7 Quick Takes Friday #42

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

Since I have four important pieces of work to accomplish before going to bed tonight (which is almost over since I had to teach a catechism class earlier), I am pressed into sharing just a few very QUICK thoughts, but I guess that is the point of QUICK takes, isn't it? So, here are a few random thoughts over the past three weeks of missing quick-takes posting:

(1) Our special quest quarters. Lizzie and Doah have both been home for brief periods. Doah spent a couple of weeks after his period of tribulation before we found a great group home in a nearby town for him. Lizzie flew in and out for a wedding of a friend in Carmel. Lizzie was able to use our sofa as a guest bed -- not the most luxurious of sleeping spots, but at least the cats deferred to her and found other lodgings for the night. Unfortunately, Doah is allergic to cats and to sleeping any place cats have been. He wakes up coughing and sneezing every other hour when he sleeps on the sofa. So, with a little creative thinking, we came up with a guest house for him -- a tent pitched in the back yard. He loves it. When I would go out onto the deck to check on him, I could hear him snoring in the tent. Yes, a place to sleep...

(2) Group home. We do like Doah's group home. It turned out to be owned by a Russian, who was equally surprised to learn that Doah's mother had earned her PhD in Moscow and spoke Russian and that Lizzie had gone to school there. We had a lovely lunch together -- no, not Russian, but Chinese -- and his daughter and Lizzie, about the same age, really hit it off, comparing their school experiences in Moscow. What a small world we live in!

(3) Airport meetings. Speaking of small worlds, I arrived a few minutes early at the airport on a quick trip to San Antonio. There, sitting at my gate, reading a book, waiting for my plane, was Nakissa, my roommate from Jordan. Now I suppose that latter phrase requires some explanation. When I first went to Jordan in 2004, Donnie remained behind for the first six months, settling our affairs in the USA, putting things into storage, and the like. Once I arrived there, I realized that we needed to build a learning center for the university. I invited the recently retired director of a learning center at an American university. Our uni did not have the money to pay housing for her six-month contract, so I put her up in my spare bedroom while waiting for Donnie to arrive. We had a great time together and became very good friends. I see her very rarely these days; she spends a lot of time in New Jersey. Running into her at the airport was one of those unplanned, delightful moments, all the more delightful because it was unplanned. I know the world is small because I have had such delightful experiences all over the world -- suddenly, at some airport, meeting someone I had not seen for quite a while. Delicious!

(4) San Antonio. I really enjoyed the time I spent in San Antonio. I met with six of our branch campus directors. All of them are quite competent, and this was quite a relief over my trip to Korea where I had to fire the campus director for incompetence. This time I did not have time to visit the Alamo (when I first saw it, it was outside of town, but now it is in the center of a tourist-loved shopping area. The river walk is near by. I have walked the entire river walk in the past, but this time I had no time for extra activities. I flew in, briefed the directors, and flew up. I did, however, enjoy an ethnic potluck put on for my benefit by the local campus. I had offered to buy a pizza lunch for everyone, but the local faculty demurred and offered the much tastier potluck in return. I can never seem to outgive my faculty. I can only keep saying thank you.

(5) Fear-mongering. I really enjoyed my time in Afghanistan, and I never felt unsafe there. I think I was well cared for. However, leading up to my arrival at final destination I encountered several opportunities to develop a strong sense of unease. For example, I had to go through training about how to act if captured, and my employer required me to update my will. Sheesh! That does not give one a good feeling. (Well, I updated it, but did not get around to it until Saturday afternoon before leaving on Sunday; I am fortunate that the only notary in town is also a friend and was willing to do all the paperwork at the last minute.) Continuing the them, upon arrival, we were quickly told what to do if we were attacked enroute to our destination. Double sheesh! Nonetheless, I found myself unable to worry and once there gave no thought to personal safety. I had a job to do, and God has taken care of me in more chancy situations.

(6) Reading. I recently learned that a large number of the high school children in our part of the state read only at the third grade level. Criminy! What has gone wrong that this could possibly be the case? I can usually get three-year-olds to read at grade 3 level if I have just a few minutes a day with them on a regular basis. Reading is not an unnatural activity, but I do think (and research has shown) that if kids get too far behind, it does become an unnatural activity. If I have had any doubts about the reading problem in California, it is brought home with each new catechism class I teach. This evening, I asked one of the boys to read a paragraph from our study materials. He did not want to at first, then gave in, and haltingly read, misreading or not being able to read 2-3 words per sentence in materials written at the typical, Readers' Digest, sixth-grade level -- and he is a sophomore. If I were to estimate his reading level, I would estimate it at third-grade level. I know they gain a little in reading skill during their year in catechism, but we only meet twice a month. I wish there were some way to help them more. Reading is such a basic building block for so many different professions. When I listen to kids like this read, the image in my mind is of closed doors -- all the jobs that will never be open to them unless they learn to compensate for their poor reading skills or, better, learn to read.

