7 Quick Takes Friday #38

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

For this week's quick takes, I am moving back from a concatenation of themes to a litany of days. From Friday through Thursday, each day was different in some way even though my work week calendar was a wall of meeting times.

1. Friday. The day began a little unusually but in a fun way. One of the gurus in our profession was conducting some training for us, and the head of the training division brought her to meet me. We have known each other by name for decades but had never met. That was fun. Then I walked her upstairs to our training center. Walking through the halls with her, I was greeted by the usual hugs, handshakes, and hellos in many languages. I love it when I can mingle a little more closely with employees than my typical daily schedule allows. (It is also good practice in keeping my language knowledge fresh for unused languages become rusty and then disappear.)

2. Saturday was Doah's day, and as soon as I get a chance I will post about it in detail on Clan of Mahlou. Donnie and I drove to Santa Clara, where he lives in a group home. We all went to lunch; then he and I took a walk for exercise around the little shopping area where we had lunch. Each of us has lost one pound this week. It may not sound like much, but one needs to lose one pound in order to lose ten. (One pound ten times adds up.) After that, I gave him $20, and he immediately spent nearly all of it on food for his co-workers. Then, he wanted to buy a fishing pole and tent for his next outdoor adventure, planned by his group home leader. The fishing pole was easy, but the only affordable tent had been sold out. Doah was not to be daunted. He approached the store manager, all by himself, and in his limited language somehow convinced the manager to take down the tent in front of the store and sell it to us at discount! (And they call him retarded!!)

3. Sunday was one of those "stuffed" days -- too many activities and too much food, beginning with breakfast in Monterey and ending with a late lunch at our favorite restaurant, Jardines, in San Ignatio, the latter with visiting friends from Maryland. We managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (you may have seen it on Star Trek IV), but not to visit the exhibits -- just to use the bathroom and renew our membership because Shane and family were planning to visit in the afternoon and use our guest cards. (Sort of like what Doah used to do when he was living here -- go to the Aquarium not to look at the fish but to eat them; there is a great cafeteria there.) I also squeezed in noon Mass, which is in Spanish, so it was a Spanish-speaking afternoon: Mass, Jardines (the waiters there are more comfortable in Spanish), and our friends from Maryland (one is originally from Mexico and the other from Panama). Later in the day our neighbor dropped by; she is also Latina. Gotta love San Ignatio for keeping my Spanish fresh.

4. Monday. Monday is usually a boring, difficult day at work with one meeting after another, so I look forward to our evening prayer group. We are reading Things Hidden by Richard Rohr (great book), sharing our reflections on the various chapters, and often the needs for prayers that they elicit. Typically, we begin with singing hymns; sometimes Johnny or Anne bring their guitar as background music (Johnny is a professional singer and guitar player so that makes for a nice singalong). More often than not, I end up pounding out the notes on the piano. Whatever works... We also discussed the girl who wants a blessing from the pope about whom I posted yesterday. It was a member of our prayer group who first brought her to my attention. After singing, talking about our lives (and prayer lives) for a few minutes, and discussing the book, we spend some time in prayer, to which we bring our own requests and requests that have been sent our way. We have seen some wonderful answers to prayers in this group. It is always an "up" way to end the day.

5. Tuesday. For some reason (the reason being simply that I did not look at my calendar before going to work), I mixed up my schedule on Tuesday, thinking that it was a day without any outside interaction, so I dressed comfortably in one of my Jordanian dish-dashas, rather than wearing a suit. After I got to work (a good half-hour from home), I discovered that we had a visitor being escorted by my boss's boss's boss, and I was scheduled to brief him -- in my dishdasha (long, ethnic dress). Oh, well! The deed was done; I had no way to change. I had forgotten, however, that the big boss spent some of his youth in Saudi Arabia; instead of being put off, he was very taken with my attire. Whew! (It was reminiscent of the time that I chose not to spend a fortune on a ball gown and wore an ethnic outfit to that event.)

6. Wednesday. I had such a rough morning! First, I had an employee who had been fired come to me for relief, but I could not provide it because she simply did not have the skills we needed. She was unwilling to try to learn them. She kept telling me how much smarter she was than her boss, so I finally had to be very frank with her and explained that she would have the same kind of problem in her next job if she did not begin to view herself more realistically, acquire the skills she needed, and ask for help instead of being defensive and pushing away attempts at helping her. I was able to let her resign instead of being fired, which seemed to take some of the bitterness out of the situation, but it is always difficult being this frank with people. On the other hand, one does them no service to let them walk away thinking that the firing was just a personality conflict when it was really a lack of skills. The latter can be fixed and make the person a better candidate for another job. Then I had to cancel a program review because the program manager was not ready. Well, he thought he was, but he was not. He argued with me about needing to discuss specific aspects of his program, about the need to document, and about the need to show measures of effectiveness and account for the effectiveness of the program. He bristled against anything I said that smacked of standardization. He explained that he was unique and exempt from doing things like others did them. Finally, I had to tell him flat out, "I am the boss; this is what I want; this is what you must give to me. So, go back and do it, and I will reschedule the review when you are ready." Two unhappy campers in one morning. Then I had to leave for our other office. "Bitchy Bethie is leaving the building," I told my admin assistants as I signed out. They laughed, and one said, "Hey, we're shocked! You never talk that way." Goodness, I don't usually feel this way, but it was not a usual morning.

7. Thursday. I arrived knowing that I had a calendar wall for the day: back-to-back meetings without a break, not even for lunch. My admin assistant noted that she probably should schedule a bathroom break, but there was no time for that, either. As bad luck would have it, every meeting ran late. One ran so late that I missed graduation for one of our training courses -- and I was supposed to give the closing words. Fortunately, one of the senior managers was there and could do that for me on no notice. We are used to no notice around the office. Then, my boss's boss arrived early for a meeting, and I missed the first 20 minutes. I walked in with an armful of water bottles to find everyone seated around the conference table and deep in discussion. Again, three of my senior managers had taken over. (It is nice that I can count on this.) All I was needed for, as it turned out, was to be the water girl. I handed out the water, which my boss's boss immediately spilled all over himself and the table, then joined the discussion. Well, maybe I was needed for a little more than just water since some decisions had to be made. It tickled me, though, to see how closely by boss's boss was working with my senior managers, without me there. One team! That makes for a productive and happy work place.

As for the weather, yesterday it reached 116 degrees: my ice-cream-on-a-stick turned immediately to soup-on-a-stick, and I was eating fast food whether I liked it or not. Clothes quickly became optional, and all three cats were lying on their backs, exposing their bellies to the fan. Pretty funny picture -- I should have taken one! Today the weather took a mad swing, starting off at 50% of yesterday's temperature: 58 degrees! I put on a sweater. I wonder what the dawn will bring!

Have a great weekend! Watch that weather! I hope yours will be more consistent than ours and that you will not have to be eating soup-on-a-stick.

(Remaining pictures and links are coming later -- I have to tumble into bed for a three-hour rest before leaving for work.)