Coming out of the closet

No, not that closet.

So, about 5 weeks ago, my department manager called me into his office. Actually to be precise, he emailed me a notice that he wanted to meet with me in 3 hours about a "work load discussion." 3 hours is way too long a notice for such a meeting, so I naturally fretted about it for 3 hours and freaked out. Look, it's not really any surprise that they don't have work. I'm in this building with 7 levels of parking...only about 4 are full of cars, when 6 months ago, if I got here after 7:30 I was lucky to find a space at all.

Oh, right, the meeting, so he called me in and told me about how things might go. Oh wait, it was this day. Basically 5 things might happen. 80% chance of lay-off on June 12. 10% chance that current job will hold over, but we don't know how long. 5% chance of being sent to Norway. 3% chance of being sent to on-shore project. 2% chance something comes up and we have another project that you can go to.

So I went back to my desk and spent the day running numbers through our budget. The good news was that if I got laid off, with unemployment, Landon out of Day Care, and us tightening our spendiness - we'd be fine for 6 months - or until unemployment runs out anyway and honestly, the market should turn back around by then. I took this information along with the possibility of Norway and the slight possibility of having work here home to Clinton to discuss.


Clinton and I made the decision not to tell anyone at that time. We have family members that might have freaked out over the Norway thing, just as much as they would have about the being laid off thing and since nothing was final, there was no need.

We decided that I would try to ride it out. On the hopes of Not Norway, that possibly my job would hold me through until they got more work. Because the very last thing I wanted was to look back and see that the ship was not sinking when I jumped, but only listing. I didn't send out any resumes.

Fast forward, three weeks ago, after just posting about my miserable day, I got a call from my department manager. He remembered that I did not appreciate the 3 hour notice for the last meeting and asked if I could come to his office and discuss work load.

At that meeting, he said that they didn't have anything. He said the my last day would in all likelihood be June 26, and that he expected to give me final notice on or around June 12. He also asked me to train someone else to do my job. And then put me in touch with the company recruiter so that he could look over my resume and help me with some contacts.

I went back to my desk and started Job Search 2009. I set up a spreadsheet, I fixed up my resume, I sent resumes to the company I knew was hiring, I sent out resumes to anyone I knew in the industry to give me their contacts. I got in touch with head hunters. In all I sent out about 20 resumes over the next few days.

I got calls back from a couple head hunters, and come Monday there was radio silence. I got an email from a certain company that I knew was hiring that said, we don't have anything for you at this time. I was dis-heartened.

On Wednesday of last week, I decided to go ahead and plan what Landon and I would be doing while I was at home. I wanted to do more than watch Sprout and play trucks all day, I wanted to try to keep some learning in his day, because one day he'd have to go back to Day Care and I don't really want him to be behind. I had just finished typing out my ideas and printing things for him to color when I got a call from the same company that said they weren't interested in me.

On Friday I had an interview with that Company. I suck at interviews and this one was ok, I suppose. Here's the thing about interviews and me. When I walk out of one feeling confident, I am most assuredly not getting that job. When I walk out of one feeling like "hey, I just spent an hour making myself look stupid." I get those jobs. So this one wasn't bad. I spoke with 4 people there, and they seemed ok with me. The job is doing something I don't actually want to do, but it's a job that will last me until I can find something I do want to do. And it's something I have experience in.

Yesterday they made their decision. It was a no. Not now. But they have something they want to keep me in mind for in about a month. So it's back to square one - I have about 8 companies to send resumes to today bringing my total up to about 30 so far.

It's been a rough month, and this rejection has not helped.

The silver lining is that with a few weeks or a month off work, I might be able to get Landon potty trained before sending him back to school. That would be nice.

I got Booed at work

Which is just one more thing I don't have time for. (They give you a little Halloween gift, you're supposed to give 2 other people one (within 24 hours, WTH?), and hang a sign on your office so you don't get booed again.) It's like a chain letter, only more work. I'll do it, but only because I don't want to be that girl.

If things continue in their current pattern, by tomorrow I will be a puddle of coughing mucus and nothing else. I went to the work health clinic and asked that they test me for strep, because I was hoping that I could have some antibiotics to cure my ailment and they were all, yeah we'll test you. And then they were all - it's negative, too bad so sad, here have these drugs which don't work very well.

Back to still not normal

Please excuse the lack of pictures this week. I am temporarily officed with a "partner." But only one Internet plug works, so I'm sitting at someone else's computer in another office, and downloading photos to someone else's computer isn't something I want to bother with.

The toll road is still not charging tolls, so I think people are all "GET ON THE TOLL ROAD WHILE YOU CAN FOR FREEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" They are in my way, and I hate them.