(7) Poker. Today I confirmed that my job is often a game of poker. It happens from time to time that I have to call someone's bluff or bluff myself. Today our Personnel Office wanted to retract a transfer job offer we had made three months ago to one of our admin assistants who will be getting on a plane for our Hawaii campus tomorrow. She had already shipped all her household goods and given up her apartment; we had filled her old job behind her. Now the Personnel Office finds a mistake that one of its employees made in the hiring process and wanted me to call her and rescind the offer. They said that they had a special list of displaced employees from some closed offices who had first right to this job. (I did not think that this was true but at the time did not know for sure.) They told me that if I did not rescind the offer, I would end up with two people for one job. I bluffed and said that I could find a second job in the same place. (I figured I could throw myself on some client's mercy to trump up a position in order to be able to say truthfully that I could "find" a second job, but, of course, I did not have a second job in hand.) I also told them that I would take no steps without talking to our legal office. That gave them pause. We were interrupted, thank God, by an earthquake drill. Before I could get back to them, the head of Personnel sent me an enote. My bluff worked. They told me to say nothing to the employee; they would check the special list and let me know if there was a second job need. Right after that, I was able to talk to the attorney, who supported my position. I sent a follow-up note, suggesting that they also talk to the legal office before they put the organization into an indefensible position where the employee would be able to sue for extensive damages. They wrote back -- quite tamed -- that they would work it all out for the benefit of everyone concerned. I like this game of poker. My bluffs seems to work most of the time. (Dunno what I will do when/if they stop working!)

Wishing all of you a great weekend, starting now!

7 Quick Takes Friday #37

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

This week seemed to sort itself into themes. Here are seven of them:

1. Reading short things. I did not read any novels this week, but I read many short things, starting with Mass last Friday. There were two readings, a long one and a short one, and I had to choose on the spot which one to read because the regular reader was absent, in which case I often end up reading but without preparation. I chose the short one. Fr. Thomas had prepared his homily based on the long one! He adjusted! Then I gave away the most recent translation of one of my favorite Persian poets, Rumi, the original whirling dervish. His poetry is delightful, and I was able to read most of the new collection before handing the book over to a visiting employee from our Georgia office. I had told this employee, who hails from Iran, that I had recently acquired this book, and when I saw him salivating over that information, I offered to loan him the book. When he arrived earlier this week, he asked if the offer was still good. It was, and he got the book. I told him I would pick it up next year when I am scheduled to once again go to Georgia, but if he keeps the book, that is fine. The poems were short; I have read most of them. Then there were memoes, articles, concepts of operation, proposals, reports -- for some reason, many more than usual this week. Some non-critical ones, in fact, are still in my email for next week! I probably did read a novel this week if you put together all the paperwork and all the topics within them; in fact, it would have been quite an engaging novel!

2. Love. Love flooded this week, beginning with Mass on Saturday. I walked in just seconds before Mass was to start. Everyone was lined up to proceed down the aisle; they were just waiting for the song to be announced. I slipped in the side down and walked to the back of the church to pick up a song book. Fr. E caught the movement, got out of line, met me partway, hugged me (as he would have anyone walking through the door at that moment), then returned to the line-up. At the back of the church were three of my catechism students, deciding where they would sit. Hugs all around! Then, as I made my way to the pew where I usually sit, several people reached out and squeezed my hand as I passed. That is why I am devoted to Old Mission and to San Ignatio. The town swims in love.

3. Humility. One does not usually talk about humility with one's employees. Work performance, sure. Achievement, certainly. Development, yes. Needs, you bet. Skills, yep. Family matters, yeah, sometimes. Humility? Now that's not your everyday boss to supervisee topic, but it was an important one this week. Since it is a rather long story and I already posted the details on Modern Mysticism, I will let you go there if you wish to read all about it: Humility.

4. Caring. Another topic I became involved with that I blogged about earlier this week is the situation in Pakistan and the efforts of an acquaintance of mine in Karachi to help her fellow countrymen, along with the details of how we can help her if there is interest in doing so. Details are here: Come Along on a Journey to Help Pakistan One Family at a Time.

5. Fellowship and fun. Where can greater fellowship and fun be found than at a pizza party? A dozen employees from six different regional offices came to town for some training from an exceptionally famous guru. I grabbed them over lunch to reacquaint myself with them and their concerns, share recent developments here locally, and bond a little. For bonding, we needed some "glue," so I ordered pizza. Just the thing! By the end of the noon hour, there was a considerable amount of camaraderie, which was especially delightful because some of the individuals had never met, e.g., those working in Hawaii and those working in Georgia or Maryland. Great fun, smack in the middle of the week!

6. Trust. One successful way I have found to build bonds, team spirit, and trust is an annual reverse evaluation. I recently asked some outside experts to evaluate our evaluation. In telling my employees about this, they pointed out how much trust has developed from the reverse evaluation, so much that perhaps it is no longer needed in the way it was earlier. People feel free just to send critiques and concerns directly to me or to their managers through the email with their names attached. Of course, we will continue the reverse evaluation. It is one of the primary tools that has changed my workplace in a mere four years from a dysfunctional workplace full of suspicion and hostility to a loving, supportive, spiritual, TRUSTING place where even I like to come to work every day even knowing the number of challenges that will have to be addressed to complete our tasks and missions successfully, given how far-flung worldwide our operations are.

7. Fatigue. I would be less than honest if I did not admit that this has been a very tiring week. Except for Monday, when I returned home in time for our evening prayer group, I have worked until late into the evening every day. Combine that with going in early every. I had several early morning meetings, including this morning at 0730 when I had the pleasure of spending some time with the guru mentioned above. Some days I went in early because I wanted to get ahead of the 1800 emails in my mailbox that greeted me when I opened email toward the end of the day on Monday, Monday being so full of meetings, including one excruciating 3-hour meeting going over line item by line item all of our contracts, that I never got to my email until near the end of the day. I am pleased to report that when I decided to call it quits at 7:00 this evening, I was down to only 883 emails!