It's possible I could be more useless tonight, but I'm not entirely sure how.
I'm starting to get my crap together for the Large Trip to the Coast of My Birth, With Multiple Stops in the State Where I Colleged. Friend and I are grabbing his sister and heading to, in order, his brother's place, a rendezvous in Pennsylvania somewhere, at a location yet to be determined, my parents' house, a possible day of touring Philadelphia historical bits, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because they have a Bruce exhibit I've been wanting to see, plus it's the R&R HoF and probably has some Cool Stuff. I would like to stop in the actual town where I went to college, but I think that's unlikely to be part of the adventure. All in all, though, it will involve about eight days of stuff, at least four of which will include driving.
I've been monumentally tired lately, and I've been trying to piece together why that is so, because it's not lack of sleep--I'm not sleepy, exactly. In discussion with Friend last night I decided that it's partly, or mostly, stress from work. (And not working out probably doesn't help, either.) It's not that I hate my job--actually, despite the multitude of frustrations lately, I actually like a lot of what I do, on some level. Yeah, it's boring and tedious in a lot of ways, and it doesn't engage my intellect, for lack of a better word, in any way whatsoever, but it's Good Work, and for a good cause, so if I don't get to use my smarts in ways that make me happy & fulfilled, well, at least other people get to benefit from it. There is some measure of satisfaction from that, and I make a living that allows me to do stuff and enjoy myself and even save some money, so it's pretty damn good, as these things go.
The thing that's causing me stress is that I don't have any help. There isn't another person in the whole organization who knows as much about what I'm doing as I do, and, in particular, doesn't know nearly as much about the budget as I do, and that makes me nervous. Our downtown financial folks don't concern themselves with the actual program activities or rules governing same, and they don't make any effort to learn what we're doing, and they don't particularly provide us with tools that would help; they mostly add layers of hoops through which we must jump, and communicate poorly about same, which just adds to the strain. Sometimes, when I'm really lucky, they lecture me on what fabulous tools they're providing and how we should really use them. But really, they don't know our programs nearly as well as they ought. (For example, today our controller called and asked MY opinion about a thing that the head of the whole organization wants to do that would affect one of the satellite programs in our corner of the organization, and I got the strong sense that my feedback was what made the decision, even if it doesn't go out with my name on it, plus I sent the controller to an additional person whom I knew would have a relevant opinion about another aspect of the whole thing.)
On top of that, there really isn't anyone else who knows our data needs and reporting requirements. (One of our funding agencies requires 40 reports a year. Yes. Forty. And that's just one bit of the reporting.) Some of the stuff I pull myself. Some of it I get from our IS person (who's a level above me on the food chain, so she isn't exactly support for me, though she does, in fact, do her best to get me what I need). It gets reported in multiple formats, and multiple arenas, and to multiple internal and external ends, and very little of it gets reviewed or even examined by anyone else before I submit it, and mostly people don't even know about it.
Yes, I know I need to write all of this down somewhere. I'll do that as soon as I put out whatever's on fire right now, and I can think of a half a dozen things that are smoldering or actually in flames.
My boss and I both recognize the need for some infrastructure, and I have occasionally given some thought to what it would resemble, were any of it to come my way. At the same time, I know our programs in the detail of the matter--i.e., both in terms of budgets and in terms of performance--better than anyone, and I know the huge unmet need, so I have a very difficult time taking money that could be used to provide direct services to people who's lives are much, much, much worse than my Stress At Work problems. On the other hand, I know that infrastructure is vital, so I'm willing to make an argument to hire someone when we have the dollars to do so and I have enough work to keep that person busy. It's a balancing act.
Add to it that I absolutely do not want to cheap out on the eventual position: either hire someone good, at a reasonable salary, or don't, but don't hire a warm body at 2/3 the necessary salary, and expect that person to do what I know needs to happen. To me, that's a complete waste of money, and, likely, a waste of my time.
