I have a friend who blogs in the dark.  It seems to be one of those secret blogs more for personal reflection than anything else. I respect this person more than anyone else I currently know.  And I pray I haven’t just stolen away his one place to vent. I’ve been waffling about commenting for a while.  Wanting to offer encouragement and let him know he’s not alone. Afraid that if I did it would force him to hide a little bit more. Perhaps I was never supposed to find the blog or figure out who the author was.  Dangers of random blog surfing when searching for answers to questions better left unasked.  I never let him know I’d found it. I didn’t want to disturb his peace. Today I was selfish. I needed to comment and to share. And now all I can do is hope I haven’t ruined the experience for him and taken away his haven.

I’ve finally come to the realization that some things are beyond of my control and that no matter how much I might want others (or a project) to succeed, sometimes you just have to let those around you fail.  For years I have accepted responsibility and accountability for things well outside my scope because others were unwilling or unable to finish a job.  I’d work myself to the bone to meet crazy deadlines.  I allowed others to accept acknowledgement and kudos for work I’ve completed.  I told myself if was enough to know that a project was completed on time, on budget, and that the results were all that mattered.

It’s a character flaw.  I can’t stand to walk away or to fail if there’s anything I can do to prevent it.

That likely explains why I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to do my best to mitigate a series of actions that were neither my design nor a result of anything I’d done or could control.  I’ve worked countless hours of overtime identifying potential problems and laying out possible solutions.  I’ve made myself sick trying to mitigate the damage I know is coming down the pipe.  Having been blocked at every turn I now need to learn to say those pain filled words – “This is not my job.  You made the mess; you clean it up”.

And tomorrow I need to look for a new job.  This isn’t a healthy environment for me to be in.  I love many of my co-workers but it’s no longer enough.

I took my fill-in boss’ advice and stayed home from work today. After working way too much OT last week and spending chunks of my weekend putting out fires, I really did need a break. My ability to hold a coherent thought has pretty much gone out the window and my ulcer is acting up.  I’m sure it’s all stress related but I feel like pooh.  Of course a 4 day weekend break would have been better than a Tuesday break. Beggars can’t be choosers though.

Staying home doesn’t mean I’m not working. I can’t help myself. Type A work-a-holic; that’s me. I’m working from the comfort of my home office – putting out today’s batch of fires and throwing in my two cents everywhere – while attempting to convince myself that I don’t need a new iPod today. My old iPod finally bit the dust and I’m eyeing a replacement this week.  I can’t purchase it until next week though.  I have to wait for my allowance.  Can’t use family money.  Must use my own.  Or so I’m trying to convince myself.

It’s noon and I’m already bored out of my gourd.  I can’t stand not working when I’m perfectly healthy.  I have no idea what to do with myself in these situations.  If I’m not careful I might succumb to the urge to be a keener and start working through the course readings for my Enviro Chem class.  Classes start back up next week and I have the textbook and reading lists sitting less than 5 feet from my desk.

Or maybe I’ll pick apples from the apple tree.  I can bring a bunch to co-workers in the morning.

UPPERDATE: If I had gone to work today my day would be over and I’d be in my truck heading home.  Instead I’m on a “sick day” and have put in at least 4 hours of work, including fielding calls and emails from the office.  Not a horrific day by any standards but I think Drew’s annoyed I didn’t spend the day in bed trying to catch up on my sleep.  I am very tired – mostly mental and emotional exhaustion – and will need to toddle off to bed early tonight.  Hopefully our dinner friends will be of a similar mind and willing to call it an early night tonight.

I am in desperate need of lots of beer. Just load the truck up and start pouring it into me.

I just finished working with the most difficult person on the planet – you know, the one who’s always right and your opinions don’t matter – I’m sure his attitude was exacerbated by the fact that he was under the delusion that his deadline for providing content to me is midnight tonight (that’s my deadline for turning the course over). He seems to have forgotten he’s at least two weeks late getting his work to me …

And he got very offended when I told him this morning to make a decision, tell me what he wants me to do to the course, and let me do it.  I’m already on site revision (over 125 pages) number 3 and there’s no way this will be completed on time if he can’t make up his mind!  Apparently, my saying so was very rude.   How dare I have expectations of being treated like a professional and not wanting to be forced to work 20 hours of OT in one week to pull someone else’s ass out of the fire.  I’m pretty sure treatment like this had a hell of a lot to do with why I left my last job.

Thank the gawds for temp boss.  He’s perfectly willing to just let me rant (and move the mountains out of the way) when I need to.

Despite all my complaining, I’m sure it will be a nice course when it’s finished. Too bad it’s completely inaccessible for those who are hearing or visually impaired. Oh, and it’s got some digital divide issues … and no, I haven’t figured out why I’m the only one who seems to care about these items … yep, this is exactly why I left the previous job.  I’m shouting from the rooftops about issues that we at least need to be cognizant of and being brushed off or ignored.

I know, no one wants to hear me rant about work on a Friday. Thanks be for the blues!

Today was an exhausting day at work.  Part of me is wishing that the guy filling in for my boss on her vacation was my boss.  Things that have been left unaddressed for weeks he’s handled in a few hours.  I’m not sure he wants the mantle of responsibility but he’s certainly doing a good job.

I got home from work with storm clouds looming.  Lately it’s been pouring rain scant minutes after I drive into the yard.  I arrived home to find Drew busy clearing out the garage in preparation for the demolition this weekend.  He’d already moved out the wood and typical garage items – lawnmower, snow-blower  and such – and I found him crawling into the attic storage space when I drove in.  Apparently the secret to being a pack rat is to store everything in the ceiling of your garage and then move when it’s full.  We found boxes with flyers in them from 1986 and more wood and boxes than you can shake a stick at.  Drew hauled it all down and set aside as much as he could for the garbage and recycling.  It was garbage and recycling day today and, true to form, the city of Edmonton garbage removal crew didn’t arrive.  So, instead of a few boxes of cardboard set aside for recycling, we had dozens.  Drew brought the wood over to the neighbours with firepits.  Most of them are now well and truly stocked for the summer.

We toddled over to L and J’s for burgers on the BBQ – all the while keeping an eye on the sky for the pending storm.  Just as we finished eating, the storm broke.  Thunder rolled and lightening crashed.  E, V and K from across the alley arrived just as we were moving into the L and J’s garage to shelter from the storm.  With the garage door rolled up (so we could watch the storm) we babbled for hours talking about cars and men and silliness.

After the storm had broken we toddled out into the alley to say our goodbyes.  As we’re standing in the alley, we watched a peace officer chasing a young man down the alley, calling after him to stop and to “get down on the ground and put you hands behind your head.”  The young man turned around and began taunting him, screaming “you’ll never catch me”.  He darted forward and lunged at the officer.  This gained him a face full of pepper spray (to which he showed no reaction). Apparently, he hadn’t seen what the peace officer and police officers immediately following him had – the wall of people standing across the alley watching it all unfold.  Drew braced for impact.  When the young man turned around, he screamed again that “no one is gonna catch me” short seconds before Drew tackled him.  Drew waited while the peace officer and police officers arrived; turning him over when they wandered into the neighbours back yard.  The alley filled with police cars, paddy wagons and an ambulance.  Statements delivered and witness statement paperwork in hand, we finished the journey across the back alley to the house.

Apparently no one had told the young man this neighbourhood doesn’t tolerate criminals.  It’s taken a long time to clean it up – years before we moved in it was a den of iniquity – and the residents have worked hard to make the neighbourhood safe for families again.

I wonder if any of this will make it into the local paper in the morning?  No media was present and it was just another day at the office for the hard working men and women of the EPS.