Category: work

*Sigh*

As expected, work is a mess today. Everyone is still very upset about the loss. We are doing our best to pick up the pieces and move on.

A HUGE thank you to everyone for the kind comments and emails. I appreciate your kindness and good thoughts. It is times like this that I am reminded of just how very stressful this job can be. I’ve always been lucky in that I don’t stress much. However, there are times when it even gets to me.

Tomorrow, my group is getting to have a Memorial for F. We are inviting everyone from work but it will mainly just be the core group of classmates.

Unbelievable

I write this today w/a great sadness in my heart.

I just found out one of my classmates from work committed suicide earlier this month. She recently moved away, to Texas of all places. Beyond being a classmate, she was my friend and a sister in arms (meaning she was a lesbian). kristaki (another classmate) called me to give me the sad news. I am so shocked I just can’t put it into words. This comes as a complete surprise to everyone. Life seemed to be really going her way as of late.

I guess I should try to put things in perspective here. I’ve been at my current job w/emergency communications for almost 5 years now. My class carries some distinction in that not only do we have the highest retention rate in the last 10 years, we were and still are very close as a group. We spent a lot of time supporting each other and working together to get thru the training program. We became incredibly close. We got to know a lot about each other and felt stronger for it. And we were as diverse a class as they come. Old, young, men, women, gay, straight, black, white, asian, latin, you name it we had it. Out of 18, 11 of us made it thru and 9 of us were still together up until very recently. We often brag about how good we were to all the newer classes. It has sort of been a badge of honor I guess.

How would I describe F? She was what you would call a strong-willed lesbian. Very opinionated and vocal (how could I not love her!). She liked to put on this butch bad lesbian appearance but underneath the thick skin, she was a kind considerate woman just trying to make her way in the world. She’d give you the shirt off her back if you really needed it. She often championed the underdogs of society and pleaded their case w/a fierce single-mindedness that would not be ignored. We sometimes butted heads as strong wills tend to do but we were always friends beyond it.

F recently bought a new house in Texas and up and moved w/her girlfriend. We were all sorry to see her go but she seemed happy and life was looking up. Obviously, there was some trouble in her life that none of us knew about. A trouble so deep that even her closest friends didn’t know it. I can’t even guess what it could have been. All I know is the shining light that was my friend F is no more.

F, wherever you are, your friends miss and love you still. Whatever tragedy befell you in this life we hope you’ve escaped in the next. You may be gone but you are not forgotten.

Work Progress?

I met w/the deputy director and the client service manager today at work to go over changes to our standard operating procedures. Our existing SOP is completely out-of-date as it was drafted 1) in a different building and 2) before we took over fire dispatch. It is a very sore point w/me as dispatchers are routinely written up based on an icorrect out-of-date policy manual. It has been my single biggest complaint since joining the Union as an officer.

I’m only writing about it as it lifted my spirits a bit. (yeah, I know big surprise) The client service manager is someone I enjoy working with. She used to be in charge of the training division. The depuyty director on the other hand can be a mixed bag. While she has worked as a dispatcher before, she has all the makings of a typical city bureaucrat. Today, she was very receptive to feed back albeit a bit indirect. She routinely talks in circles so it’s not always easy understanding what she says. So it was with some surprise that the meeting went so well. Both were attentive and receptive to feed back regarding errors and requested changes.

There may be hope yet!

Work Work Work

Today is my second day on my new shift. I’m dragging a little. I’m used to 8 hours vs 10 and I’m used to taking my sweet time waking up. I have to get up by 10:00 am now. (I know, poor me) My days off are mixed up this week w/the change. Next week they’ll be all together again.

Saturday was very uneventful. I had lunch w/the ex caught up on a few things. I guess his new boyfriend wasn’t too happy to find out we were still “legally” hitched via our domestic partner registration. (I had to leave him on it so he’d have medical coverage) Well with him finally working he doesn’t need it anymore. He went down and had it dissolved. He was kind enough to bring me a copy of the paperwork. My first divorce! I feel so “legite” now. lolol I was a little sad at first but moving on.

I ran into Tyrone from the BCC committee at Starbucks. We hung out and finished the last batch of images for the 2006 men. I just realized I forgot two pages so I’m working on those today. I’ve finished revamping the entire site so my work is mostly over at this point. I’ll still be doing minor updates but the hard stuff is behind me. (whew) Mostovic also dropped by. I hadn’t seen him lately so we also had a chance to catch up. The three of us ended up doing dinner at Blue and then I volunteered to help Mostovic get his wifi up and running. Three hours later we discovered his DSL line was corrupted and had to schedule a repair. @#$%! SBC! I saw a new offer from Comcast on the tele so I’ve decided to bite the bullet and switch. (Bobby will be so pleased)

I had several things I wanted to blog about today but have completely forgotten what they were. Maybe they’ll come to me later.