So, really, it's the sole-responsibility part that is making me a bit anxious. I would like to have someone around whom I can trust and past whom I can run things, with some expectation that s/he will actually be able to look at what I've done and find my mistakes. Right now, I work alone, and the things I send downtown get put through some weird translation device that fucks up everything and puts it into a spreadsheet in ways that make it impossible to actually follow, but no one actually reviews things in a way that is likely to find any relevant mistakes. Irrelevant bullshit, yes, but not actual mistakes. Not the desired result.
Anyway.
All that aside, I'm still taking time off. As of February of this year I get three weeks of vacation a year, so even with this trip I'm going to have more than two weeks of vacation days left. And I'm taking this time. I want to see my dad near his 80th birthday, while all of his organs are still on the inside of him. I want to see my nephews, if I can. I want Friend to see a part of the country that is beautiful to me, but that he has never seen. (I find that I don't much care about seeing my brother, which kind of bothers me to realize but I don't know that I want to, or can, do anything about it. But that's another whole story.) And you know what? I'm not indispensible; the place will manage without me for another week. The other thing that helps is that I have worked hard to develop relationships with our various funding agencies and project officers, so if something does blow up, they'll be on our side. Who knew that someone as fundamentally grouchy as I am would have the patience for that . . .
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
And then . . .
It was, in fact, very nice. It was also funny, because the guy who waited on me earlier in the week--and whom I'd told that I'd gotten married there (but was now divorced)--saw me and came over and said, glad you made it back again, and I said, and here's my ex-husband. He was a little taken aback, I think, but amused as well. It was also bittersweet, of course, but it is what it is. We know each other's lives so well, and much of the fundamental liking for each other remains, so we can have a good time talking to each other. Apparently I don't know how to be divorced any better than I knew how to be married, given that most people don't seem to manage amicability. Then again, we've both worked hard at that, and struggled through a lot of difficulty, so it's not as though it happened by magic, and it certainly hasn't happened easily. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, if I use the generally available narratives about relationships and divorce and marriage and whatever, but if I throw them out and accept it, it works a lot better.
Meanwhile, my dad is going through some changes of his own. The bladder cancer keeps reappearing, and he's reaching the point where they're going to want to take it out completely and replace it w/ a bag. At first, he was absolutely opposed to that idea, but my mom was telling me today about a conversation she overheard. Some friends of theirs were visiting, and the other guy also has bladder cancer--more advanced than my dad's so they're pretty much stuck with removal--and my dad was telling this guy that it would be okay, that you have to do what you have to do, that he golfed with someone in Florida (my parents used to spend a few months each winter down there) who had a bag and it was okay, and so on. My mom was kind of (okay, totally) eavesdropping, because this was a rather significant change of position on my dad's part.
My dad's a pretty sensible person, and I think he's capable of evaluating quality of life and figuring out what it's worth to him. The thing for him is that he'll be 80 in a couple of weeks, so his balancing act has different constraints than someone who's younger, for example (or older, for that matter). As my mom and I were discussing, chances are pretty good that he'd have a pretty good quality of life with a bag--he'd still be able to do all of the things he likes to do, he'd get to hang with his grandkids a while longer, so . . . there it is. I suspect he'll go for it.
Of course I'd like to have him around awhile longer--I like my dad! But I also know he'd rather die sooner and happier than later and more incapacitated, either mentally (especially mentally) or physically. One of the great advantages to having spent so much time working on my relationship with my parents is that I don't feel like we've left a lot unsaid. We don't have unhealed wounds in our relationships. To be fair, we haven't had many to begin with; my mom and I have always had the most difficult relationship--remember when she didn't speak to me for more than a year?--but even that is bounded by the knowledge both of us have of the love we have for each other. The other contributing factor is that we talk nearly weekly, and have done so for the 24 years I've lived out here. Some weeks there's not a lot of conversation, other times we talk for awhile, but it means we have a dense fabric of interaction to sustain us.
The difficult part of our relationship is, and always has been, that I haven't lived my life in a way that she completely understands. It is so different from what she would choose for me, and, in some ways (more ways than she knows, actually), so different from what she considers a proper life, that she can't always get her head around it. I've known this for 40 years, and, when I'm not having difficulties of my own, I can deal with it. We have problems when my life is going to shit in some way--she tries to help, but her suggestions are so contrary to what makes sense to me, for me, that I get defensive and upset and she gets more entrenched. In my heart of hearts, I know that she just wants me to be happy--what all parents want for their children--but she cannot for the life of her figure out how I could be happy doing the things I do.
