Trying to re-engage the world

So, now that Collin's made his appearance into the world, and subsequently now home with his new family, it's time to hit the gearshift and re-engage the world. The last couple weeks have been tediously, full of waiting, full of stress and just downright not fun. At all.

I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is apathy right now, or it's just a general funk hangover from dealing with the events of the past two weeks. So far, all that really interests me is playing silly games on Pogo. I'm sure that'll change, but turning on Pandora, kicking back with tunes and mindless games seems to work right now.

I'm still in somewhat of a grump about work, but that's slowly drifting away. I think part of the problem was the amplification from the bebe drama, making things seem worse than they really were. Or maybe they are that bad. I'll refrain from further speculation since I generally try to not talk about work stuff. Out of respect for myself and my employer. Still trying to get used to 10 hours days again. It'll be easier now that babywatch 2009 is over and I can focus on what I need to do. I will however say that I don't quite understand why some people don't like manning the phones and help desk. It may get crazy, but makes time go so much faster than just being the supervisor on duty.

Halloween is coming up pretty soon! I so want to decorate a lot more than we did last year. It was fun, dressed up as a cow and playing the fool handing out candy to little kids. I still don't know what I want to dress up as this year. I was thinking the naughty fairy but in theory that's not a very... public... friendly idea. I heard another great idea last night I might swedge -- some chick was talking about her husband dressing up in all silver and getting a blow-up doll and being a stripper pole. I laughed a lot about that one. So, I dunno, we'll see.

Hrm, seem to have run out of things to talk about. *shrug* Life is not always as exciting as you want it to be. I guess.

Until next time, sinners...
Rev

He has arrived!

Welcome Collin James!

12:08am, September 26, 2009.

6lb 13oz, 18 1/2 in long.

Such a beautiful baby!

...

I can't think of a good title. My brain is pretty much fried at this point. For the fourth time in five days, we were back at the hospital last night, pretty damn sure they were going to keep the girl and figure out a way to convince the kid he wanted to be born.

Damn, we were wrong. Here's the kicker (and why the hell they couldn't have told us this before), they won't do anything for her for another 4 days. ?!?! Are you fuckin' kidding me? Apparently ultrasounds are kind of sketchy when it comes to predicting due dates, etc so she might not be quite far along as we thought. How they came up with this magic 4 day number I have no idea. And why last night did they bother to finally tell us this.

So unless her water breaks, or something else 'big' happens, bebe arrival isn't gonna happen anytime soon. Much to the chagrin of my lady and I. It's more a matter of frustration at not being able to do much of anything because we might have to bolt at a moment's notice. And the girl is omgwhineyhovering, which is only driving her mother slowly and surely insane. Not to mention everyone else in the house is suffering as well. Even down to the poor doogs.

With any luck, her water will break soon. Then they'll keep her and make things happen. I guess knowing something is better than nothing. Yeah, that was rhetorical.

I've taken up reading again, which is something I've been meaning to do. Right now I'm about halfway through The History of Hell by Alice Turner. Fascinating read, it's like the third time that I've sat down and tried to make it through it. I'll have to post a summary/review when I'm done. I recommend it to anyone who wants to know how the concept of hell has come about since the beginning of history.

I'm not sure what I'm going to go onto next. Last book I read was Lasher, by Anne Rice, the second book in the Mayfair witches chronicle. I think I may go back and read The Witching Hour, which is the first book. Dunno, I may just pick up another good non-fiction book. I always feel better reading something educational. Or I may just start reading the Shannara stuff again. I always did enjoy that series.

Anyways, that's really about it. Just trying to suffer through another work day, technically this is my last day for the week, but I'm going to come in tomorrow to make up some hours I missed earlier in the week due to bebe-drama. At least I'm not going to have to be in at 7 like usual.

So, until next time, sinners.
Rev.

A watched bebe never hatches?

Third time in 4 days that we've been at Sparrow with hopes that little man will finally make an appearance. All I can say is stubborn baby is stubborn.

