Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day, I guess

It's not that I don't wish for people to have a happy day. I only just sort of remembered myself. We always sort of said that we wouldn't celebrate Mother's/Father's Day, beyond maybe a nice card or something, and now, well. I'm good, thanks.

Actually, this year isn't so bad. I've been busy - I know, I say that every post now. Still, it's the sort of business that makes me wonder just what in the hell I was doing before when I thought I was busy. Spring has passed very quickly - blink of eye fast - and I have a feeling the summer will be the same. But because of events and bustle, despite the frequent reminders from tv, I kind of forgot that Mother's Day was approaching.

Sorry, Mom. I'm sending flowers, I swear. And calling, once I get the phone recharged.

Last year was bad. Last year I was wallowing, and it was made worse when my brother decided brilliantly to set up a conference call with my mom. It made her happy, but interrupted a crying jag, and I was sullen and surly because I just wanted to be left alone. Then I felt horribly guilty. Not a fun day.

So indifference is fine my me. I'm hopeful that there will be enough people celebrating that we will find the grocery store a bit more empty than usual. Beyond that, I intend to bask in the glory of the remaining weekend, because work next week is going to suck - budget development is open for fiscal year 12. I helped last year, but I've never been fully responsible for budget development of a unit. Let alone budget development of 2 units, one of which is fucking massive. And naturally, I cleared my calendar so that I can assist with other units in the division as needed.

Anyway - work is work. Things are a lot better for me than they were six months ago. I'm more settled, and I'm getting things on track with my departments. It's a struggle some days, believe me, but I'm feeling a lot more confident about work than I was a few months ago. Of course, my two close colleagues (one my supervisor) have both been promoted since my old boss left, and we're still short staffed, but it's been better for me. I work more naturally with them, and it's a relief, if you will; doesn't feel like the constant struggle and inability to do the right thing it did with my old boss.

I didn't apply for my supervisor's old job though - we had a long conversation about it, and everyone seemed to assume I would. I suppose in some ways it made sense, and we certainly hoped that other DBAs would (since we're the ones losing our jobs in centralization . . .) but no one did. Several people approached me after the fact and asked why I didn't apply, but it was simple. I approached both my new bosses and said "What do you think? Here's what I think. It's not a good time." I laid out my reasons - we'd have to find someone to cover my departments and they'd go through another year of turbulence. I was only just finding my feet, and I thought I served these special departments well and like what I'm doing. I'd only been in a department for a few months, and I thought it would be better if someone who'd been in a department for awhile took the job. I thought it would be better for another DBA to apply since it would mean one less position to RIF (though that didn't happen). And I didn't want it to look like my boss was just promoting her friends. Of course there would be an open search and everything, but there is always a sort of lingering doubt when that happens. We talked it over and we all felt comfortable with me not applying. Instead, I joined the search committee.

Let me just say - I learned something about myself during this stretch. I learned I do not like reading job applications, cover letters or resumes. And I have high standards and make fun of people who cannot fill these things out correctly. Seriously - if you can't proofread your job application, you can't work with me. Blog posts, message board posts, tweets - yeah, typos happen, poor grammar crops up. But a formal cover letter? I'll give just one example: don't tell me you are excellent in oral and written communication, then proceed to write an entire paragraph of incomplete sentences.

Oy.

In the end though, I think we found a good applicant. It was an odd experience, because this person will be in a higher position than me, but realistically, I've been pulled into a lot of plans and know a whole lot about what is going to be happening. It'll be a bit odd, really, but I knew this person would be a good fit when she cracked a joke during her interview. Hopefully she'll be here around the beginning of June, and then we'll really get things going.

What else? Well, the March for Babies walk happened last weekend. I didn't write much going in or just after. It was really because, well, I didn't want to do it. I was feeling - and still am feeling - a whole lot of ambivalence about it. It's not that it's not a good cause (though I trust that less than I did when I started, thanks to the entire Makena debacle), it's just that I wasn't sure how I felt going into it. And I talked myself into doing it and hoped it would be a good thing, and it didn't work out for me that way, in the end. If you'd like to read more about that, I've got a post up on Glow in the Woods on the main page that details the struggle I had. I debated about posting it for awhile, given that I'd not even talked about it here. But in the end, well, it didn't feel good to me, or happy, or healing. And that's ok. It didn't necessarily have to. For all of that, I will probably do it again next year. Only I will take a much more realistic view of it and not look to get anything more out of it than I think it can give.

In other news - this having become some sort of round up post, apparently - I'm currently 3 dpo. This cycle was actually sort of good. No multiple fertile patches, hormones seeming to be right on track doing what they are supposed to (even estrogen, if my CBEFM sticks are to be believed). Our timing worked out fairly well, and now it's wait time. I feel actually pretty good about it right now. Naturally we'll see what happens in a few days, but hey, for the moment, it's good.

Well. All of that said, I'll try and get back to this more this month. Between my (fan) fiction and life, I don't have as much time. But also . . . things are good right now. All things considered anyway. It's boring. I'm ok with that though. I can do with a bit less drama.

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