Thursday Thirteen Things I’d Like To Do In 2007 (#18)

So this is the time of year when everyone is doing New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer not to do “Resolutions” because they’re generally broken and joked about by the middle of January and forgotten by President’s Day. Then, next January, they’ll be resolved again.

So, instead, I usually try to use the time to reflect and think about the things I’d like to work on in my life, changes, improvements, and so on. I don’t make myself any impossible promises though. I know my limits and I know physics. There’s no way I can lose 60 lbs in 2 months, for example; nor is it likely that I’ll be getting up at 5am any time soon to exercise 3 times a week.

Anyway, here is my list of things I would like to do in 2007, no promises, but I’m working on it. More

Tags: Thursday Thirteen, bloghopping, meme, New Years Resolutions, gardening, knitting, debt, weight, health, writing, Green Living, housekeeping, dysfunctional family

Friday Five First Sentences Challenge– 10/27/06

Here we go again.

1. There was no way in hell she was going to the opera.
2. Three hundred years had passed since the banishment of the War God and now the cracks in the world were truly starting to show.
3. Shaina had made up her mind; she was definitely, probably going with decaf this morning.
4. Bill was going to kill his brother.
5. Taylor watched in horror as the crack slowly crawled across her windshield, forking in the middle and branching out like two great arms in some desperate plea.

Now it’s your turn…

Tags: Friday Five 1rst sentences, writing, fiction, meme, bloghopping

Friday Five First Sentences

It’s that time again.

1. She had waited so long her fingers fingers were numb.
2. The drip-drip-dripping in the otherwise peaceful afternoon was slowly driving Dale mad.
3. It had been terribly long since Shelly had been tired of rain, but now after 30 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes, she was tired of rain again.
4. The secret was out and Tess loved a good secret.
5. Spider had picked up knitting in prison, or so he had said.

Now it’s your turn.

Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, writing, fiction

Friday Five First Sentences — Back By Popular Demand

So, I used to try to do “this thing” every Friday way back when (before I knew what memes were) as a writing exercise.

What’s “this thing“, you ask?

Is it some weird cult thing? (That’s a fair question from the few people who know I grew up in New Orleans and went to a few Voodoo rituals.)

Naw, it’s fairly safe, though mentally challenging. It’s good for the writer’s soul.

A long time ago, in a city far far away, I had a writing circle where I encouraged the group to write five sentences that could be the first sentences of a story or novel. The intent is to draw readers in, to make them want to know more. The first sentence of short stories and novels and articles should grab the reader and make him or her unable to close the book and toss it away.

So, the object of this exercise or meme is to write five sentences that could be the first sentences of different stories each Friday and share them by posting them either here in the comments or on your own blog and post a link in the comments that you did so.

More

Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, meme, bloghopping, writing, fiction, NaNoWriMo

Quote of the Day: On Good Writing

“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.”
– William Styron

Tags: Quote of the Day, writing

Friday First Five Sentences - 04/21/06

It’s that time again.

1. “Do you actually read Shakespeare or is he just sitting on your shelf because you think he makes you look intelligent?” the snooty man asked.
2. If all hell was going to break loos at the office, couldn’t it have had the decency to wait until Monday rather than ruin a perfectly good Friday?
3. Somedays it just wasn’t worth it to log on.
4. It was really rather a long, boring story and this one is much more fun.
5. Suri stretched one dew-covered wing as she wiped the sleep from one half-opened eye.

Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, writing

Friday First Five — 03/30/2006

O.K. We haven’t done this in a while either and since Tamara so kindly nudged me, I guess I’ll get on with it too.

1. Sometimes The Con itself was so convaluted that it became unclear even to Izzy and Bastian exactly who was conning who or who had even started it this time which made it difficult to figure out exactly when to call it quits and how to tell who won.
2. Somedays Matilda just wanted to drape herself in dark withering colors and on other days, like today, she felt like trying to fit every color in the rainbow in her outfit from her ocean green slides to her brightlly striped socks to velvet pants and glitter barretts — she dared someone from What Not to Wear to approach her!
3. The problem was there were too many spandexed wanna-be heroes running around and not enough spandexed wanna-be villains; the villains weren’t sissies, after all.
4. Four little eyes watched through the window.
5. “Well, I can’t imagine you expect me to still sleep with you after that,” she scoffed and playfully pushed at his shoulder.

Tags: writing, Friday Five 1rst Sentences

Friday First Five — 03/10/2006

I haven’t done these in a while. As reminder, here’s what this is about. Anyway, I decided to get off my lazy writer’s azz and do some. Hopefully this’ll kickstart some creative juices.

1. Some days she envied the blissfully ignorant as they went about their daily routines of struggling to find a decent parking spot at the local Wal-mart or a sale on on iPod nanos.
2. Delaney was always the last to know.
3. Grandmother used to say that life was only good when the beer was cold, which is why, I suppose, she kept the keg in that fridge in the living room.
4. For Rose, it was love at first sight; one of those uniformed soldiers stranded in the airport with her would surely be Mr. Right.
5. Maureen so would not have worn that color with that leg cast.

Add your own in the comments section or on your own blog if you want to play along.

Happy writing!

Tags: writing, Friday Five 1rst Sentences

NaNo: 50,000 Words, Baby!

Whoot! I made it slightly before 7pm tonight. I still have a little bit to write story-wise, but I did it! I can now breathe a sigh of relief and claim that I did it! Whoo-hoo!

I’m at the part of the story where Nora is packing up her apartment to move to Alabama and will soon have the offer recinded. Then she’ll go through a whole soul-searching thing where she tries even more desperately to figure out what she’s going to do with her life before finding the right fit with the the company in Maine…I’m going to end it with when she leaves for Maine. I might go in later and fill in some social interactions between her and her social circle before the firing. They seemed to be so much more focused on after — of course, that was all she had then.

