ground control

Happy November! It's a beautiful fall morning here. I partook of the popular pastime known as rake-all-the-damn-leaves for a while. Now I'm sluggishly chilling. Sluggishly because maybe allergies combined with the flu shot I got yesterday. Plus, apparently, my dependence on caffeine, which I've not yet had today.

I'm not a fan of changing clocks, but I'm feeling rather appreciative of the extra hour we get this weekend. But, let me wrap up the week, bullet style

• At the testing center, we underwent required "de-escalation" training. Out of curiosity, I'd asked Boss why we were required to do this, as it had never been part of the plethora of other required trainings. His answer, "Something happened at one of the other testing centers, and I've already told you too much"

Well, okay then. Bring on the training. Presented by a couple of our security guys (Work Study loved it), it was good common sense reminders. We all felt pretty good about how well we work together to de-escalate such situations.

The VERY NEXT day, dude bullies his way in, gets all upset because he can't keep his cellphone with him (?!) while taking his test. Spends 9 minutes failing a test he was given 2 hours to complete, flings a chair (it was on wheels, so it just went for a fun roll, not hitting anything/ one), and storms out with a parting, "F*CK Y'ALL!!"

Not gonna lie, my calming strategies from the prior day's training took a back burner to my inner seething. Same for my coworkers Blossom and Sarge. But we kept it together enough to, at least, not escalate things. From his parting salutation, I was reminded of the pride banner hanging over the disabilities services office:

And I thought, "Well, how wondefully inclusive of him"

• On the tutoring side of things, I was talking with one of my tutees. He's majoring in mechanical engineering and told me he's interested in becoming "an agricultural engineer on Mars". Whoa.

Apparently, there's a fair amount of research going into the colonization of Mars. Still, I think it'll be a while. But hey, he's young, and it's nice to have a focused goal.  

Meanwhile, I struggle to grow a decent garden here on Earth.  

*the shadow of a lover goes dancing by...

oh, nope. Just a little pooch.

The days are getting shorter and colder and I like it! We are under a freeze warning for tonight. I say "bring it!" a.k.a. kill the allergens, already.

I went for an enjoyable run this morning. The thermometer said 37F and the feels like said 30. I had a hard time remembering what I should wear for such conditions. As it happened, I had on one too many layers, but nothing crazy.

I enjoy being out there in the dark and quiet - after talking myself out of sleeping in.  Fall is my favorite time of year. Soon, the early morning hours will be icy and unwelcoming, but currently, they're perfect. 

There's very little activity at that time of day, save for a handful of dog walkers who seemingly like the feel of the dark, quiet, early mornings too. I shuffled by a few of them, each of us acknowledging each other briefly before continuing our morning solitudes - pondering our life choices, or unable to shake a random earworm.

Some have small lights on their dogs, others wear lighted/reflective vests and/or headlights. Me, I have a headlight, but nothing else to really help the visibility. 

I was over on J. Bezos's store site, looking at light vests, pondering. 


It's reminiscent of my glory days as an elementary school crossing guard.


Now THAT was high fashion.


sigh what to wear?

*This run's earworm:

awaiting outcomes

It seems my skeletal friend at the college got a job in facilities. I spotted him riding shotgun in one of the maintenance trucks. Safety goggles protecting the non-existent eyeballs.

My ballot tracker service has informed me that my ballot's been received. We dropped ours off over the weekend. It was quite lengthy - lots of proposed ammendments in addition to the big thing on the ballot. We'll see where we are in a week. It's likely to be ugly no matter the outcome. 

This looks to be another busy week of stressed out students as the semester winds down. Over in testing, Blossom is still often out. Last week, it seems, she actually was battling a real illness. All that slacking has come back to haunt her because she's out of sick days. 

She was in yesterday, and I asked how she's doing. She admitted that she needs "to take better care" of herself. After battling real health issues, she's already sick of going to the doctor's. Will things turn around? We shall see.

lunch

On abreak  during work yesterday, I sat down next to this dude. He was a wonderful conversationalist.

I'm concerned that he's been working himself too hard, however. Literally, to the bone.

I should've gotten him some more pancakes.

Speaking of working too hard, Blossom continues to not. Out again Tuesday and yesterday.

At what point will it be considered just comedy?

gone fishin'

"Find something beautiful to look at, and spend a few minutes contemplating it. You already know how to create beauty, and that's a start"

So sayeth my horoscope app for today. Yes, I have a horoscope app. I don't know squat about astrology, but heard of the app and downloaded it just for grins a few weeks ago just to see what it would say.  It gave this advice after "telling" me that I'm over-identifying with other people. What?

