Locutus of Jorge

I just ate a Snickers. mmmmm it didn’t really satisfy.

Middle of the afternoon at work. I am frustrated. Frustrated by a general lack of management, and the mayhem that causes. The rancor. The personal turmoil during uncertain times. And I’m only one of the people on the list of those affected.

We are going through a period of budget cuts. Most mass employers are these days. We are trying to use attrition to cover our cuts, but our department was specifically targeted to lose one full-time equivalent. For several months, the axe has been hovering over the block, and each of us in this department have been politely sitting around the block, commenting on the worn hue of the block, or the polished edge of the axe, and all very carefully not putting our heads there.

This is not surprising behavior; we are after all professionals, and understand the realities of the budget process even if our President does not. But it does make it difficult to plan for contingencies when one does not know how to plan.

It was announced at a staff meeting this week that one of our part-time positions was being closed, and our secretary position was being shifted to part-time (thus, FTE). Earlier today, our secretary shared with me her frustration over the whole affair. Apparently, our boss had known for several weeks that her hours would be cut, but he was lax in following through with the process which includes Board approval for the change.

As a result, she missed out on the opportunity of applying for several of the part-time openings within the company, and is now effectively forced into “swapping” with another employee in a different department who needs to switch to part-time. The boss of that department is not anyone’s favorite boss, and she is reluctant at best.

She has started searching outside our company. To add further injury, just two weeks ago a former employer called her to say her old position was open, and invited her back. But, not knowing that her head was now on the block, she declined, citing her current satisfaction here.

Meanwhile, another coworker (a coordinator, above all of us except for our boss) is running amok bad-mouthing our secretary’s skills, and this because our boss refuses to step in and help manage this coordinators projects as he should, so she burdens everyone else with her own inabilities, and then dogs people who fail to fill the gap.

Meanwhile, my boss brought up our department’s most public project months ago, anticipating getting it going early so we wouldn’t be working down to the wire — something I’m often accused of. However, at the staff meeting, my boss produced a timeline which shows that all of the other staff members have until June 8 to give me THEIR materials, all of which I require before I can begin to do any LAYOUT or DESIGN, and then I have 3 weeks to finish the project.

Two weeks if I leave a week for proofing.

Who’s working down to the wire??!

These lacks of management are making me THIRSTY!

Blargh.

On the brighter side, I am taking time at work to write. So there.

Penguin would appreciate the banter between Seth and myself at my Celebrating Home party Monday night:

I was saying, “I really appreciate the parties, because they are good ways to get to know people.”

“When does a person know that they really know a person? I mean, maybe your spouse, but anyone else?…”

“I see what you mean. Its not like people just go around saying, ‘yes, I’m an axe murderer’.”

“And even if they do, what else do you know about them?”

“Right. Its not like you’re going to spend alot more time with them after they tell you that.”

Then, someone else in the room asked, “How much would you charge to kill my wife?”

“It’s just a hobby, not a career. I’m not really accepting clients at this time, thanks.”

…anyway, I thought it was hysterical. Especially at a decorator party.

A few weeks ago, Jorge invited me out to lunch at On The Border.

I arrived first and selected a table on the patio. It was near the end of the lunch wave; there were two other tables of mostly men in power ties and margaritas pounding down tacos. I was not wearing a tie, and sitting alone, at a table closest to the corner which meant I had my back turned to a stiff crisp wind on this otherwise warm and nominally sunny early spring day.

Jorge finally arrived, we ordered, and as we munched chips he tells me he’s thinking of moving back down to his family seat in a couple of weeks. I prod. He tells me things aren’t working out with his wife. I prod further. He tells me, “Well, for one thing, she won’t give me any space in the closet.”

“Have you discussed this with her?”

“Yes, she’s made it clear that its her space and she won’t budge an inch”.

“So, you are leaving your wife over a closet?”

“Yes,” was the answer. I continued to prod, drawing out more of his rationalizations, and I eventually even told him, I think you don’t have a reason, you’re just rationalizing, at which point he said, I don’t need to rationalize, I’m just doing it because I want to.

You have no idea how frustrated and angry I am at that point. So I continue to draw him out. I ask him, “What about keeping the vow you took on your wedding day?”

“She broke the vow first. She’s the one who’s failed to honor and obey me.”

After a minute or two more of this I finally retorted, “Why don’t you try being the man worthy of that honor you say she owes you. Why don’t you actually try to love her like the man you claim to be?”

He put an On The Border card down on the table and walked out.

The next day, he left me a voice mail saying “He didn’t appreciate my cornering him.” That he “came for my listening ear, not to be criticized” and his meds may be balanced now but he “still can’t stand being in a situation where he was pinned in.”

He called a friend of mine and asked her if I was okay, because based on our conversation the day before clearly I must be stressed out or something.

He did reach me at work later that day, at which point I explained, “there’s no listening I need to do, Jorge. I’m not going to give you a supportive ear for something which I know is going to be one of the greatest mistakes of your life.”

We went on to talk, and I thought I had him talked down, if not completely away from this febrile edge.

I invited he and his wife to our Bible study that Sunday. He accepted, without inviting her. Unfortunately, that Sunday I was helping another friend move, and we were not even close to finished at Bible study time. However, people at the house said that he was on his cell phone when he walked in; he kind of looked around, then turned around and left.

Later, while I was driving a trailer-load of furniture through heavy rain on the freeway and couldn’t answer, he left me a frantic and child-raging voice mail: “How could you invite me there all by myself? I don’t do well with strangers. I have to have someone I know there so I can warm up to them!”

This man is a former bank examiner with a state office. I seriously doubt that his meds are currently balanced.

Today, he left a voice mail on my office phone that he was on his way to his family seat — obviously without his wife.

You win some, you lose som

e. *sigh*