Areas of Unrest

10 February 2000 - Work Stress

QOTD: "When I was born I was so surprised I couldn't talk for a year and a half." - Gracie Allen

Reading: Robert Eisenberg, Boychiks in the Hood

Listening to: Old Blind Dogs, The World's Room

I had expected to be in town this week and traveling next. All of that changed Monday morning. The meetings I was going to go out to Boulder for next week are still on, but several of us have been asked not to travel. The program I work on has suffered a breach of contractual dates, which means high level investigations are going on. All of us who were around at the relevant times (essentially the past three years) have to be available next Wednesday to talk to the grand inquisitors. Barbara called me and asked me what we were supposed to say. I said, "I think we're supposed to tell the truth. Didn't we just go through ethics training?" She replied that her cost center hadn't had the ethics session yet.

This would be a lot less stressful if we had some idea of what they're really looking for so we can be prepared. For example, I'd like to know if there's any documentation I should dig out to have ready for them. I'd also like to know little details like whether they will talk to us one on one or in a group. My guess is that we won't know any of this until the day itself.

As for the trip I ended up taking, the two support guys I've had looking into a particular issue were essentially ordered to go to Boulder and I went largely to nursemaid them. I had other things to do there - a facilities issue to look into and a few meetings it was worth my sitting in on, as well as the usual round of hallway discussions that are my major source of information. I was extremely irritated to find out that they had not called any of the five people whose phone numbers I gave them three weeks ago. And then they argued with me about when they would leave; there's a regular weekly meeting on the issue they are supposed to be investigating and they didn't want to go to it because they didn't want to stay late enough to take the 6 p.m. flight back. (As it turned out, the weekly meeting was cancelled this week, but I am still annoyed.) I sometimes think I'm lazy, but this lack of initiative amazed me. On top of all that, about all they've told me is a bunch of unsurprising generalizations, with no technical depth. I don't need to bring in experts to tell me stuff I already know. The catch is that they work for my boss's boss's good friend, so I'm not sure if I can get rid of them.

I got back in time for Community Storytellers and that helped my mood tremendously. Greg was M.C. and he had asked me to tell the first story. (Nobody ever wants to tell first, so it's not a bad idea to have somebody lined up.) I told "The Neglected Princess", which triggered several other frog prince stories. Kathleen told "The Owl and the Pussycat" to continue the interspecies love theme. She had a bunch of very cute props, which made it a lot of fun. I'd say it was just an average evening overall, but an average evening at storytelling is better than most of the other ways I could spend my time.