I went to bed relatively early last night because I wasn't feeling all that well. Scratchy throat, dry eyes, mildly runny nose and body aches. I figured the best thing to do would be to get some rest. When I feel like that I am not all that interested in being online anyway. So, off to bed and hopefully I would feel better in the morning. Might have worked except that one of our employees decided to call and argue with me over nonsense at 5:30AM.

I was on the other end of this and hours later I still have no idea what was up. She was 15 minutes late for work on Saturday because of the weather. We didn't have a problem with it, her client might have but we didn't know about it. No complaint was lodged by me or anyone that I know of so what the heck was up? She did have her chain yanked last week for not reporting time changes to the office, but that had nothing to do with me so why was I so lucky at 5:30 this morning?

She was yelling about "that incident yesterday". (MLK day, staff didn't work). From there she went to "we expect too much of her, she has a heart condition". (Never knew that). She walks to all of her cases in the blinding rain and snow. (All cases are on a bus route for our walking employee's convenience) We are not giving her enough hours. (She keeps refusing cases). She doesn't make enough money to do the job we make her do. (She started in October, makes $7.49 per hour, and tasks are assigned by the county agency that pays our office). She's always expected to do things not on the care plan. (Real good way to get fired right there).

Now, I'm listening to all this and am not fully awake yet. When I pointed out that she can get fired for doing things not on the care plan she switched to a direct attack on me. The reason for the attack is that I get my money and I have a husband. I have no clue what that has to do with the price of rice in China, but far be it from me to argue about that. I told her to take all this up with the office after 8 AM and I hung up the phone.

Where I come from doing a job and getting paid is not a crime, and as far as I know, neither is having a husband. She is not an employee that I am friendly with and have never discussed my marital status with her. Come to think of it, no employee has ever mentioned my marital status to me or anyone else that I know of. I will do my best to be fair to these girls but essentially I am their supervisor on nights and weekends. Since that is my job, and I do get paid for it, I never have confused having authority over people with being their friend. I don't pry into their lives and I don't discuss mine with them.

When I gave the gist of the conversation to the office this morning, first thing I was asked was "Was she drunk?". It seems that when she was sent to the police department for fingerprinting, the print officer called our office and asked if we knew that she had a drinking problem. And they hired her contingent upon her information coming back clean. It did, so why is this an issue? Whether she drinks or not is her business as long as she doesn't show up at a clients after having a few, and the office hired her knowing that this was something they should have been concerned with. Whether she drinks or not has no bearing on the fact that she did not disclose an illness to us when it clearly asks on our application. Whether she drinks or not has no bearing on her refusal of cases which would bring her hours up to a level where she could make better money.

We have a problem with this employee and the problem isn't that she is possibly a drinker. The problem is that she hasn't been honest with us right from day one. She doesn't follow company policies and procedures, and those two issues are all we should be concerned with. We are placing people in the homes of senior citizens who need help. They are not working in a supervised environment and we need to be sure we aren't creating further problems for these people through our failing to hire honest employees. If a police officer calls our office to inform us of a problem with a prospective employee, then he's aware of something that could be an issue. Since he is bound by confidentiality, he can't tell us the entire story, but he felt the need to warn us. Who had their ears closed? The very people who complain how hard it is to find "good" employees.

She never should have been hired. Even with no felony charges, if a police officer is familiar on that level with someone, the supervisor should have listened. The question shouldn't be "Was she drunk?" The question should be "Why is she an employee?"

I was bored...so sue me. I found that you can find some really interesting stuff when you Google certain phrases. I had an earworm this morning. I woke up with the first few bars of a Bing Crosby hit running around in my head. I hate when that happens, but over and over I'm hearing "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative but don't mess with Mr. InBetween".

Not making very much sense to me, but very little does on any given day of the week. However, I went with the flow and found some rather interesting and in some cases funny images by using the first 3 words and Google Images.



Oh yes, I saw a whole LOT more of him and some of his friends than I'm showing you here. Very positive indeed.



A fantastic new invention. Would save all those frequent beer laden trips to the mens room. Say, what about the ladies?



Well, it's not as bad as a pelvic exam, cowboy up cupcake. Think positive.



I suppose you don't have to be insane, but it helps.



Ok, so it made me laugh, and that's positive isn't it?