The other thing for her is that, all things considered, the patriarchy has been very good to her. She married someone she loved, they've been happily married for 54 years, he's more of a feminist than she is in some ways. This makes it difficult for her to identify and recognize the subtle (or not-so-subtle) incursions of patriarchy into people's lives. She played by the rules and she hit the jackpot, so she sees a causal conneciton there, where I would argue those things are really not causally connected at all.
No matter. At heart, I know she loves me, despite the many challenges I pose for her, and that's the important part.
Meanwhile, my dad is going through some changes of his own. The bladder cancer keeps reappearing, and he's reaching the point where they're going to want to take it out completely and replace it w/ a bag. At first, he was absolutely opposed to that idea, but my mom was telling me today about a conversation she overheard. Some friends of theirs were visiting, and the other guy also has bladder cancer--more advanced than my dad's so they're pretty much stuck with removal--and my dad was telling this guy that it would be okay, that you have to do what you have to do, that he golfed with someone in Florida (my parents used to spend a few months each winter down there) who had a bag and it was okay, and so on. My mom was kind of (okay, totally) eavesdropping, because this was a rather significant change of position on my dad's part.
My dad's a pretty sensible person, and I think he's capable of evaluating quality of life and figuring out what it's worth to him. The thing for him is that he'll be 80 in a couple of weeks, so his balancing act has different constraints than someone who's younger, for example (or older, for that matter). As my mom and I were discussing, chances are pretty good that he'd have a pretty good quality of life with a bag--he'd still be able to do all of the things he likes to do, he'd get to hang with his grandkids a while longer, so . . . there it is. I suspect he'll go for it.
Of course I'd like to have him around awhile longer--I like my dad! But I also know he'd rather die sooner and happier than later and more incapacitated, either mentally (especially mentally) or physically. One of the great advantages to having spent so much time working on my relationship with my parents is that I don't feel like we've left a lot unsaid. We don't have unhealed wounds in our relationships. To be fair, we haven't had many to begin with; my mom and I have always had the most difficult relationship--remember when she didn't speak to me for more than a year?--but even that is bounded by the knowledge both of us have of the love we have for each other. The other contributing factor is that we talk nearly weekly, and have done so for the 24 years I've lived out here. Some weeks there's not a lot of conversation, other times we talk for awhile, but it means we have a dense fabric of interaction to sustain us.
The difficult part of our relationship is, and always has been, that I haven't lived my life in a way that she completely understands. It is so different from what she would choose for me, and, in some ways (more ways than she knows, actually), so different from what she considers a proper life, that she can't always get her head around it. I've known this for 40 years, and, when I'm not having difficulties of my own, I can deal with it. We have problems when my life is going to shit in some way--she tries to help, but her suggestions are so contrary to what makes sense to me, for me, that I get defensive and upset and she gets more entrenched. In my heart of hearts, I know that she just wants me to be happy--what all parents want for their children--but she cannot for the life of her figure out how I could be happy doing the things I do.
The other thing for her is that, all things considered, the patriarchy has been very good to her. She married someone she loved, they've been happily married for 54 years, he's more of a feminist than she is in some ways. This makes it difficult for her to identify and recognize the subtle (or not-so-subtle) incursions of patriarchy into people's lives. She played by the rules and she hit the jackpot, so she sees a causal conneciton there, where I would argue those things are really not causally connected at all.
No matter. At heart, I know she loves me, despite the many challenges I pose for her, and that's the important part.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Say What?
i cannot seem to finish a post and then actually post it. I have several that were probably minutes away from readiness and . . . I just didn't.
Because whatever.
It's been a full couple of weeks. Lots of beer last weekend, and tasty food, and lounging about. Four days of work and annoyance, and now I'm off again--until next Wednesday, actually. The original plan had been because Friend and I were considering another trip this weekend, but then he had to tuckpoint his house and I have a special assessment and we decided to stay the hell home. Even if we go out and do some stuff, it'll be cheaper than going away. I ended up with several appointments to keep, including my gynecologist (I have to see him every six months, and I'm already two months overdue); I called today, expecting the usual two-month wait, and they have a cancellation for Monday. Oh well; not exactly what I want to do on my day off, but whatevs. I can still get up in the morning and make tea and sit around for awhile.
