Cafe Hitch-hike

2023-09-29

Shakeout

The tablet’s keyboard and iPen were fixed (yay!), so it’s back to fully functional. It is a quiet night in my den while Avery and Tex watch the Astros game in their men cave.

No homework for this eve. I already did it.

The clean-up continues. I was right about the state of things in the building and the rumors I heard about things above us were true. I really am on a clean-up crew, or the one that tries to establish order after a crazy time. Our grand pubah has been warning the building since last spring that expectations were gonna change, and now they are on our front footstep. I’m part of the crew that gets to introduce, facilitate, and enforce those-there expectations.

People are flipping out even more (we already have been for quite some time). Someone flipped out on me this week after I had to assign them some tasks which were normal parts of their job. When I realized they weren’t expressing concerns and giving suggestions, I should had stopped it. It was lashing out and after a certain point and I should had said I heard enough. I be as kind as I can, but I still have to give them directives that others give me, and things have to get done.

I recently realized a lot of things that happen in the building go way above me and are out of my control; I told the person who ranted the same thing and we were not specifically targeted. The building was going through a lot of changes because it was in the process of cleaning messes made from years of neglect. I didn’t know what else I could say. Perhaps it’s up to the person, as an adult with mostly free will, to manage it on their own at a certain point.

Yes, a lot of things are above our control. We work in an undervalued profession (similar to nurses and teachers), we are working in a political battle zone, and our organization has had a lot of turbulence. A lot of things are shifting around us. Can I wave a wand and change it? No, so what can be done? Try to move with it the best we can, for our sake at least.

This person who snarled at me was my boss for a long time. I’m sure it’s not easy for them to digest my new role. People liked them, but they were largely perceived as a weak leader so their department didn’t have a great reputations.

Another one of them seems to have a quiet fear/ aggression. I won’t describe the scrapes we’ve had in the past, but I can say I have better things to do than to pick with them. They don’t know that, and I’d rather let them wonder while I’m busy doing temporary boss shit (and being professional and fair). They were the same person who made last year’s project the one from hell. They knew they fucked up but were surprised they didn’t get away with it, not because of us but because those above us noticed.

It also seems that the few who gave me the most grief in my former positions are uncomfortable, and it makes sense. I’m no longer in a place where they could easily denigrate me like they could in the past. Gee, now I’m sensing a pattern. Building karma? Perhaps not so much at what they did to me, but what they tended to give in general?

I’ll try my best not to catastrophize what’s happening. Perhaps this is the shakeout the chaos theory refers to during moments of uncertainty. The things that are outdated, unnecessary, or unfit for the situation are shaken away? Perhaps I’d be part of what’s shaken away? Anything is possible. Just give me a landing that doesn’t break stuff, that’s all I ask, hah!

The weekends are savored immensely, and even more so when I don’t have homework. I can’t believe summer is over since it blurred by. Let’s see: new temp job proposition, a reneged, and then I was talked into doing it; a trip with my sister with a little island hopping; going to Colorado for a conference; I went to Central America for a few days before my birthday; Niece’s court hearing and victim impact statement—

I’m not going on, I’m out of breath just thinking about these past few months. It’s like I was put into a slingshot and then WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAA!

While so many things around me spin around, there’s other things that really aren’t. I read what I wrote earlier this year and after I had a form of long Covid; some of what I thought was true and some was not, maybe poor assumptions. Some turned out as I thought and others turned out not bad at all.

Just as I said to myself in the days after my niece’s court case,

“ maybe it’s time for me to embrace the life I’ve been able to have (no matter how miserable I felt at times) and squeeze and savor every bit I have left.”

I’ll tell ya, this is easier to embrace now than maybe 7 years ago because a lot has shifted since then. Some things were shook out of my life since then, and so far, I feel mostly fine.

downwind | upstream