I had two tutor appointments this morning. Appointment number one showed up and informed me she's withdrawing from the class because the teacher can't teach and she's over it. Appointment number two showed up stating he has to pass his test today, or he's withdrawing from the class - then he opened his backpack to realize he didn't bring his class notebook or his notecard he's allowed for the test. 

An unproductive day for me so far. I should find something beautiful to look at, already.

In the meantime, I will contemplate these tutees. I know Tutee1's teacher. She seems okay, but then I've never taken a class from her. Tutee2 is a nice enough guy, a little impatient with things in general, but not a hopeless case. 

I suspect, as I'm only hearing their sides of the stories, that their struggles are not solely due to their instructors. The pandemic didn't help this generation, academics-wise.

I have three more appointments today, hopefully things will become more productive.

In the meantime, I had some playtime. I'm not inktobering this year. It became not as fun after instagram changed their algorithms, and my interest lagged. But I saw the prompt for today was "Camp", so partook of a getaway.

A  depiction of a thing originally created by someone else. 

Now I'm off to meet with Tutee3. What's in the stars?

a little rant

It's not that she's incompetent. She just rarely shows up.

I'm speaking of our assistant boss at work, who's been there less than a year. I've blog named her Mango, but realize she should have a different name because I've got a Magnum and a Meego here already... too much, so I'm ejecting the Mango.

Let's call her Blossom. I can't think of one week - besides maybe in her first month at work - when she hasn't called in "sick", or come in late, or "needed" to leave early. She does it so frequently, that we just roll our eyes and carry on in our short-staffed fashion.

But is that the right thing to do? I have no idea what it takes to "can" someone at the college. I know Boss has "talked" to Blossom about her frequent absences. She'll clean up for a while, but then it's back to the no shows.

It's weird. She seemingly gets along with everyone, knows the job well, is not a big partier. But what is she doing?  I do know she enjoys smoking weed on occasion, but don't know how much. Maybe its more than I'd thought? Her boyfriend she lives with seems to be a night owl. But really, I think there's more to it.

It's the way she is so nonchalant about calling off. Like "everybody does it", when in fact, no one else but her, at our workplace anyways.

It would be easy to blame her generation - she's a gen z-er, and fitting the stereotype. But then there's Star, who is wonderfully reliable and disciplined at just one year older than Blossom. It's frustrating because Star was originally interested in the position, but HR determined she didn't have enough prior administrative experience. 

Well, she does now. Can we just put Star into the slot and let Blossom take every day off from now on?

If only. 

throw the bum out

Okay, so I have a situation. Yesterday at work, Boss shared that another college staffer - "Trish", who used to work with us in testing - is in a difficult place right now.

He didn't want to elaborate because the person who let him know is Trish's current boss, who said Trish doesn't want to talk about it. But at the same time Trish's boss wants to help Trish out financially.

To clarify - Boss, Trish, Trish's boss, and some of us in testing all know each other pretty well. We might not necessarily hang out that much, but it's more than just work relationships. 

In fact, Trish and I worked together on the hiring committee for hiring the assistant boss for testing. When a candidate asked about the coworker environment, Trish jumped on it saying, "It's more like a family!"

When I first started working there, Trish was another part-timer in testing. She was working on getting her bachelor's degree at that time and had a young daughter and a sort of on-again, off-again "husband". She got her degree, and took a full-time position in a different department where she's been for the last couple of years.

About a year ago, much to our surprise, she told us she was pregnant. Apparently, husband was on-again. Cute baby boy came along last spring.

So here we are at present day. I talked to Trish's boss, who is collecting some money for Trish's daughter, not going to say where it came from. Trish Boss spilled a bit that Trish's husband beat her up? A little?

Anyway, good news - husband is out the door. Bad news, Trish is left as single mom to now two kids, one an infant. Prior to this, she and the husband would provide care to the kids by working opposing shifts. Trish's job allows her to work remotely a couple of days a week.

I don't know what other childcare resources she has, but naturally, she's struggling as this goes beyond finances.

So here's the thing. I've blogged about my involvement in P.E.O. - this organization that helps women with scholarships, loans, blah, blah, to further their education, etc. Here in Colorado, we also have a special fund for temporarily helping women in situations such as Trish's.

I would totally go to bat for Trish as she's the perfect candidate to tap into those funds. BUT, I'm not supposed to know about her situation!

Unfortunately, the fund doesn't allow anonymous sponsorship. All other info is strictly confidential - my P.E.O chapter wouldn't even know about it - but I do need to convey my relationship with Trish and work with her through the application process in order to be considered.

Welp, it's all pretty fresh for Trish right now. I'm hoping she'll eventually open up.