I've also started going back to the acupuncturist, because the SI pain is back, along with heel pain that I think is possibly completely unrelated. It's quite tedious; some days or activities that you think would stress it out and make it hurt have no effect at all, and other days, blammo. So I'm going back to the needles, and I'm trying to go back to the yoga mat; that project is less successful, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. I like the practice, I really liked it when I practiced regularly, I know that I feel better in so many ways when I do it, but actually getting my ass on the mat? Not so much. At least I've been better about exercising--including when we were out of town last week! I looked it up and saw that the hotel had workout facilities, so I threw some gear in the vehicle, and I actually worked out Friday before we went out to dinner and Saturday morning, so I felt very virtuous. Didn't stop me from ordering dessert at breakfast on Sunday, however.
Tomorrow is going to be another chapter in the weirdness that is my life. The restaurant where Chuck and I got married is closing next week. They're going to reconceptualize it (cue the eyeroll) so it's for hipper people than I am. Whatever, the point is that I love the place; it was one of my favorites before I met him, and we enjoyed it together, and I've made it a point to kind of "reclaim" it since we split up, because I liked it so much. (I went by myself on Tuesday night, and had a fabulous meal and even talked to the chef.)
Anyway, I told Chuck about the closing, and he asked if I wanted to have dinner with him there tomorrow. Yes, I know it's a bit odd, at least for most people, but it feels like the right thing to do in many ways. I realize I'm taking a chance that it's going to upset him or freak him out, and I will check in to make sure before we meet, but it feels like a way to honor the parts of our relationship that were good. I've begun to truly believe that we had the best possible relationship we were capable of having (and still are, for that matter). I have never doubted his feelings for me, or mine for him, for that matter, but so many things, including our own habits and behaviors and wishes, made it nearly impossible for it to work as a marriage.
I realize that's a mighty convenient conclusion, but I have been thinking about this for nearly five years, in one way or another--more, in some ways--and I think the odds were really against us. The fact that we managed to create as much good stuff as we did is a testament to both of us, I think. And, here's another oddity for you, sometimes what I would like most is to find a good companion for him. He's a good person, in so many ways, and I'd like him to have that, even as I recognize that I'm not that person.
One of my biggest realizations, when we had been separate for awhile but were still waffling around, was that getting back together would be poisonous for both of us. I know myself, and I know that I would never have really trusted him; I would have wanted to look over his shoulder all the time. And the thing is, if he changed the behaviors related to my lack of trust, then he would deserve to be trusted. There is absolutely no way for that to work out well. I don't say this to point fingers at either of us, but, as I hope I'm making clear, it's a combination of the behaviors of both of us. Perhaps you could say that, after a certain amount of time, or some kind of evidence, I should have been able to let go of my own needs for Proof of Trustworthiness; I don't know. My point is that it's an interaction, and both people contribute to it, and not necessarily in ways that are good for either of them.
And here's the other thing: people get into patterns of behavior. As they say in the substance abuse treatment world, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. The same is true of friends, lovers, whomever; we have habits in our relationships with people, and we fall into them, and that isn't all bad. It's the foundation of intimacy, probably. My point is, even if Chuck and I had the best intentions, even if we could have gotten past the trust issues, our own habits may well have led us back down the paths that would be harmful to us, individually and together. I don't know if that part is true, of course, but I also believe that it would have been much more corrosive, to both of us, than the first time around, if that happened.
So, yeah, dinner with my ex at the place where we got married.
Because whatever.
It's been a full couple of weeks. Lots of beer last weekend, and tasty food, and lounging about. Four days of work and annoyance, and now I'm off again--until next Wednesday, actually. The original plan had been because Friend and I were considering another trip this weekend, but then he had to tuckpoint his house and I have a special assessment and we decided to stay the hell home. Even if we go out and do some stuff, it'll be cheaper than going away. I ended up with several appointments to keep, including my gynecologist (I have to see him every six months, and I'm already two months overdue); I called today, expecting the usual two-month wait, and they have a cancellation for Monday. Oh well; not exactly what I want to do on my day off, but whatevs. I can still get up in the morning and make tea and sit around for awhile.