I think this whole experience has been enlightening and theraputic. My mother wants to read it and I’ve told her she could but I must admit, now that I’ve written it, I’m worried what she will think because I explored my feelings about her and dad and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I’m worried too that she’ll see my all my faults and flaws and be disappointed, which was something I explored. Then again, maybe this will open the door to a conversation that maybe we should have about expectations and what not. I would like to be reassured that their standards aren’t as high as I think they are for me. I would like to hope that maybe I’m putting a lot more pressure on myself than they meant to.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled blog. I shall be happy to get back to reading the news and keeping up with politics.

Tags: writing, NaNoWriMo

Nano Excerpt: Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen:
And a Merry Christmas to all!Christmas was Nora’s favorite time of year – the lights, the music, the good cheer, the shopping, the sales, the shiny decorations. She looked forward to it all year. As much as she loved it, she dreaded putting the lights on the Christmas tree. Growing up, that had always been her father’s job and it had always been a big production – he would spend an hour or so, untangling ten or so strands of multicolored light strands and laying each one carefully out in its own space on the carpet. Then he would ritually plug each strand into the wall socket. Another hour would be spent replacing missing or burnt out bulbs. Then another thirty minutes would be spent methodically wrapping each strand around the six foot tall store-bought Christmas tree; they had to be accurately places so there were no “empty pockets” and no overcrowding.Then Nora and her mother would place all of the ornaments on the tree – there were more ornaments than branches but her mother would always try to get everything on the same tree every year; sometimes she would miraculously succeed. Her father would sit in his chair, watching CNN or some financial news show, and occasionally offering insistent advice as to where something should go.Afterward, her father would wrap the tree in tinsel garland with the same meticulous care as the lights. Nora always thought there was too much tinsel on the tree and they seemed to buy more every year. She thought it detracted from the lights and the ornaments, which her favorite parts. Still somehow overcrowded and covered, the Christmas tree was always beautiful and Nora loved sitting in the dark with just the Christmas tree lights on. There was something peaceful and relaxing about watching sparkly multicolored lights.So, while Nora had a store-bought tree as well (she had tried a live tree once but after vacuuming pine needles in March, she quickly lost interest), she did not use tinsel garland; instead she used wide Christmas ribbon. However, she still had a lot of anxiety regarding the lights of which she only actually used three or four strands. She was always afraid she would get it wrong so she almost always asked Jake or Kayla to help her with that part – the offer of free food always brought results and volunteers, particularly since Nora had discovered she was just as talented with cooking as she was with eating. More

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

comments See also in My Life, Writing, Fiction, NaNoWriMo2005

NaNo Excerpt: Is This Too Confusing?

This is from the end of Chapter Ten. I’m not entirely sure it will make sense to anyone but me because of the technical stuff. I tried to “dumb” it down for folks like my computer-phobic mother, but I’m not entirely sure the whole thing makes sense…though the technical jargon isn’t supposed to be the point of the scene anyone.

Any comments, suggestions, questions would be well-received.

There were days when Nora did not just want to beat her own aching head on her desk but she wanted to beat her co-workers into unconsciousness. They seemed to thrive on unnecessary office drama and if there was not any to feed off of, they would create it themselves.

Today, Violet was at the top of Nora’s beating list. Violet was fashion-dysfunctional version of Roberta, a diva in tight pedal pushers, tank tops and flip-flops. Up until recently, her division, a kind of data depository warehouse that just collected data and ran miscellaneous reports, had been the relatively unknown, not talked about division of Information Systems. They were housed off-site and probably very few of the computer users even knew they existed. However, Adam, Violet’s power-hungry boss, was changing all of that. He had visions of being the commander-and-chief over the Information Systems Department and that meant getting noticed and working miracles. Violet intended to ride his coattails to the top.

Back in June, Violet unofficially took over the electronic signature project. People were still trying to figure out how it happened. By that time, Nora’s work on the project had already been completed and she didn’t attend the meetings anymore, but rumors ran rampant, of course. Adam had arrived uninvited to a project meeting with The Company big wigs and promised them that his division could solve all of their problems with the flailing project. He basically promised them the moon, Mars, and Saturn gift wrapped in a pretty bedazzled box.

Next thing Nora knew, Violet was telling the project team that the project itself was being expanded so that her depository database could receive HL7 ADT interface messages in real time rather than get their information from a batch SQL query of the main application’s databases each day. Since HL7 ADT interfaces are the easiest to create, Nora thought that it should in no way affect the project deadline of the end of July.

However, it was now August.

First of all, HL7 ADT interfaces are easy to build when the receiving side is already set up to receive HL7 messages. However, the data depository application had never been set up to do so and it quickly became apparent that the Vendor of that particular application had no experience at all with the standard interface structure.

When Nora met with Violet back in June, she realized that The Company’s interface documentation for HL7 ADTs needed to be updated as some of the details were not clear – for example some message structures between different types of messages differed but were not clearly noted in the home-grown documentation. Nora volunteered in that meeting to do the analysis, update the documentation, and let everyone know once it was complete.

On June 23rd, Nora had sent an email explaining that the HL7 ADT documentation had been drastically altered during the update. She indicated in her email that Software Vendors should be provided with the updated documentation.

Yesterday, Violet had called Nora just as she was getting started on her work for the day and without asking, thrust Nora into a conference call with her Vendor because they had questions about the interfaces. This conversation led to Nora altering the documentation again to cater to what she mentally termed “the slow-minded.”

Then Violet emailed Nora because the AL1 segment was coming before the DG1 segment and it was crashing her database. However, Violet could not tell Nora what kind of interface message was causing this behavior and got in a serious huff when Nora told her that she could not even begin to examine the problem until she got an example. Only days before Violet had rather rudely and condescendingly told a room of non-computer types that they were not even allowed to talk to her until they provided examples of their issues. Nora was struck with the irony even if Violet wasn’t.