Landon's school still doesn't have power, but they opened up their sister school (10 miles out of my way) to kids from his school. So until they have power we are packing his stuff that normally is in his cubbie every day. Not convenient, but way better than what we did yesterday.

Did you know how exciting it is to slam office doors and sneak behind desks and bang your fists and head on the wall of neighboring offices? We lasted 2 hours before I nearly killed him. Or he nearly killed himself, since he found the keys to the drawers in the desk and thought the electrical plus looks suspiciously like key holes.

He took a 20 minute nap on the way home. And then refused to take a normal nap at home. And then starting at 4:30 pm began screaming at me, but refused anything I offered him. And then at about 5:45 banished me from my own bedroom. "GAH, MOOOM, I'm trying to watch TV in peace, how dare you disturb me with your mere presence! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! GET OUT!!!!" By 6:15 he was asleep. And then he slept all night.

So I made the executive decision that we'd go to the sister school today. Even though I can't watch him on the Internet there.

I asked him this morning if he wanted to go to school and see his friends. He said yes.

The receptionist distracted him with fissies (fishies) while I made my escape. (I am sick of fissies, I have seen enough Nemo to recite the movie in its entirety.)

And here I am sitting at not my computer in not my office with little to no work to do. But...no one is screaming at me about my existence.

I cannot make this up

I arrived to work this morning to a new sign above the sink in the kitchenette.



You know how signs are created about things they don't want you to do because someone did it?



Like, there's no reason for a sign in the bathroom that says, wipe up the counter after yourself if it was never left soaking wet.



So my question is this:


What genius thought it would be a good way to dispose of a paper clip by putting it in the sink?

He stole my brownie

I went to the kitchen at work yesterday to refill my cup with water, and I spied a brownie. A leftover from a meeting.

I am not supposed to eat those brownies, I tell myself. Because, I'm like actually succeeding in this whole business of trying to be a different shape, and who wants to mess with that?

But I did want the brownie. And I said - "oooh, that's my brownie." Ok, maybe I didn't say it. Maybe I just thought it. I was planning my attack. First, I refill my cup with water, then I'll saunter by and swoop over to pick up the brownie in one smooth motion and then I'll be free and clear to run off to my office and devour the thing.

As I finished filling my cup and I turned around to begin the swoop, the guy who was getting coffee snagged my brownie. Could he not read my mind? Did he not know that was MY brownie? GAH - I needed that brownie. Or maybe I didn't. But I did want it.

I shot him in the back of the head with my laser beams when he walked away. He pretended he didn't feel it, but I know he did.

This always happens

I've got nothing.



I have a bunch of posts pre-written. They're wonder killer posts. Things I have wondered, and spent a little time researching or thinking about and I wrote a post. But then I second guess myself and don't post them, because, do you really care how I feel about organic foods? Are you wondering what humidity setting to use on your fruit and veggie drawers in your fridge, or am I the only person who didn't know what settings they should be on? Do you care what the six sides to a conversation are?



Granted, the posts which get me the most attention, both on the blog and in real life (because clearly, this is fake life) are the tomato soup one, which I wrote because I had nothing else to write about. And the buying half a cow, which I honestly didn't think would get that much attention. So I guess I'm not the best judge as to what you want to hear about.



My assumption has always been that the majority of you are only really here for pictures. And I tried to get more pictures of Landon last night, but my camera died. My problem used to be running out of space on the memory stick, now I have a bigger memory stick and the problem is that I don't charge the camera often enough.



No big things going on this week, nothing worthy of it's own entire post, so here's a condensed version of what's going on in my life.

• One of my projects is wrapping up this week - for the most part. Which means my other project is wondering where the hell I am.


• I still have not heard from TREC re: my Education Evaluation. They say on the website that calling will only slow the process down. But I want to call. They cashed my check.


• I saw a sign on the side of the road this morning, a white sign with black spray paint. All it said was "chaos." I need to know what that sign is about.


• Since cutting down (not cutting out, but cutting down) on carbs. I have lost enough weight to get one notch tighter on my belt.


• I don't think the lady that wanted my treadmill still wants it. She has not emailed me back yet.


• We sold a couple lots we own in East Texas. Which is quite a relief, even though all the proceeds from that sale are pretty much already spent.


• There's a poster in my office about safety. It lists all the normal safety things - tripping hazards (file cabinet drawers), personal protection (hard hats), driving safety (don't use cell phones or PDAs while driving), etc. But the first thing on the list? Armadillo Awareness. I don't even know what that means.


• There are also posters up of people in some kind of shrubery maze with binoculars looking at an icon for the company intranet in the corner of the poster. I don't know what that's about either.


• This is a long post for me to have said it was about nothing.

Death Threats

Someone is trying to kill me in the restroom at work.

I go in there a lot. I drink a lot of water.