I've also started going back to the acupuncturist, because the SI pain is back, along with heel pain that I think is possibly completely unrelated. It's quite tedious; some days or activities that you think would stress it out and make it hurt have no effect at all, and other days, blammo. So I'm going back to the needles, and I'm trying to go back to the yoga mat; that project is less successful, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. I like the practice, I really liked it when I practiced regularly, I know that I feel better in so many ways when I do it, but actually getting my ass on the mat? Not so much. At least I've been better about exercising--including when we were out of town last week! I looked it up and saw that the hotel had workout facilities, so I threw some gear in the vehicle, and I actually worked out Friday before we went out to dinner and Saturday morning, so I felt very virtuous. Didn't stop me from ordering dessert at breakfast on Sunday, however.
Tomorrow is going to be another chapter in the weirdness that is my life. The restaurant where Chuck and I got married is closing next week. They're going to reconceptualize it (cue the eyeroll) so it's for hipper people than I am. Whatever, the point is that I love the place; it was one of my favorites before I met him, and we enjoyed it together, and I've made it a point to kind of "reclaim" it since we split up, because I liked it so much. (I went by myself on Tuesday night, and had a fabulous meal and even talked to the chef.)
Anyway, I told Chuck about the closing, and he asked if I wanted to have dinner with him there tomorrow. Yes, I know it's a bit odd, at least for most people, but it feels like the right thing to do in many ways. I realize I'm taking a chance that it's going to upset him or freak him out, and I will check in to make sure before we meet, but it feels like a way to honor the parts of our relationship that were good. I've begun to truly believe that we had the best possible relationship we were capable of having (and still are, for that matter). I have never doubted his feelings for me, or mine for him, for that matter, but so many things, including our own habits and behaviors and wishes, made it nearly impossible for it to work as a marriage.
I realize that's a mighty convenient conclusion, but I have been thinking about this for nearly five years, in one way or another--more, in some ways--and I think the odds were really against us. The fact that we managed to create as much good stuff as we did is a testament to both of us, I think. And, here's another oddity for you, sometimes what I would like most is to find a good companion for him. He's a good person, in so many ways, and I'd like him to have that, even as I recognize that I'm not that person.
One of my biggest realizations, when we had been separate for awhile but were still waffling around, was that getting back together would be poisonous for both of us. I know myself, and I know that I would never have really trusted him; I would have wanted to look over his shoulder all the time. And the thing is, if he changed the behaviors related to my lack of trust, then he would deserve to be trusted. There is absolutely no way for that to work out well. I don't say this to point fingers at either of us, but, as I hope I'm making clear, it's a combination of the behaviors of both of us. Perhaps you could say that, after a certain amount of time, or some kind of evidence, I should have been able to let go of my own needs for Proof of Trustworthiness; I don't know. My point is that it's an interaction, and both people contribute to it, and not necessarily in ways that are good for either of them.
And here's the other thing: people get into patterns of behavior. As they say in the substance abuse treatment world, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. The same is true of friends, lovers, whomever; we have habits in our relationships with people, and we fall into them, and that isn't all bad. It's the foundation of intimacy, probably. My point is, even if Chuck and I had the best intentions, even if we could have gotten past the trust issues, our own habits may well have led us back down the paths that would be harmful to us, individually and together. I don't know if that part is true, of course, but I also believe that it would have been much more corrosive, to both of us, than the first time around, if that happened.
So, yeah, dinner with my ex at the place where we got married.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Please Read, Damnit!
There's a guy across the street who likes to play the piano, with his windows open; sometimes he sings, too. And he's absolutely wretched. No; really; he's just terrible. There are some nights when, after he's been flailing away for a couple of hours, I just want to go over and shut the piano on his hands. Or at least close his fucking windows. Dude, have whatever hobby you please; I don't care. But don't subject the rest of us to it.