TGIF II

So it’s Friday. Tomorrow is my last day having a weekend day off for 5 months. I know I gave up weekends for school but, I am not looking forward to the change. Sunday is my first day on the new shift. Blech! Because of the way our shifts change, I get Saturday and then Tuesday/Wednesday off this coming week. The following week of the 22nd I’ll have straight Mon/Tue/Wed’s off thru December.

On a good note, I discovered that I only have to catch one muni bus from my house to the campus. It goes right by my apartment. It couldn’t have worked out better! (see my afore mentioned comments about karma)

No more Eagle on Sunday’s. No more midnight mass. (yeah right, me in church?!) The only time I’m on my knee is during… uh well, “prayer”. And speaking of prayer, Mostovic, who never blogs anymore, finally got settled in his new place. He is having trouble setting up his wifi. I may try to swing by tomorrow and help him. We were supposed to have lunch today but I got up really late. (don’t ask)

It also eats into the time I devote to charities. I won’t be as readily available for fundraisers. I’ve made allowances for the bigger events but I’ll miss a lot of the smaller ones. [insert sigh of the martyr here]. lol

Bobby is driving me nuts to go to Marine World. (I don’t know why they still call it that as they don’t have marine life anymore. It’s just a theme park now.) Anyway, I haven’t really felt like going. I wouldn’t mind going up to the river but I’ve only been once and I don’t remember how to get there. I certainly don’t plan on driving up there spending hours looking for it. *sigh II* Speaking of charity, if you can afford to purchase a calendar for the BCC, I urge you to do so. It’s the best $20.00 you’ll ever spend. You can go online to purchase the calendar and have it mailed to you. They make great gifts too.

I’m very happy to report that my comm. center donated over $1000 to the family of the sheriff deputy we lost earlier this week. The money will go toward a college trust for his 8 year old son. Sometimes, people can do a good thing!

I’m doing overtime tonight so no late night shenanigans for me. *sigh III*

On a Sad Note…

A Sheriff’s who guards our building died early this morning of a heart attack. At the ripe age of 43. He apparently died in his sleep so his passing was believed to have been peaceful.

From my perspective he was a great guy and well liked by all of us. He will be missed!

Work Drama II

More drama on the work front. After the labor meeting last week, a certain supervisor has been going out of his way to antagonize me. He went so far as to try and write me up yesterday. He took a very simple mistake and tried to really over dramatize it. Even the shift manager thought it was over the top. Needless to say, I called in the troops. With one phone call from our Union rep, the write up was taken out of my file and destroyed.

Power to the People!!!

Dram Mamma II

I’m in a surprisingly good mood considering work was very dramatic yesterday. It’s been a busy week overall. If you are regular reader, you know I’m a Union officer at work and we’ve been having some real problems. Wednesday, my local chapter met w/an attorney to review our options and get some confirmations on what management can and cannot force us to do. Normal labor laws do not apply to us as one, we are a government agency and two, we are unionized. So we got that out of the way. It was a mixed bag of info as we got some good and some bad news. Yesterday was our monthly labor meeting w/management to discuss problems.

Our Union rep. basically started the meeting out by putting management on notice that we are prepared to get radical if they do not start keeping their promises. Often, management will state one thing and then do just the opposite. And the problem usually stems from the right hand now knowing what the left hand is doing. Our rep’ds speech tied into a problem I’ve been dealing with. After about 15 minutes of continued lip service from the deputy director, I lost my temper a bit and let’em have it. Let’s just say I put things in very simple English so there was no confusing it. I took off the gloves and started naming names too. I’m all for diplomacy but sometimes you just need to put it on the table to get people’s attention. I think it worked to an extent but I don’t expect much change. I fully expect in the next two months things are going to get ugly.

Who do you call when there is no one left at 911?

Schedule Change

My schedule signup at work is underway. (We sign up for our schedule every 6 months based on seniority.) The good news is after 4 1/2 years, I’m at the halfway mark seniority wise. The bad news is I won’t be getting sat/sun’s off this next rotation. Due to the severe staffing shortages, not as many weekend slots are alotted for the shifts I want. I’ll still end up w/at least one weekend day off but not both. I’m ok w/that as I like having one weekday to get errands done. Besides, I knew getting a full weekend slot last signup was a fluke anyway.

The part that has me annoyed is the signup was delayed due to last minute changes by management. I’m gonna be cutting it close w/my school registration. (I’m planning to start paramedic training in August.) I originally thought they weren’t offering it this semester but they reorganized the listings for paramedics and I missed it. If the signup continues to move as quickly as it started I’ll be ok. If not, I’ll probably miss the deadline for City College. I’m gonna bummed if I have to wait to spring again.

Cross your fingers for me?!