Violet finally emailed Nora an example, and Nora looked it up in the publicly- provided documentation and the program that generates that particular type of message and noted that the AL1 actually was supposed to appear before a DG1 in an A05 ADT message, though it is the opposite in an A08 ADT message. However her complaint was about the A05 ADT message specifically.

Playing email ping pong, Nora emailed Violet and told her that it is working as designed and that the documentation indicates this is the case. Nora asked her if she had checked the documentation.

In response, Violet wrote an accusatory email back claiming that since the documentation was not right on an earlier issue, she assumed that it was not reliable; therefore she decided she would just ask Nora instead.

Nora could not figure out how it was possible to assume there was an issue when the documentation and the data messages actually matched.

Later that day Violet, tired of playing email ping- pong, called Nora directly to complain that the A05 ADT message was still crashing her database because the AL1 was appearing before the DG1. She insisted that it did not match the documentation. After a few minutes, Nora finally determined that the real issue was that Violet was still using the original documentation to design her new database tables. On top of that, she never gave the updated documentation to the Vendor so their whole interface has been built based on the unclear documentation. Once Nora explained again about the updated documentation and where it publicly available on The Company’s network and in another huff, Violet hung up on Nora.

Less than twenty minutes later, Violet called Nora again to ask what documentation she was supposed to be look at and where it was.

While they were on the phone, Violet reported another issue with the A08 ADT messages being out of order, which perplexed Nora. However, she did a little research and discovered that somehow when they were developing Department P’s software changes that were never installed, the Department P-specific A08 program somehow overwrote the A08 program for a specific type of update but only in the Test environment. Nora recompiled the A08 ADT program and reloaded it into the Test environment and tested it and everything was fine. Nora sent an email to notify everyone of this fix.

However, this morning Violet sent an email to Nora’s bosses, her boss, the Project Lead, and the actual Interface person assigned to the project to report this persistent A08 ADT issue with Department P’s A08s that were crashing her interface and basically to accuse Nora of not assisting her in a timely manner. In retaliation, Nora politely emailed Violet and everyone else back and reminded her that Nora had in fact resolved the issue the day before and test data entered after that time would be valid.

Violet’s response was another nasty email saying that the Interface person and she had discussed it and she wanted a guarantee that the test data was going to be fine now. With all of the development continuously occurring in the Test environment by the entire department, there were no guarantees about such things. However, Nora sent her a meticulous email explaining what the problem had been, that it had been resolved, and that Nora herself was confident that there would be no more problems with Department P Interface changes because none of should have been in the Test environment anymore.

Determined to have the last word, Violet then sent another email explaining that there must have been some confusion and she would begin retesting today with new data. There was no apology for the nastiness.

Tags: writing, NaNoWriMo

NaNo: The Final Lap

Well, I’m pleased as punch to announce that at the end of the third week, I am at 35,071 words and 70% of the way to the 50K goal. I have quite literally written up to the day I got fired and I’m a little uneasy about writing the actual firing, reliving it and all. I know this is something that I need to do. I know that this whole experience has been very theraputic and extremely enlightening. I’ve learned things about myself from then that I don’t like. I’ve remembered tidbits about the events leading up to the fateful day. I’ve been surprised to remember how blatantly obvious it was that The Minion Supervisor was trying to get rid of me toward the end. I now have an image stuck in my mind, pulled up from the deep recesses of my brain, of The Minion Supervisor smiling at me in one meeting — it was an evil, triumphant smile that made him look very serial-killer like as he took pleasure in my disappointment. He might as well have cackled to complete the memory.

I now know that I gave him some of the ammunition that he used to get me fired and that I was a bit of a conceited bitch. However, I’m more sure than ever that he actually plotted against me. Some times, being paranoid isn’t wrong.

So, this has been a good experience overall though it hasn’t gone the way I expected. I had planned on writing about living in Maine and it looks now like I’ll end the story when I’m leaving New Orleans for Maine. Perhaps next year’s NaNo will be a sequel.

Anyway, I don’t think the story is well-written. I doubt anyone will read it other than my mom…though it might make an interesting screen play…hmmmm…

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

NaNo: Wherein The Diva Seals Her Own Fate

Well, here were are in the middle of the month and I’ve only got 19,775 words which is slightly less than 40% of what needs to be written by midnight November 30th.

I’m O.K. with it, I think. I’ve got to write about 2K a day the rest of the month to get caught up and I can probably do 3K-4K each of the last two Sundays so I should be fine even if I slip behind again.

I added a “disclaimer” at the beginning of my NaNo novel which I thought would be fun to share:

Disclaimer: This story is mostly fiction. Any similarities to real persons, real places, or even real events are not entirely by accident; however, embellishments, exaggerations and literary license have definitely been fully taken advantage of by the author.

I had the idea while watching Law & Order. They always seem to put that disclaimer at the beginning of a show obviously stolen from the headlines and only at the end of episodes that aren’t so obvious. Well, not exactly that disclaimer, but mine’s more honest.

I also decided to share another excerpt. The following is after a chapter of “blog entries” where Nora is writing about how The Minion Supervisor got her written up the month before for her medical-related absences and then promised her it had all been fixed when she filled out the FMLA paperwork, only to turn around and use it on her annual review to keep her from getting a raise and get her put on probation just as they are being outsourced to another company. She has gone over her department heads to the Director of Human Resources in an attempt to argue her case that she shouldn’t be punished for something that had been partly The Minion Supervisor’s fault in the first place — he was supposed to have her fill out the FMLA paperwork months before. Anyway…

Chapter Seven:
Wherein The Diva Unwittingly Seals Her Own FateSometimes a phone call is all that’s needed to soothe the savage beast. Well, in this case, a phone call from the Director of Human Resources to Nora was what finally eased her paranoia- spinning mind, but not after a weekend of pure torture. No distraction seemed strong enough to keep her mind from obsessing on the betrayal of The Minion Supervisor or the ruination of her career. She’d tried aromatherapy, taking a long bath, taking a long walk through the neighborhood, watching a movie with friends, playing a board game at a friend’s house and a thousand other little things, but all she could think was how The Minion Supervisor was ruining her life and how he was plotting against her. She was fairly certain that he was home dialed into his work e-mail, munching on some wife- approved snack, and thinking about what he could do to her next to either drive her more crazy, make her job more difficult, or get rid of her once and for all.The phone call from the Director of Human Resources came Monday morning as Nora was settling in with her hot mocha latte and her bagel and light cream cheese from The Company deli. Since her phone rarely rang, she was a little surprised even as she reflexively reached for her receiver.Nora spilled out the lengthy spiel they were required by penalty of write-up to recite. “The Company, Information Systems, This is Nora Andrews; how may I help you?” Now if it had been a wrong number, she would have been obligated to find the caller the correct one, but fortunately it was a right number, a welcome relief to a highly anxious Nora.

