experience which leads them to understand how precious each chance to be a parent is. Fertility crap sucks - there’s only about 1 or 2 people in this world that I’d be tempted to wish that misery upon (and those people I wouldn’t want reproducing anyway so I suppose in the end I wouldn’t wish it upon them either).

But, I say again, WTF?!