At least the waiting room is somewhat comfortable. One lesson I've learned of late is to bring a book. I'm certainly not wanting to be in the room. Been there, done that. Seen the process.

I guess the events of the past few days have really cemented something for me. I love my family, as messed up and chaotic as it is sometimes. We really do put the fun in dysfunctional. And that's not a joke either, well, we think it's funny. But I wouldn't trade them for the world.

My wonderful love posted a blog the other night that really hit me good. I was sitting at my desk, tears streaming down my cheeks. Not unhappy tears, but just ones from the flood of emotions that I've been going through lately. Between work and home, my stress levels should be pretty crippling, but again I go back to how much I love my family. Even in the midst of all the bickering from the teenagers and barking of the doogs, it just seems right.

This whole ordeal will be over soon and a new life will be brought into this world. Lessons will have hopefully have been learned, and I think my love and I are much stronger people both personally and as a couple.

I guess I need to at least try to deal with the facts here. At 36, I'm going to be a grandfather. He will not be with us, but we will get the chance to see him grow up. The couple that is adopting Collin are two of the most wonderful and kind people that I've had opportunity to meet and get to know. I cannot be happier for them and for him. The past few months have been bittersweet for me. To see the innocence of your children stripped away like that is very rough. And I've come to accept what happened, and I try to remember each day that out of our pain, joy is flowering.

I think that's about enough, 3 posts in one day. Ugh. Apparently I've got things on my mind that want to escape. Such is life.

Until next time, sinners.
Rev

Just to get it out of my head...

I've never been one who has had a strong sense of self, or self-esteem. By nature, I'm an introvert, though I try a little more each day to work with that. It's nothing I'm going to completely overcome, but at least I'd like to get to the point where it's not a crushing problem for me. Which I think I'm starting to get there. The other night at the hospital my son mentioned to me that it was pretty cool that I could strike up a conversation with just about anyone. But anyways, the real reason for the opener is that is what I've been kind of dealing with lately. Even with multiple people telling me not to take it so personally, I still can't help but do just that. Apparently one of my other flaws is my pride. And things that bust at all on that, tend to upset me and make me a little unruly.

So, for the sake of my sanity and my family's sanity I'm going to try to work this out. Probably going to be a long post, so sit back and relax. I'll try not to bore you.

I've always taken pride in the fact that at most every job that I've had, I was able to read the lay of the land and power forward and upwards. Before I started working here, I'd made my way to some sort of supervisorial or management type position at almost every place I've worked. So, after 7 months becoming a supervisor, and then just shy of a year becoming a manager, it was pretty much par for the course. I have a strong work ethic, I'm adaptable, and I know how to work with people. I've also got a pretty good idea of what being a manager means. Here's my version of it, and feel free to tell me if you think that I'm wrong:

A manager is someone who leads a group of people, a team. They outline goals and expectations for that team, provide guidance to reach those goals, and stand up for them. They are your people and you are the leader. I don't think it gets any simpler than that, am I wrong? Sometimes you dig in and get your hands dirty, but at the end of the day, your purpose is to make them better. Make them shine. Bring out the best in them.

So, I'm tossed into this position rather suddenly. There are zero guidelines. There is nothing to tell myself and the other two how we're supposed to make a go of this. I immediately fall into what I know. I've got a team of supervisors who lead up a team of grunts. Working with the other two, we spend the next six months tweaking and shaping, bringing this department into a formidable ticket processing machine. The next six months are spent finelining things even more. Mind you, we've gotten no feedback other than people saying we're doing a great job. After a year and a couple months, I have a review where I'm basically told that what I was doing wasn't right and that I need to be focusing on the bigger picture, I need to pick up projects and some other stuff. So I talk with the others, get some suggestions pick up a rather involved project involving customer interaction and run with it. All the while, still working on my supervisors to improve themselves and let it trickle down to the regular staff. I'm mostly comfortable, looking at the bigger picture and trying to figure out where the problems lie, bringing those to my team so we can work out a scheme/action plan/whatever together, since we've proven that three heads are better than one and things end up better when we do.

