Broo-Ha-Ha At Work and More

Again, up at 4:30 am. I love the spring and summer months when you can open your windows and listen for the birds. I, however, am not so appreciative of them in the early morning when they are chirping (squawking more or less) at 4:30. It is always a reminder to me, though, that the gospel says, "How much more valuable you are than the birds". Okay, God, then can I pull rank and have the birds not sing at 4:30 in the morning??

Yesterday was packed with extra special treats for me all day long. By now, anyone who reads this blog (and I have no idea how many there are), you probably have guessed that I can have a bit of sarcasm in my writing. When I use the word "treats", I really mean special things for me to deal with.

You know how my staff at work are relatively crazy making? I think, honestly, that I should start a blog that is titled, "I Work for the Government, and I can't possibly make this stuff up". Yep. My new blog. Look for it's coming attractions...Anyway. I've told the story of the employee with the not so great body odor. Yesterday, yet another incident. This particular employee is being trained to take over some work in another program. Still under my direction, but just another program. She has been training for the past 2 months. Apparently, a little personality broo-ha-ha has been underway between her and the woman training her. Over this past week, it grew into a huge deal and now there are 4 supervisors and 3 employees involved. The issue at hand - my employee sent an email to the other employee (who is training her) and asked her to clean off a desk that she was relocating to. It has now turned into a "I don't work for her. She's not the boss of me" discussion. Really? 4 Supervisors need to be involved in this? At the end of yesterday, my employee said (with attitude), "I know what her problem is. She doesn't like working with anyone who is not black". Come on. You pulled the race card? This other woman has worked with a completely Caucasian staff since the early 1980's. Prior to that she was a police officer....and most likely worked with Caucasians....Did you really pull the race card? Now, I work for government. That means that, by protocol, I actually have to say to this woman, "That's a very serious accusation. Are you prepared to substantiate that?" She says to me, the manager of the entire group, "I'll substantiate anything. I'm not the one being the . . . " and you can imagine what she said to me about the other person. I just shook my head and walked away mumbling to myself about how I can't deal with irrational thought. (Really to myself. Would never say that to an employee out loud). Oh happy day. It is a never ending story of fun in my office. It's good fun. You should try it someday. I have positions available for the criminally insane.

On another note, my girlfriend and I went to the breast clinic yesterday for her follow up mammogram to see if the lump in her breast is indeed cancer coming back. Good news about that. It's only a benign cyst. Hallelujah. She's very happy; I'm very happy for her. It was a long wait. 3 1/2 hrs at the breast clinic. I'm thinking, "What could you possibly be looking at? There can't be that much space to cover. They aren't that big". I start looking, after hour #2 for something to read. To my enjoyment, the magazine in the waiting room was the Jello magazine. Great. I can read about 100 different ways to make Jello. That's exciting for me. As an aside, when we were younger, and this is no lie, I believe that at every church picnic, dinner, luncheon, etc. we were served green jello. It's a true fact of my childhood. Green jello. Every event. I don't believe that there could have been an event that I didn't see some form of green jello being served - whether by itself or with some kind of disgusting fruit hung in the middle of it. (really, people? fruit in jello? do you look at the food before you serve it because you can't possibly think that looks nice - suspended fruit?)

Okay. Too much rambling at 4:30 in the morning. Today will start with trying to unravel the fun of yesterday's discussion with my employee. Who, by the way, I learn later on was watching TV at her desk during the day. Why? Why do you make these choices, dear employees? Really? We don't have enough of a bad rap as government employees? You have to feed the stereotype?