“Hi, Nora; this is Sandy Houston in Human Resources,” the familiar voice introduced herself.

“Oh, yes, Ms. Houston. How are you this morning?” Nora’s heartbeat sped up. An inner- static filled her ears as she struggled to breathe and to concentrate on the voice on the other end of the phone. Was it possible that this woman was actually going to help her?

“I’m good; thank you. I just wanted to let you know that I have discussed your situation with both Bob and Laura and we’re going to alter your review to not have the disciplinary action on it since there’s some question as to how it’s been handled and since you’re going to the new company in a few weeks,” Ms. Houston informed her. “I don’t see any reason why the conversion has to be made more complicated by this situation.”

Nora breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you, Ms. Houston. I really appreciate your help.”

This explained why The Minion Supervisor had not crossed her path that morning. She had not seen hide nor hare of him which suited her fine. She did her job much more efficiently if he wasn’t checking up on her ever twenty or thirty minutes anyway. Worse, usually, when he came over it was to change the priority of whatever she was working on based on whomever he had talked to last. For example, if he had just spoken to Radiology’s system administrator, then Radiology was her top priority, but if someone from Patient Accounts had called him for an update, the new patient accounting interface was her priority. Nora got more work done when The Minion Supervisor wasn’t changing what she needed to work on three or four times a day.

Feeling much better about life in general and somewhat triumphant over The Minion Supervisor’s plot to destroy her, Nora began pulling up the antiquated software she’d need for the day. Meanwhile, in her mind she was plotting her own coup and fantasizing about what it was going to be like when the new outsourcing company moved in and started cleaning house. The deal that had been made was that The Outsourcing Company would take over the whole department, including management, but not the equipment – that was just stupid. The contract would be for 3 years and then the department would be returned to the fold of The Company. The catch was that The Outsourcing Company would have to hire all of the current staff and retain them for at least six months, including management.

Nora didn’t understand how the deal was going to save The Company money or profit The Outsourcing Company. It was like some mysterious deal with the Devil. The employees would all be hired and given raises, including better benefits so The Outsourcing Company would actually be spending more money than The Company for the same amount of work, the same amount of resources, and the same amount of insanity…at least for six months. Plus, if it was determined that the department was understaffed, then The Outsourcing Company would have to provide enough staff to do all of the work and of course, the Department was seriously understaffed. Nora figured that in the end The Outsourcing Company would have to be taking a loss.

The Outsourcing Company had indicated that changes would probably be made within the department as far as hierarchy and that was what Nora was counting on other than the raises that were promised. Nora was absolutely certain that once The Outsourcing Company arrived on the scene and investigated where the weak links were in the Department and where the bottlenecks were, The Minion Supervisor and most of the Interface Team would be out of the door. Clearly, the biggest bottleneck in the Department was The Minion Supervisor. Clearly any sane management staff would come in and realize that he was in over his head and wreaking chaos at every turn. Clearly, she just had to wait it out and then she would be free and on her way to greater things.

In the orientation The Outsourcing Company had also hinted at a nationwide network of consultants and the possibility that after six months or so, some of them might be able to transfer to other positions in the company. Nora’s secret desire was to become a jet- setting fortune- making consultant. Well, maybe it wasn’t a desire, so much as something she had considered ever since her chats with that consultant The Minion Supervisor had hired last year. The woman had come in and talked big about what she was going to do but it felt to Nora like she and Katherine seemed to do most of the work. The Consultant seemed mostly to provide the framework and got paid big bucks for it. That sounded like a dream job to Nora. The Consultant also tried to convince Nora to give up the stable life and go for the big money and had promised to help Nora get into the consulting world with the company that she worked for. At the time Nora decided she wanted to stay on at The Company long enough to complete the project as it would have been really impressive on her resume. However, by the time The Outsourcing Company had their contract, the project had been shelved as unsuccessful and it seemed that Nora had wasted a year hard at work with nothing accomplished to point to and be proud of.

And quite frankly, she had always secretly, reluctantly suspected that the project was doomed. Other companies she’d talked to told horrible stories about their own implementation of the software and the curse of life after implementation. However, she had hoped that given enough time and hard work, everything might have worked out all right. Of course, her original estimate, based on the realities at other companies, that the interfaces alone would take at least a year if not almost two had gone ignored by The Minion Supervisor. They’d been promised to the Administration in six months. The promise had of course been made by The Minion Supervisor. The problem however was more than the interfaces. The two programs to be interfaced were not meant to be interfaced, no matter what the vendor who’d sold them the second software package had claimed. Really it was as if two alien technologies were trying to communicate.

So, despite her usually pessimism and paranoia, Nora had high hopes for the changing of the guard. If she just held out a little longer, the world would right itself and everything would be wonderfully perfect.

Except Nora was never one for waiting patiently. If there was a problem, she wanted it fixed right away and she would obsess about it until it was resolved or some compromise had been reached that she could live with. This obsessive problem- fixation quirk was one of the things that made her a good programmer and an excellent troubleshooter. When presented with a truly challenging problem, she’d forego sleep or food. She loved fixing issues on the fly and had gloried in the Y2K fallout and aftermath or being the one they called at one in the morning to resolve some programming issue threatening to destroy the world as they knew it. Those were her shining moments.