Meanwhile, as the dearth of posting might suggest, I'm a bit fried. Work has been extremely stressful lately, though of course I can't help but be grateful I have a job. Some of it is just me being whiny, but a big chunk of it is that the people who are supposed to be assisting us . . . aren't. Two weeks ago, one of the other department heads and I sorted through a bill for a particular service. It's a quarterly bill, and s/he and I each had our own way of budgeting for it--which is fine, as the cost is split between our departments, and it's spread across our department in a way, and using a methodology, that I developed. So I created a little spreadsheet, passed it along to downtown, and wrote a cover email that said, you'll be getting this purchase order, here's how the costs are being allocated, please note that it's by dollar amount not by percentage.
Fine. Except the Very. First. Response. from the person who's supposed to assist us, says, "Okay, I'll adjust the percentages." Did you READ the fucking email? Apparently not. There were then a half a dozen clarifying emails. Okay, finally everyone signs off on it, the invoice and purchase order go downtown for payment.
A week later, it comes back to me. Why? Well, the other department head budgeted the dollars for this cost under the pencils account number, while I budgeted the dollars under the erasers account number. No matter; we each have our own funds. Or, rather, it shouldn't matter, but someone downtown apparently couldn't follow along, and said, oh, the other department doesn't have the dollars in his/her budget for this, because the person downtown was looking in the erasers line in both departments, despite having been instructed otherwise. So there is yet another round of clarifying.
And today, one of my fellow directors informs me that the grand plan of downtown is to have all bills sent to them, "because you already budgeted it, and you have to follow your budget." I about blew a gasket. They fuck up everything they touch, but they want to take the bill-paying out of our hands? It will be a fucking nightmare if that comes to pass. They simply do not realize that we must obey our funding agencies: as my old boss used to say, in this world you have to follow the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.
More seriously, there simply isn't any way to align three major contracts (each of which has a different contract year), and three more minor contracts--none of which has the same contract year, and none of which has the same year as our fiscal year--so everything lines up perfectly. It cannot be done, at least not with human beings involved in the system.
On a similar note, in the middle of yet another dispute on Thursday, our controller says, surely not very much has changed in the month since the fiscal year budget went into effect. Well, actually, I pointed out, it has been THREE months since the FY budget was submitted, and since then there have been several changes, and here, again, is what they are. In other words, things change, and part of my job is to manage the contracts in ways that make sure we spend the dollars and spend them appropriately, and instead of assisting in that project, the people downtown create their own agendas that have nothing to do with this and don't bother to learn what the grants are. I do all of the budgeting and make the budgets available to them, but it's like reading poetry to fish.
One of the major sticking points is that the person who is supposed to be helping us most closely really isn't up to the job. S/he was hired to do Job A, and the (now-not-so-)new boss thinks s/he should be able to do Job A+++. And s/he simply cannot do that job. Thus, we are not getting the service we need, and we have someone who is actually getting in our way--this is the person who wanted to change the percentages, after being explicitly and specifically told we'd be using dollars rather than percentages. All of which adds yet another layer of crap on top of the processes. Everything thinks helperperson needs to go, and apparently s/he is on some kind of performance evaluation, but meanwhile, we're getting crap. And also also, helperperson dumps stuff in my lap without actually doing his/her homework first, in a frantic effort to show that s/he is doing the work and is getting stuff off his/her desk.
Can you tell it's getting on my last fucking frayed nerve?
Anyway.
This weekend will feature a lot of beer-drinking, preceded by maragaritas and great tex-mex food the night before, and succeeded by french bistro food for breakfast, and then possibly a cat will make its way back into Friend's house. We contemplated going away next weekend, too, and I took off several days to facilitate that, but Friend just had to dump a whole bunch of money into his (17-year-old) vehicle, which has nearly 260,000 miles on it. And he still needs new tires for it. But after that, he mostly needs to get through this next winter with it, and start shopping for a replacement in earnest. In any case, the other trip next weekend now looks less likely, which is okay with me, too--not least because I just got a substantial special assessment.
I apologize that my first post in awhile features a lot of complaints--back to food blogging soon, I promise! And furniture blogging, too, when my shelves get here.
