I have had kind of a shitty week, truth be told.  Yesterday was my day from hell.  If I encountered one more incompetent idiot, I was going to kill them.  I finally left the group I was supposed to be work out and put myself in a time-out, if you will.  I felt like I was beating my head against the wall.  My day ended in a similar fashion when I spent 3 hours with the two service guys I spoke about earlier in the week.  Our plan to use beer on them was thwarted by a late video conference meeting with their bosses in Asia.

The thing I do like about both of these guys is that I have worked with them a long time.  I can be my blunt and tactless self when debating them.  They don’t take it personally, and I think it is a bit of a game with them: see what we can get Emmy to say.  (I’m also extremely honest during discussions and will fill them in on things I know are not confidential but have been poorly communicated- learned that from a past CIO.) We hit the point I had been waiting for two hours into the meeting when they sat back and said “I guess we’ll have to see what Asia decides.”  This is their attitude – wait, see, excuses, hope, a bit of denial – victim stuff.  I told them flat out that that this approach was bullshit.  That while I understand they are frustrated and have been beat down for being “freethinkers”, it isn’t how I operate.  We are going to come up with a plan to solve the issues – and if they need to blame me for doing it to keep themselves safe, so be it.  (Currently most of the upper management in the Asia office is pissed off at me – I told them I would be happy to add a few more to the list.)  Then I hit my cheer leading stride – They both know the business better than those they are leaving the decision making to – and I would rather have the smart people put this together. We know how that group in Asia unnecessarily complicates things.  We know how painful they like to make things on the group here.  We are going to prevent this pattern from being repeated. They both got a bit sheepish – I had struck the root of the issue.  I told them I considered them formally empowered to do this by virtue of the fact we put them on the team.  The conversation immediately shifted into making a list of what we needed to do.  We have a list or problems we need to solve for their meeting next week – and we’ll start tackling it Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed!

The one issue I have not dealt with is actually an employee issue – a business analyst who is being a impossible to work with.  She doesn’t work for me which, for her sake, is good for her.  She is unhappy with her job.  She has been unhappy for years.  Nothing will make her happy except to dump all her work on someone else which is not possible given we are doing more with less resources, etc.  She is argumentative.  The business hates working with her because her approach is so negative.  And, she is just constantly bitching about everything.  Oh, and she threatens to find another job all of the time.  Last time she did it to me was a year ago.  My response: “You should do that if you are really that unhappy.”  Since she lost my ear, sh is now trying to suck new people into her neurosis. My final straw with her yesterday when she started bitching about her workload – AFTER our boss took 90% of her workload away from her (and gave it to me and another coworker, I might add).  I walked away from her while she was hitting her stride bitching and moaning – and tried to remind myself that she’s tying her own noose around her neck.  I don’t want to say anything that may inhibit her progress from that task!

You know from Garbanzo’s blog that this week marked the end of the school year for the kids and the teachers. Yesterday, the teachers declared it “bring your dog to work day” – and most of them did it.  Garbanzo brought both dogs with him, and Harry didn’t try to kill another dog (always a risk with that one).  Poor Bob this morning gave Garbanzo a look that said,  “don’t you even think of taking me to work.  I’m old and tired and will be sleeping all day, thank you!”  Instead, Indigo convinced Garbanzo to let her take her guinea pig to school.  She had declared it “bring your guinea pig to work day”.  Should be an interesting day for them.

This weekend, we are looking forward to starting the summer vacation.  We have bikes to ride and the yard to get back in shape.  The rain off and on has the grass needing mowing and veggie gardens needing to be weeded.  On Sunday, we will be going to the Gay Pride Parade to show our support for our friends and family who are gay – which we do every year.  I’m sure I’ll be posting pictures.  The parade in Portland is pretty tame compared to some other cities as they are trying to be family friendly since there are a lot of openly gay families with kids in Portland.  The girls enjoy themselves and usually come home with a ton of loot – candy, crowns, Frisbees, bubbles, and other things they are giving away.  And, I’m sure DJ will have her annual question.  Each year she gets older and realizes what the parade is about, she usually has some good questions.  Last year, she went on a rant after seeing a sign that says “Love makes a family.”  She had asked earlier why people were against gay marriage.  (Thanks to some picketers who were walking the parade route.)  We had a great discussion about it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!