However, in the rest of her life this obsessive problem- fixation quirk was not always her friend. For example, her debt had been so great once that she called the 1-800 lines for her credit cards every few minutes to check and double check and triple check the balances for a good long week. There, of course, had probably been a better use of her time.

Another time, she’d stayed up all night to finish cross-stitching a Christmas present for her mother. She’d ended up with tendonitis and a trip to the Emergency Room a few days later.

And now her new obsession with ridding herself of The Minion Supervisor was probably something she could have done without. Even after explaining her latest plan to her friends and family, if they had wisely told her not to go forward, she probably would have done it anyway. Instead, she made possibly one of the bigger professional faux pas one could make.

While she waited her turn with The Outsourcing Company’s temporary Human Resources representative, Nora chatted with Gina about the make-up Gina no- so- secretly sold on the side. She leaned on the so- called front desk for Information Systems or Information Technologies or whatever they were calling it this week. This particular “front desk office” was actually on the other side of the hospital from the rest of the department and it doubled as the Help Desk, which during the lay- offs had been downsized to one person. When the department’s Vice President had retired, his office assistant had been made part of the Help Desk to double its size and then like a slap in the face of the woman who had been running the Help Desk pretty much since its creation ages ago, the former office assistant was made supervisor, which meant Gina did all of the work anyway.

The door to the conference- room- turned- makeshift- Human- Resources- headquarters for The Outsourcing Company opened and one of the computer operators came out; he folded his paperwork in half as he thanked Lydia for her help. Nora had taken a liking to Lydia right off. She seemed to emanate that kindergartner teacher quality – young, pretty, always smiling, always nice, always patient. Lydia seemed laid back and understanding and right away Nora hoped to make Lydia her ally.

“Oh, Lydia! Nora’s here to see you next if you have time,” Gina shouted back at the open door. Gina, who was always in a good mood even when she was miserable, winked at Nora. Gina was one of the few women Nora knew personally who was truly beauty-queen beautiful no matter what her weight or how bad the humidity was.

Lydia appeared in the doorway. She was maybe an inch taller than Nora with long, thick brown hair – the kind Nora always wanted – and a Petite Sophisticated pantsuit. “Oh, sure, Nora, come on in,” she smiled as if the discovery of Nora on her doorstep was the best news all day.

Before Lydia’s arrival, Nora had tried to talk to The Outsourcing Company’s Director of Human Resources on her previous whirlwind visits but the woman was always in motion and never wore a smile. Nora would get half a sentence out and the woman would be a mile away. Lydia was a welcome change and lessened Nora’s concerns about big city business people in designer suits with no time for the little person caught in the outsourcing crossfire. Not to mention, Nora had bonded with Lydia discussing The Outsourcing Company’s policy concerning absences related to chronic illnesses such as migraines. Lydia was a migraine sufferer too and sometimes it was nice to find someone else who truly sympathized from personal experience and not abstract conjecture.

Nora followed Lydia into the conference room that Lydia had made her temporary home. Files were stacked up on one end of the conference table and Lydia’s laptop was ready and awaiting her next command. Nora closed the door behind her because what she had to say was confidential. “Um, I came by to drop off my acceptance paperwork; it’s all signed and everything but I also wanted to talk about it a little bit before I turned it in,” Nora said fairly quickly before she could lose her nerve. Now that much had been said, there was less of a chance that she wouldn’t say what she needed to say.

“O.K. Sure,” Lydia replied as she reached over to take the paperwork; each departmental employee had been given an offer letter with how much money they were going to be paid in comparison with how much they had been making and what their benefits were and how much things like health insurance would cost. Plus, they’d had paperwork to fill out about their job, their job duties, and their position in the hierarchy – something Nora thought The Company could have provided them, but she was glad it gave her the opening she needed with Lydia.

Nora quickly flipped through the stapled packet. “Well, pretty much everything is right and fine but I wanted to talk about who I work for,” Nora stated, showing Lydia the form stating that she worked for The Minion Supervisor.

Lydia offered a questioning look. “O…K…”

“See, right now I work for Bob, but that’s only been for the last year and a half or so. Before that I worked directly for Laura and I really feel like they put me under Bob because they needed to have people for him to manage.” Nora pushed on with her rehearsed spiel. “Quite frankly, I really feel hampered by Bob. I don’t think he really knows what to do with me and I don’t feel he even knows what I do. I would really like to express a hope that when y’all come in that some restructuring will occur and I’d really like to be transferred to a different manager. I just feel like I’d able to work better under someone else.”

There. She’d said it. She couldn’t take it back and she really hoped it wouldn’t backfire.

“Well, O.K. I understand. I’ll definitely take that under consideration,” Lydia nodded and smiled reassuringly. “I know how hard it is to work under someone who doesn’t know what you’re doing.”

Nora breathed a sigh of relief and realized she’d been shaking from being so nervous. Everything would be O.K. and she hadn’t had to explain any more than that. She and The Minion Supervisor just didn’t get along and everything would be better once they were separated.

“O.K. Thanks,” Nora grinned, feeling that this would be resolved once and for all and she wouldn’t have to wait a millennium for The Outsourcing Company to come to their senses about The Minion Supervisor and his department- sabotaging ways. She waved at Lydia as she exited the conference room.

Oh, yes, everything would be fine soon.

Nora never even realized in her hurry to say what had to be said that she never sat down in Lydia’s office.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

Theraputic Breakthrough & NaNo

Well, I had a little breakthrough in group therapy tonight. I talked about how concerned I was about admitting my own personal mistakes that led to my firing and how I worried about disappointing my parents, particularly my mother. I admitted outloud what it was that I felt I had done that contributed to my firing. Mind you, none of those people are my parents, but just admitting it officially outloud was a relief.

