Today I’m dedicated to catching up on my Experimental Psych course readings. I want to be caught up with them before I head to bed.

Tomorrow I’ll be tackling Stats.

I’m avoiding the last load of laundry today. There’s still tomorrow … If I’m wearing anything brown at work on Tuesday then my co-workers will know I buckled down and finished the last load.

I’ve caught up on my readings for my Mil Psych course but am still behind in my Experimental Psych and Stats classes. There’s two more days in this long weekend so I hope to make a bit of a dent in them tomorrow.

While I was busy not studying I managed to get some house work done. I think that previous sentence may cause Drew to have a heart attack. Floors are swept (I’ll tackle mopping tomorrow), cat litter is changed, groceries are put away. Laundry is almost complete. Sorting out the bathrooms and finding my spare bed must wait for another day. There’s only so much cleaning I can do before I feel the urge to stop procrastinating and go back to doing homework.

The biggest house work related accomplishment of the day? Laundry. I know some people find doing laundry therapudic but I don’t. I’d rather clean the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush than do laundry. That likely explains why I enjoy sneaking clothes into Drew’s uniform loads or bribing him to get him to do it. I don’t mind sorting or folding laundry – just the carting the basket to the basement (while avoiding being tripped on the stairs by the dogs), figuring out which settings to use on the machines, determining proper measurements for laundry soap, crawling half into the washing machine to get the clothes at the bottom out, and trying to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer without dropping them on the floor.

Despite the overwhelming urge to go shopping for new socks and gitch just so I could avoid doing laundry I managed to beat my urges into submission and got three loads done. The lack of colour in my wardrobe might drive Drew crazy most days but having 98% of your clothing fall into one of five colours it makes getting your laundry done pretty simple. Today I made my way through the blacks, blues/greys, and whites. Tomorrow I tackle my browns and then all my laundry will be done.

Today has been all about mundane things. Tomorrow and Monday likely will be as well. And homework. Can’t forget that.

Completely shocking news when it comes to my co-workers today. I’m still in my mini-limbo waiting to see what will happen on the job hunt. I did send my resume off for a student internship position but it’s a long shot. I’m enrolled at a different university and the group hiring isn’t sure if they can interview “outsiders”. I’m hoping that they’re willing to go out on a limb and consider me. The intership could last as long as 16 months. While it pays less than my current position, it’s not a huge difference. Best of all, it’s in my field and would help give me some great experience while I continue working on my degree.

I was hoping today’s mail would bring the letter Drew wrote to me. A nice Valentine’s day message. No joy. I wonder if the last package and/or letter I sent to him has arrived in KAF yet?

Monday is a holiday here and I’ll be spending the day working my way through readings and my Stats homework. I’m a bit distracted when it comes to school at the moment but I really need to get back on track before my whole semester starts going off the rails.

Tonight’s TV treadmill time is sponsored by the return on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Joss Whedon’s (he of Firefly and Dr. Horrible fame) new show Dollhouse. I’ll be getting lots of exercise tonight!

Here’s hoping next week is an improvement on this one.

I’m overwhelmed at the support of co-workers who are providing letters of reference and lists of people to contact about potential jobs. While my current contract doesn’t end until May 15th I’m starting the job hunt immediately.  With the current economic situation I expect the search for a new job will be a slow process.  That said, I did manage to get my resume in for four five jobs in my field this evening after returning home from work.

I’m a little nervous about the process as it’s been a few years since I’ve had to dust off the old resume and write cover letters. Hopefully I’ve got everything updated in a manner that appeals to HR managers across the city.

I suffered from a temporary bought of insanity this afternoon when I found myself considering applying to the CF. After all, I’m attending the perfect university to qualify for a position as an officer. Happy to say I’ve since come to my senses. I’ve decided that I liked Edmonton far too much to move anywhere else in the country and that one serving member in uniform in a family was enough.

And of course, I do have an HR Consultant who is also actively searching for a position for me to fill.  Between the two of us, with a little help from my friends, I’m hoping to land on my feet soon.

So it seems that the funding for the project I work on, and by extension my job, won’t be renewed this year. As of May 15th I’m out of work. Yesterday morning I was offered a lateral move to another section of my department which would ensure that I’m still employed past the original contract date. The job would be pretty much what I do now – with a slightly different shift in emphasis.  I’d spend more of my time doing stuff I don’t really enjoy and less time doing the stuff I’m most fond of. I was apprehensive and the boss gave me a few days to think about it.

I spent most of the day considering my options and sent the details to Drew via email. His response was to take the job and, if I hated it, I could always quit and go looking for something else. I’d pretty much decided to do so depending on the responses I received to a few questions today.

Needless to say I didn’t get the response I wanted. I figured I could survive the job and the addition of weekend and evening support as required. I’d find someway to juggle the requirement to be available to our instructors and students during certain periods of the year that could have severe negative impacts on my own course commitments and education. I’d work around that as best I could when the time came.  I also decided I could accept the lack of pay raise and lack of possible future movement until my degree(s) were completed. Hey, I’m used to working like a dog for little return. My make or break item was the reporting structure. If I continued to report to my existing boss, or one of the managers immediately below him, I would have accepted the position in a heart beat. Unfortunately, the position reports to a woman I just can’t see myself working for.

I have issues when it comes to reporting structures. I know I have issues. I’ve had some horrific bosses over the years. Ones who verbally berated me in front of dozens of other employees for things I had no control over.  Like the boss who screamed at me in front of a client that I never notified him of a specific software issue despite my telling him verbally and informing him in writing (memo and email). It appears he forgot the conversation and trashed the memo as “useless” and had set up a filter on his email to send anything I sent him to his trash. And people wonder why I have email archives that go back 10+ years…

I’ve had bosses who scheduled me to work 18 hour days for weeks on end. Ones who had me so screwed up that I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I’ve been sent to foreign countries and my hotel reservations cancelled by managers while I was en route so that I had to scramble to find a place to stay upon landing (long story, thank the gawds for Boo!). I had ulcers. Developed horrible insomnia. Got so stressed out that I had to psych myself up just to come into work. The thought of certain work assignments had me running to the bathroom to vomit my guts out. In the end, I found a new job and the bosses from hell who played a starring role in my nightmares were replaced with a wonderful female supervisor who described me as shell shocked and displaying behaviours similar to those of a battered woman. Not exactly the way you want your working life to be remembered.

After having reported to a good boss phenomenal supervisor I decided I was never going to knowingly place myself into a situation similar to the ones in my past. I’ve been pretty successful over the years. I’ve had great bosses and relatively benign ones. Even new boss has been pretty impressive. But I can see that all ending if I were to have accepted the lateral move. I’ve worked with this woman as a supposed equal a number of times. I know from those experiences that we would not be a good fit. Without going into details I’ll just say that the thought of having to report to her made my stomach start to churn and my stress levels to jump through the roof.

She might be the nicest woman on the planet outside of work. But. I. Can’t. Won’t. Work. For. Her. There’s no way in hell I’m willingly giving her that kind of power or control over my employment future or daily working life. I’d report to anyone else in the department without complaint. But I’m not in a position where I can report to her and “survive” the experience.

And I have no idea how to tell my current boss any of this without looking like some sort of fruitcake or whiner. I did ask if there were any way the reporting structure could be modified without going into any details. And got the expected answer: No. So I’m going to have to suck it up and go looking for work elsewhere. In a recession.

Here’s hoping my headhunter can find me something – anything – before my current contract runs out.