All of the sudden, I'm pulled into a room and told that I'm still not doing what they want. Not even a couple of months after I was directed to make improvements. And without any real discussion (it had already been decided and my opinion wasn't going to make a lick of difference) I was sent back to being a supervisor.

As you can imagine, I was almost physically ill. With anger, with frustration, with any emotion that swirled up to the surface at this point. I raged. I swore. And at the end of it all, I accepted it. Well, to a point. I still haven't accepted it fully.

This is where I am at. I feel utterly failed by those who put me in this place. I had nothing to go by and what I was doing couldn't be put in a pretty little list and quantified. I was doing exactly what they asked, and fulfilling things to the best that I thought. I had been told that I was brought in because of my people skills, because I had a certain mindset about things that mixed well with the other two. Betrayed. That's the best word I can put to it.

I can't write anymore without getting spiteful. It's obvious that ideologies weren't matching up and I can't agree with that more. So I will gladly go back to doing what I was doing before. Less stress and I know exactly what I'm doing. Which feels like I'm incriminating myself because that's where they said my failure was. Sadly, it couldn't be further from the truth.

I enjoy being a supervisor, and besides someone needs to look out for these people, not only supervisors, but regular techs.

Until next time, sinners.
Rev

Web 2.0, Social Media and Responsibilty

I'm not the biggest fan of this Web 2.0/Twitter/Facebook/my life in less than 140 characters crock o' kaka that's being forcefed down our throats lately. Yeah, I am on Twitter and Facebook, just like I was on MySpace, or whatever FOTM social networking gotta have it site. If I dislike it so much why am I on them? Because I've at least gotten in contact with people from my past that I appreciated their friendship or what have you. That's pretty much it.

It can be fun, kind of interesting, and there is occasional nuggets of something good. But for the most part it's just a bunch of crap. First, let me explain why, then I'll go on to the real bitch I have about this.

I just wrote a whole bunch and realized that I could sum it up so much sweeter and simpler, and hopefully with less piss and vinegar, but I'm never one to slack on the vitriol as it were.

Complaint #1: By tweeting/statusing every little thing you do/say/hear, you are effectively eliminating the very reason that we (meaning me and you) have to interact, to have conversation, to give me a reason to seek you out and just talk to you. Condensing our lives into little chunks of 140 characters or less is so demeaning.

Words of wisdom? You're not anywhere as cool as you think you are.

Complaint #2: People who feel the need to be attention whores and spray in my face how they think they are the proverbial cat's ass and somehow better than me because of x, y, or z. For serious? All it really says to me is that apparently your life is so lacking in affirmation or something, that you need to parade it in front of everyone, "Look at me! Look at me!" I have no problems sharing in the joys of great accomplishments and victories, but when it's in your face all the time, it loses it's flavor. And it really does make you look like a self-important doucheweasel.

Let me repeat that for you: You're not as cool as you think you are.

Here's the real meat of why I'm disliking this whole she-bang more and more. It all comes down to being responsible and accountable for what you're putting out there. Use good judgement about what you're posting, especially if you're a high-profile person and you are connecting your name with say, the company that you work for. Posting links to inappropriate and questionable material, however funny it may be, is damaging in ways that you can't start to believe would be. Same goes for making nasty comments about customers and/or co-workers. So you think some of your customers are complete retards, how quaint, but putting that in a place where anyone can see it will eventually backfire on you. And if you have people following you on Twitter or Facebook who happen to co-workers of yours, all you are doing is creating derision and eroding whatever bonds of teamwork there might be.

Failsafe for this? Create an alter-ego, a more anonymous persona to be as douchey as you want to be. All that hard work you've done cultivating those contacts and all the networking that you've done can be undone by a few missed judgement calls.

Oh, and one last thing, you are not as cool as you think you are. Take it from me.

Peace out, sinners.
The Rev.