One of the group leaders asked me how it felt to take ownership of my part in the events. While I’ve always said I wasn’t guilt-free, I’ve never accepted that my own personal actions helped lead to my own downfall. It’s a relief to admit this finally, to accept my responsibility in the direction of my life.

Of course, it still remains if I’m going to share my story with my parents and let them discover I wasn’t faultless. I guess since they always took the other person’s side in every disagreement growing up, I had expected them to do the same when I got fired, but they didn’t and I don’t want to lose that. For once, they were completely sympathetic and supportive if a bit pushy.

However, I’ve decided to write the story as I remember it without a purely innocent main character. After all, those things shaped my life and I want to believe I’ve learned my lessons from my experiences.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, therapy, writing

How Naked The NaNo Truth?

I’ve often joked about how I was a Computer Diva toward the end of my last job. Heck, I’d accepted that maybe my head was a little big there but I also felt I was somewhat justified.

Reading back through my old journal in those months prior to my “involuntary termination”, I have come to the conclusion that the condition was far worse than I imagined. It’s hard to see ourselves when we’re living in the middle of the bruhaha. Sometimes it’s hard to see ourselves clearly even looking back with 20/20 vision. Some of us never see ourselves the way others do or could.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I was a serious bitch, not just a diva or a prima donna. I suspect that I had coming some sort of fall. Someone needed to knock me down a few pegs or ten. I really did believe with all of my heart that I was better than everyone there in that office and by better I mean more talented, more logical, more intelligent, more sane. I really had my own brand of self-righteousness and snobbiness.

Why didn’t someone tell me I was being a bitch? Why didn’t any of my friends notice? I really wish one of them had smacked me good just once and made me see the light.

I hope and pray I’m not that person today. I don’t think I am, but I’m ashamed of the things I thought and wrote and said about my coworkers. Clearly, I needed a large helping of humble pie.

Ultimately, I can really only blame myself for who I became but I do wonder if becoming that person was a survival technique in that workplace. I mean, just because I recognize the flaws in myself at that time doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my beliefs that “The Minion Supervisor” was plotting to get me out of there or that The Queen was any less a control freak who operated in a logic all of her own or that most of the Interface team was lazy.

You know the saying that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you? Well, just because you’re a bitch doesn’t mean they aren’t bitches too.

Anyway, as part of this personal intraspection into my life before Maine in writing a semi-autobiographical NaNo, I’m faced with a quandry of sorts. How truthful am I going to be?

I have always maintained that I always tell the truth in my journals, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t left out personal bits and pieces that I didn’t want to share or was afraid to share. There is an element of the events that led to my “involuntary termination” that I don’t think I ever shared with my parents. It lends itself to making me look rather bad. I’ve kept it close and when I think about it, my chest hurts.

My mother is planning on reading my NaNo and to be honest I’m a little wary of sharing with her this one tidbit. While it’s not the reason I was “involuntarily terminated” itself, it was used against me. I was guilty as charged on this one account, though by the time of my “involuntary termination”, it was something they couldn’t accuse me of as far as being a current deal. I’m not sure I’m making myself clear…

Let’s just say that I did something that wasn’t professional and I was told to stop doing it, but I was told that I could do so during my lunch hour. Then they wrote me up for doing this thing on my lunch hour, so I stopped doing it at work all together…when they fired me, they couldn’t bring it up because I’d already been disciplined and had stopped the action. However, in the fight to keep me from getting unemployment benefits, they threatened to bring that up in court if I sued. I did get unemployment benefits and there was no court fun, but trust me, it scared the shit out of me. I just didn’t want my parents to know and be disappointed in me.

For some reason, the approval of my parents is extremely important to me even now at 34 years old. I know I’ve disappointed them in the past and I hate that. It really nags at me. None of my generation of Mallories have managed to not be big disappointments in some way or another. Admittedly, right now I have the status of the “good cousin” as I’m less messed up than the others for the moment.

So, how truthful should I be? I know the truth personally. I accept that it is one of the things that led to my downfall. It pains me that it happened. I want to use this NaNo story as a cathartic release of the negativity surrounding the whole experience, but I also don’t want to cause more negativity with my parents. I’m just not sure of the right thing to do here.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing, therapy

NaNo Quote of the Day: Haunted Formica

Quite frankly, that’s the sort of thing that one doesn’t get over – an invasion of privacy by haunted bathroom Formica.

Admittedly that’s the funniest thing I wrote today. I spent a whole chapter describing a house Nora didn’t buy during those six months before “The Firing”.

So, I’m at 17,726 words. I wrote 4,707 words today at the cafe. I’m 3,945 words behind where I should be. I wasted my day off cleaning on Friday. Then yesterday I went to the glass studio and worked on my pheonix and then wasted the rest of the day losing to my cheating computer in poker. I really need to get back to being serious.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

What NaNo Is Teaching Me About Me

Going back and rereading my old journal so as to refresh my mind about the events that occurred in that last year at the old job has been somewhat enlightening. Writing scenes and and a story around those events has allowed me to explore my feelings regarding those events and the person I was then as opposed to the person I am now.

It’s almost hard to believe that someone a month ago told me I sounded angry about the job loss and the move and I just don’t feel that way now. Maybe my mother was correct in her assessment that all I really needed to do was recognize that I was still angry to just let go.

I’m not saying that those events themselves don’t make me feel anger now, but I don’t think I’m carrying it on my back and shoulders and I don’t think the bitterness is so prominent.

I still wish that those things hadn’t happened the way they happened, but I now realize and accept that without them happening, I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am now and for the most part, I like where I am and who I am now. I have a better job, I make way more money, I’m appreciated, I’m validated, I have a better boss, I’m debt-free, I’m politically active, I’m news-aware, my migraines are better than then, and so on and so on.

Granted, there’s still plenty I need to work on — I need to lose weight and get healthy, I need to get my house clean and keep it that way, I need to make more friends and get over the whole social anxiety thing, among other things.