And every time I have walked in this week, I am assaulted at the door. Bludgeoned even. By the scent of I don’t know… something overly flowery.

Now look, it’s a bathroom, I assume from time to time people will create a smell in there. And from time to time, it won’t smell like roses. But we have one of those nifty little box things on the wall that’s supposed to be for odor control and as far as I’m concerned I’d rather smell the business than the flowers, if you know what I mean.

So I’ve had a headache all week. Which is making concentrating on stuff that much harder. I guess I should count my blessings, at least it’s not lilac flavored. And I have yet to encounter people on their cell phones in there like I did at Previous Employer.

Keeping the lynchers at bay

I know it's been a while since you had a picture and the one I'm about to post is not a new picture, it was actually taken in June.

If he's playing with my toys, I get to lick him, right?

My eye has been hurting for a few days, yesterday when I put my contacts in, I thought to myself, I should probably wear my glasses, but I didn't. Because I'm vain.

Mid morning I told my supervisor I was going to the Whole Health Center before my eye fell out. It's like a clinic at work, for $10 you see a nurse practitioner, and she can write prescriptions or whatever for general issues.

I made the minor mistake of describing the pain as "pressure" and the woman FREAKED OUT. She suggested I go home immediately - despite the fact that I have a deadline of (well, today) for my 250+ page report. I told her I had a deadline and that I couldn't get home to take my contacts out until this evening, I can't drive without them, and I'm not driving 60 miles to take my contacts out and come back. Anyway, she prescribed the drops I felt I needed and an antibiotic I feel I don't need. I'm doing the drops (also antibiotic) for a couple days and if it gets better, I'm not taking the pills. She also said something about if it didn't fix it, that I could come back and they could give me a shot and then we'd "re-think" the breast feeding. Now look, I'm not a breastfeeding nazi or anything, I'm not a member of LLL, but I've made it 10.5 months. And surely a scratch on my eye is not going to be the reason I stop with only 6 weeks* to go. If it’s not healed next week, I will go see a real doctor. And I do think it's a scratch and not so much an infection, simply because the last 3 contacts I have put in my left eye have only made it a couple days before ripping in half. I understand the need for the antibiotic approach for keeping me from getting an infection from the scratch, but the drops are also antibiotic and I think it's overkill.

Since I have a high deductible insurance plan, and as such will be paying my entire cost of prescriptions and doctor visits until I shell out $1100, I looked up the price of the prescriptions online and found that they were both on Target's $4 list, so I decided to go there to get them filled. I dropped them off, the pharmacist said it would be 10 minutes; I wandered the store and came back. She asked if there was a Dr. who the NP worked under and I said "no" it's a work clinic. And she said "Oh, well I’ll just fill them under the NP's name, since she is legally allowed to write prescriptions." Uh...yeah, I mean, shouldn't you? Shouldn't you fill a prescription under the name of the person who wrote it anyway? Whether or not she works with a doctor. Or is that just me? So then it was another 10 minutes, because rather than page me and ask, she just waited until I came back and then didn't bother to do anything else towards getting the prescriptions ready. Whatever, I can't complain; it was only $8 for something that would have cost about $40 at Walgreens (according to their website). I started my drops last night and have applied them twice this morning, and while they sting at first and actually make my eyes redder, they do seem to be working, because I don't have the pain I had before.

* My goal was originally 1 year. 1 year THEN wean, so technically, it's more than 6 weeks.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I know that I haven't posted in longer than usual. I do have some posts in the works, they're good posts, posts with pictures even. But the last couple weeks have been pretty busy, and our home computer is fritzy, which means that any pictures I have on there are out of pocket.

My new job is great, I love it. I have not regretted this move one bit. I like my supervisor, I like the people I work with, I like what I'm doing.

Landon had his 9 months check up. No shots, but they did do a blood prick on his toe - and he didn't even cry, and neither did his daddy. He was 18 lbs, 4 oz - which is at the 25th percentile for his age and his height was 26" or something and that wasn't even on the chart. So he's got my short genes, I guess. The didn't tell me the percentile for his head, but it's always been pretty big. The doctor said to ramp up the food and try some finger foods. So we bought a bunch of stage 2 foods and finger foods, and I've been shoving everything I think he might be able to swallow down his throat, and he's loving it. Wagon wheels being a favorite. And last night he even ate an arrowroot cookie.

And the project of the moment is waiting on cousin Zoey. And waiting and waiting and waiting.

Yea Boo

I started my new job Monday. Since I was coming back to a company I previously worked for, I did not have to attend the safety training and sexual harassment training, so HR released me and I threw my department manager’s schedule off. It’s such a relief to be somewhere that they actually have work for me. I’ve already done more work here than I did in the past 6 weeks at my old job. And it feels great; it’s exactly why I had to leave. Although, apparently I’m not smart enough to program my speed dial buttons on my phone.