Unlike finetune, project playlist keeps playing the first tune on the list. Gets annoying after a bit. Music will be back on Saturday.

I almost posted this with some sort of self deprecating title or comment here. I do that too much. I can excuse it by saying that posting this feels like bragging right now, but in essence the real question in my mind is "Why do I think anyone would be interested?" It pleases me, and that is why I have a blog. To please myself.

I went offline earlier today to concentrate on that idea. It finally occured to me that I was having a self esteem issue and that is perfectly all right. What would not be all right would be to allow that feeling to govern my actions. It doesn't make much sense to me to feel that way either. It's ALL me here, thoughts, feelings, actions and artwork. If I can take praise or criticism of my words, why not my art? My art is more important to me than writing is, so it has the ability to create insecurity where none needs to be.

Here it is, the latest piece I've been working on. It needs a little tweaking, a couple of the flowers became too muddy using the technique I used. I just need to redo them with a little more clearly defined color. A few coats of matte varnish and it will be done.

I've come to the conclusion, applicable only to me, that everything happens for a reason. Humans have the capacity for personal growth that other life forms don't. Do we always use it wisely? Admittedly, sometimes I don't. There are aspects of blogging and other online forums that I absolutely love, and there are aspects that I dislike. Since this is not a finger pointing post, I will not enumerate them. Suffice it to say, I've grown more accepting of things as they appear to be and do not feel the need to point out that it's wrong. I've accepted that what is wrong for me, may be right for you and I shouldn't attempt to change your mind about the path you've chosen. I will choose a different path and hope that it is the right one for me.

At 58 years old, I am still and always will be...a work in progress. I will always, as long as I breathe, have the ability to enjoy new ideas, new gadgets, new people, be they honest or dishonest. I will always have the ability to make up my own mind what I will and will not do and who I will and will not associate with. I will always have the ability to learn and by learning, make better choices in all aspects of my life. None of this, of course, happens overnight. Along with that personal growth there are personal pitfalls which can hamper progress. Sometimes those pitfalls stop my progress needlessly because I allow them to. I have a hard time letting go of things that frustrate me. It has occured to me that might be a clue as to why I have anxiety and intermittent high blood pressure. DUH!!!!! Sometimes it does not take a brick wall falling on me in order for me to get the point of something, and sometimes it does. OUCH!!!

Oddly, my mind just supplied me with a memory of learning to sidewalk rollerskate. The sidewalks in front of Grandma's house were slate and uneven. Pushed up by tree roots or frost heaved, they had become cracked and broken. In some areas overgrown with moss. I had received a pair of rollerskates, clamp on kind with key. Of course I fell, skinned my knee pretty thoroughly, and twisted my ankle when the skate twisted off the bottom of my sneaker. I was sitting there crying as children are apt to do. Dad was the first to reach me. He removed the skates, checked me over to insure that I had no broken bones, and asked me if I hit my head. I shook my head no and he responded by telling me I must have. When asked why, he pointed out a crack in the slate I was sitting on and said "See? You broke the slate." He always said his kids were hard headed. " If you want to hit my kids, hit 'em in the head...you can't hurt 'em." was another of his favorite sayings. I hated it. Sorry Dad.

The problem with hating that Dad thought we were hard headed is that I didn't see how proud he was of it. It always seemed to me that he meant we were dumb, therefore he was disappointed in us. It's actually quite the other way around. For him it meant that he had done his job, which was to insure that his children could take care of themselves in the real world. It meant that we had the ability to stand there and bang our heads on that slate until we understood that we didn't always need to be successful at what we tried, but we always had to try. Try anything, even if it's wrong. I've spent much of my life trying, and being angry at myself for NOT being successful. I guess it's that hard head, it got in the way of understanding the true meaning of Dad's lesson.

It occurs to me, that I have sold myself short a time or two million by not seeing that I was successful at something. For every time I couldn't make a difference somewhere else, I made a difference within me. Somewhere I lost my anger. I don't remember why or when it happened, except there was a real change in how I view myself in general sometime during my move. It may just be a lifting of depression that I refused to admit I was suffering. I don't know, I don't entirely understand it, I'm just learning to go with it to see where it leads. If life is like a slate, somewhere lies a broken one and I need to find a new one. Not to bang my head against, but to write the rest of my life on. Finding a new one will be easy...I have a blog, and a desire to learn.