The truth is that I was miserable in my job but content to stay there because it required too much effort and too much upset in my life to change jobs and/or move somewhere else. The truth is that my circle of friends were ready to grow out of each other but were using each other a a crutch for not finding new friends and experiencing new things and I was no different from any of them. Though I felt the loss of their nearby-ness deeply, I would never have grown, never have tried stained glass art, probably never have tried NaNo, never gone to any NaNo write-ins, etc. I was ready to start being a grown up, but 10 years of hanging on to a high school-type crowd was holding me back, as my mother believes.

I believe that I am a better person now even with all of my flaws and baggage.

Plus, I have to admit after reading through parts of my old journal, I was extremely conceited. I don’t know how it’s possible to have an inferiority complex and be conceited, but I was. I truly believed I was better than anyone in my office, that I could do my job better than any of them could do theirs, that I truly was deserving of respect. I think my diva ego was just about ready for a fall.

These days, I catch myself every now and then, having some of those same thoughts about how frustrating it is to work with people who don’t know what they are doing when I think they should. I catch myself starting to feel a little uppity and snotty and I remember that I don’t like that side of myself. Yes, I know I’m good at what I do, I may still even be a programming genius, but if I learned anything from this whole job loss experience, there’s another programming genius out there who’s willing to do my job. I’m not irreplaceable and there are people out there who are smarter than me. I’m not “all that”.

And quite frankly, I don’t need to be anymore.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

NaNoExerpt: The Sound of Silence

Chapter Four:
The Sound of Silence

Like most normal people, Nora paid monthly fees to a gym but only visited it once or twice every few months, despite it being across the street from her apartment complex. She had to look at it every time she pulled her car out of the parking lot and every time, she would feel a twinge of guilt about how she really should be exercising; sometimes she would make false promises of going the next day. Every now and then, she would get a sudden attack of guilt for not exercising while or when she was suddenly desperate to hurry the weight loss along.

But the gym occasionally had self-improvement classes on random week nights and occasionally Nora found one she thought she should try for some reason or another. Every once in a while she’d actually get around to signing up for one.

Since aromatherapy wasn’t working out quite like she wanted, despite the $100 or so she’d spent on the supplies and the books, she was trying to find other alternative methods to help her migraines. She’d read somewhere that meditation could be stress-relieving enough that it could ease the pain in migraine sufferers. It sounded like just the thing for Nora.

She showed up on the appointed day with a small cushion as they’d sent a notice instructing her to bring one. They hadn’t indicated what they considered small or what it would be used for so she was already a little stressed about the whole pillow thing when she arrived. To add to her anxiety, the classroom was dim and there was a half-ring of chairs with strangers sitting in them. Worse, there was no one her age. Everyone appeared to be thirty to forty years older than the petite red-head. She appeared to have wandered into a senior citizens’ meat market disguised as education.

Resisting the urge to go home immediately, she forced herself to walk into the room. She managed to find a chair that had no one sitting on either side of it. That status would change as the time for the class got closer. Soon there were two people – two unknown people — invading her space. Nora’s space seemed to be wider than most people’s space. At least, it seemed like someone was always invading her space and she was more and more aware of it as time went on. Nora tightly clutched the pillow on her lap, trying to maintain a certain amount of distance between the two people who didn’t seem to mind accidentally bumping or touching.

Before long the instructor had arrived and the door to escape was closed. The instructor handed out copies of a print-out detailing some different types of meditation – breath and navel meditation, central channel meditation, microcosmic meditation and so on and so on. There was also an explanation about its religious connotations and how the class would not get into that subject but that the methods that evolved from the religious connection would be taught. Nora was fascinated by the religious connotation and was therefore disappointed by this.

“So, what I want everyone to do is sit cross-legged on the cushion you brought in front of your chair…or wherever you can find space,” the anorexic-looking older woman who was teaching the class instructed.
Everyone creaked and groaned as they shifted from their chairs to the semi-awkward sitting position the woman had described. A few minutes were taken up by people trying to find enough space to sit cross-legged without bumping knees. Actually, Nora was a little worried that a number of people wouldn’t be able to get up again. Really some of them looked too frail to have gotten into the building on their own. Thank goodness the class had been on the first floor of the building!

“Now what we’re going to do is press our tongues to our palates, close our mouths – don’t clench your teeth – and close your eyes,” the grey-haired woman continued.

Close your eyes! Nora could feel that tingling sensation in that area of her chest above her heart but slightly below her throat. Her throat reflexively tightened a little. Closing her eyes meant she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on the strangers in the room and she wouldn’t be able to check to see if she was doing this meditation thing right by watching the others. This was a bad thing.

“Now, just breathe naturally, through your nose. Draw the breath deep down into your abdomen, then exhale long and slow.”

Nora had taken about a year of Tae Kwon Do. They’d done some sort of chi meditation-type exercise at the beginning but she hadn’t been very good at it. She was never really sure what she was supposed to be feeling or doing…and she certainly hadn’t ever kept her eyes closed.

As she inhaled slowly, trying to draw it into her abdomen, which was illogical because the air really could only go as far as her lungs technically, she tried to focus on the whole just breathing part. She could feel the anxiety building in her chest. She slowly let the breath seep out of her nose, she wasn’t sure that she’d done it slow enough. It seemed that other people were just starting to exhale their breaths. Damn.

“Focus on the air flowing in…and out of your nostrils. Follow the breath out as far as you can. Feel it traveling into the room. Focus on your navel rising and falling.”

Well, which was it? Nora was a multitasker when it came to computers but she just couldn’t focus on both her navel and her nostrils at the same time. They were just too far apart from each other and she still didn’t seem to be breathing at the same slow pace as everyone else. How could people keep inhaling that long? How big were these people’s lungs? They seemed to have twice the air capacity as she did. Quite frankly, she was starting to feel like there just wasn’t enough air in her space or in the room or even in the building for all of these slow-inhaling people.