Oh, and I’m wearing jeans today – at work – on a Thursday (and also Tuesday and Wednesday) – and I didn’t have to pay for the privilege. I may actually get to finally retire my maternity clothes (and therefore prevent any future Kris Kross incidents.)

I also had my first and second day of my Legal/Ethics class, for which the teacher was 45 minutes late – he thought it started at 5:30 and was only 15 minutes late, and I parked in a parking garage that I thought was going to cost me $10.50, and I about had a heart attack after I read that sign, but had no way to get out – but thank goodness they validate parking. Also, I discovered their weird system by which I can leave the 7th floor to go to my truck on the 5th floor, but if I - and I'm just hypothetically talking here - say forgot my cell phone and parking ticket (with validation) in a bathroom stall on the 7th floor, I have to then go down and get the security guard to let me back up on the 7th floor. Not that that happened to me or anything.

Meanwhile, Clint spent his first and second evening alone with Landon. He had said on Sunday that he was going to do some laundry and try and clean up a little too…and I laughed and laughed. And he thought I was being mean. I got home Monday night and he had very wide eyes, and he said “I didn’t get anything else done!” And I said “I told you so.” But he did it and they both survived, just like I knew they would.

This has been a week of ups and downs, so I thought we’d play the yea/boo game…ready…

I started working at Mustang … yea!

I forgot some of the stuff I needed for my direct deposit … boo!

They let me out of nearly half the orientation because I’d already had the training … yea!

I can’t figure out how to program my speed dial buttons on my phone … boo!

They actually have work for me to do … yea!

The commute is longer … boo!

The commute is not as bad as I thought it would be … yea!

We had a sewer back up in our house … boo!

When the guys came to investigate that, they also made note of the water main leak in front of our house … yea!

They did not fix it … boo!

But they’re going to … yea!

Our baby sitter’s air conditioner is broken … boo!

I found out my results from my PE exam … yea!

I did not pass … boo!

I know what I need to work on for next time … yea!

I was so close it made me madder than if I had totally bombed it … boo!

And to end on a yea…in talking with the people in my current class, the class I’m going to register for in August will most assuredly make and I will be able to register to take the inspectors exam…yea!

Change of Scenery

I quit my job.


Yesterday was my last day.

...
...
...

Relax - I start somewhere else doing almost exactly the same thing on Monday.

But I thought it might be prudent to show you the things that made me wonder about my current..former...workplace.

This is the only sign on the escalator that make a reference to bare feet, because the people on the third floor were always taking off their shoes and driving their vacuums on the escalators.


Someone taped an obituary to the wall by the water fountain. Maybe they worked here, but really? Taped to the wall? By the water fountain?

Oh, and as a special bonus; I get to attend my 10 year class reunion - technically unemployed!

Kris Kross

Maybe it’s because I didn’t get enough sleep that night.

I had been at work a mere 3 hours. I had been dressed for 4 hours by the time I needed to go to the bathroom.

At which point I discovered…my pants were on backwards. And NO ONE TOLD ME.

Leprechaun Gangster

According to the powers that be, Fluor is required to have a transgender restroom. And when we were told about it, we were told it was the bathroom by the auditorium.

So when I asked about a pump room, I was told, there’s a little room off the auditorium. And I only knew of a bathroom…a transgender bathroom. So I never went to check it out. I mean, if I’m going to pump in a bathroom, it might as well be the one closest to my desk, no?

So, I’ve changed projects and I’ve moved to a different area, and I’m using a different bathroom. The bathroom closest to me, doesn’t have an electrical plug close enough to a stall even with my extension cord, so I have to go to the next closest bathroom. I’m using the bathroom on the floor with a lot of the department managers. Among whom are the managers who are women and most of the secretary types. They’ve been around quite a while, so they know some things that aren’t known to everyone. While I pumped in the bathroom today, I was told a few times about this pumping room. I got told about it a few times by women in the other bathroom, but no one seemed to know exactly where it was. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak. So I clarified with one of them that it was indeed NOT the transgender bathroom, and where exactly I should be looking for this room.

This afternoon I had to take a piece of mail to the mail room and since this mythical room is only about 100 yards further, I decided to give it a visit. Color me impressed. There’s a lock on the door. There’s a couch and a bunch of magazines. There’s a sink and little fridge. With this room, I no longer would need my extension cord – well, I do if I want to sit on the couch, but if I sat in the chair I wouldn’t. There’s a little dry erase board to sign up on for time slots, so you don’t interrupt someone. I’m totally going to this room from here on out. The only thing missing is a way to lock up my pump in that room so I wouldn’t have to lug it back and forth, then it would be perfection.