Meanwhile, as the dearth of posting might suggest, I'm a bit fried. Work has been extremely stressful lately, though of course I can't help but be grateful I have a job. Some of it is just me being whiny, but a big chunk of it is that the people who are supposed to be assisting us . . . aren't. Two weeks ago, one of the other department heads and I sorted through a bill for a particular service. It's a quarterly bill, and s/he and I each had our own way of budgeting for it--which is fine, as the cost is split between our departments, and it's spread across our department in a way, and using a methodology, that I developed. So I created a little spreadsheet, passed it along to downtown, and wrote a cover email that said, you'll be getting this purchase order, here's how the costs are being allocated, please note that it's by dollar amount not by percentage.
Fine. Except the Very. First. Response. from the person who's supposed to assist us, says, "Okay, I'll adjust the percentages." Did you READ the fucking email? Apparently not. There were then a half a dozen clarifying emails. Okay, finally everyone signs off on it, the invoice and purchase order go downtown for payment.
A week later, it comes back to me. Why? Well, the other department head budgeted the dollars for this cost under the pencils account number, while I budgeted the dollars under the erasers account number. No matter; we each have our own funds. Or, rather, it shouldn't matter, but someone downtown apparently couldn't follow along, and said, oh, the other department doesn't have the dollars in his/her budget for this, because the person downtown was looking in the erasers line in both departments, despite having been instructed otherwise. So there is yet another round of clarifying.
And today, one of my fellow directors informs me that the grand plan of downtown is to have all bills sent to them, "because you already budgeted it, and you have to follow your budget." I about blew a gasket. They fuck up everything they touch, but they want to take the bill-paying out of our hands? It will be a fucking nightmare if that comes to pass. They simply do not realize that we must obey our funding agencies: as my old boss used to say, in this world you have to follow the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.
More seriously, there simply isn't any way to align three major contracts (each of which has a different contract year), and three more minor contracts--none of which has the same contract year, and none of which has the same year as our fiscal year--so everything lines up perfectly. It cannot be done, at least not with human beings involved in the system.
On a similar note, in the middle of yet another dispute on Thursday, our controller says, surely not very much has changed in the month since the fiscal year budget went into effect. Well, actually, I pointed out, it has been THREE months since the FY budget was submitted, and since then there have been several changes, and here, again, is what they are. In other words, things change, and part of my job is to manage the contracts in ways that make sure we spend the dollars and spend them appropriately, and instead of assisting in that project, the people downtown create their own agendas that have nothing to do with this and don't bother to learn what the grants are. I do all of the budgeting and make the budgets available to them, but it's like reading poetry to fish.
One of the major sticking points is that the person who is supposed to be helping us most closely really isn't up to the job. S/he was hired to do Job A, and the (now-not-so-)new boss thinks s/he should be able to do Job A+++. And s/he simply cannot do that job. Thus, we are not getting the service we need, and we have someone who is actually getting in our way--this is the person who wanted to change the percentages, after being explicitly and specifically told we'd be using dollars rather than percentages. All of which adds yet another layer of crap on top of the processes. Everything thinks helperperson needs to go, and apparently s/he is on some kind of performance evaluation, but meanwhile, we're getting crap. And also also, helperperson dumps stuff in my lap without actually doing his/her homework first, in a frantic effort to show that s/he is doing the work and is getting stuff off his/her desk.
Can you tell it's getting on my last fucking frayed nerve?
Anyway.
This weekend will feature a lot of beer-drinking, preceded by maragaritas and great tex-mex food the night before, and succeeded by french bistro food for breakfast, and then possibly a cat will make its way back into Friend's house. We contemplated going away next weekend, too, and I took off several days to facilitate that, but Friend just had to dump a whole bunch of money into his (17-year-old) vehicle, which has nearly 260,000 miles on it. And he still needs new tires for it. But after that, he mostly needs to get through this next winter with it, and start shopping for a replacement in earnest. In any case, the other trip next weekend now looks less likely, which is okay with me, too--not least because I just got a substantial special assessment.
I apologize that my first post in awhile features a lot of complaints--back to food blogging soon, I promise! And furniture blogging, too, when my shelves get here.
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