“Keep your posture straight, but relaxed. Let your mind just float in the nothingness. Don’t let it wander off and think about work or your kids or something that happened earlier in the day. Just float in the nothingness. Focus on the nothingness.”

Well, crap. Now she was thinking about work, about the outsourcing, about that stupid thing that Bob had done earlier. Idiot. He really was the bane of her existence. He seemed to live to frustrate her. No, she had to focus on the nothingness. What exactly was the nothingness? What did it look like in the mind? Was it all black or was that still something? How did one empty one’s mind?

The instructor pressed the button on a cassette recorder and instrumental music began to fill the room. It had a kind of cosmic feel but Nora didn’t recognize it. It seemed more synthesized than she cared for. “Now we’re just going to sit here and continue to float in the nothingness for about ten minutes or so. Just free your mind and let go of the negativity of the day and let the nothingness wash over you.”

Ten minutes. Ten minutes was an excruciatingly long time. Nora recalled her younger days when the minister or Sunday school teacher would instruct everyone to bow their heads for a moment of prayer. That moment seemed to drag on indefinitely. Nora didn’t think she was a bad Christian but she seemed to be able to communicate to God quite quickly – more quickly than everyone else. Or maybe she just felt like she didn’t need to tell him in flowery detail every little thing that had happened since the previous Sunday. She figured that since he was God, when she asked for forgiveness of her sins, he knew what they were and probably he remembered better than her. And so, she would sit there in the deafening silence of the Church and wonder what other people were thinking and then feel guilty that she wasn’t still praying. Maybe she needed to spend more time thanking God for the flowers and the trees and Summer and the gasoline in her car and the grilled cheese she was going to have for lunch.

Even with the cosmic meditation soundtrack, Nora felt that this silence was not just painful long but also deafening. The pounding in her chest seemed to be getting louder and more painful as each second crept by. She couldn’t help it. She opened her eyes enough to peak about the room at everyone sitting around on their throw pillows and breathing slowly. What were they thinking? How could they be that relaxed?

Nora tried to refocus on the nothingness but random thoughts kept popping into her mind. Did she want chicken and rice or a vegetarian burger for dinner? Maybe a baked potato with chili and melted cheese? Did she try adding an “IF” statement to that one stubborn line of code in that program? Maybe a flag was needed? Katherine really shouldn’t have had to ask for her help with that one program; how many years had Katherine been there? Oh, and that meeting that Bob had called to discuss the status of everyone’s projects – Michael had looked fairly annoyed since the responsibility of the Integration Team was his now and Bob had been instructed to let go of it. That had been pretty funny.

No! Focus on the nothing. Stay focused on the nothing. Do not think about work or Bob or dinner.

Those ten minutes felt like ten hours and Nora felt completely frazzled by the end of them. The rest of the thirty minute class went pretty much the same way and by the end Nora was in a full blown anxiety attack and could not wait to get out of that door and hurry back to the safety of her own air-conditioned home complete with purring kitties.

Nora never could bring herself back for the rest of the classes.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

NaNo Word Count Mysteries & Other Ramblings

So, I noticed more than one blog talking about word counts for their Nano. Apparently there’s a discrepency in how different software programs count words. I would have thought that counting words would be fairly straightforward, either it’s a word or it isn’t, right? (I guess this explains why machines have trouble counting election votes too…)

Anyway, what most people seem to be saying is that Microsoft Word inflates the word count about 30%. So I ran a little experiment this morning and here are my results:

Microsoft Word:	4,143 words
NaNo’s Counter:	4,151 words
NaNoWriMoProMe’s Counter:	4,213 words

So, I’ve decided to stick with NaNo’s counter; not only is it in the middle, I’m sure it’s closer to what they’ll be using for the final count. More

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

2 comments See also in My Life, Friends & Family, Writing, NaNoWriMo2005

NaNo: First Two Chapters Down — 3,147 Words Down

O.K. I broke the rules. At least I read on the forums that you shouldn’t revise, etc., but just keep pushing on, but I actually think I not only improved some things, I added words to the revise of yesterday’s work.

I admit to recycling most of a post I originally wrote in real life but I tried altering it here and there to give it Nora’s voice. I think I might relook at Chapter Two again tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to listen to Nora a bit more.

I guess I’m not too worried right at the moment because I know I’m going to those Sunday write-ins. I’ll bulk up the word count then.

Anyway, here’s the revised and completed Chapter One for your perusal…

Losing Nora: The Fall and Misadventures of a Computer Diva
Chapter OneSome days Nora felt that life would be so much better if she could just take a drill to her forehead and release the demons screaming and pushing and shoving to get out. Some days she couldn’t remember what life was like before the pulsating throb that swelled and ebbed like a tide of pain from within. Her brain felt as if it where swollen like one of those mutant aliens in Spaced Invaders and her head felt so tender that even barrettes tended to focus the pain like fingers on one of those lightening balls sold in Spencer’s. Some times it felt as if her brains were draining out of her ears and some times she wished it would. Some days it was all she could do to drag herself out of bed and face a world that was clearly going on despite her daily trials and in spite of whatever tribulations she might have had.A good day was one spent out of the Emergency Department.An endless supply of doctors and specialists had brought no answers and certainly she had found little relief from the endless supply of medications they handed out to her like candy. Now pain medications were practically nothing but sugar-free candy to her without the enjoyment of the NutraSweet aftertaste.None of this was a secret. Her friends, her family, her co-workers and her evil boss and her Minion Supervisor had all been informed of the daily hell Nora went through – well, some had been informed and some had simply experienced the uselessness of watching her deal with it; whether or not they believed in the migraine demons was their business. Certainly the only person who really needed to believe was Nora as she was the one who had to live with it and she had tried just about everything though she firmly drew the line at acupuncture.

Finally, it just became part of the routine – the continuous migraine, the endless doctor appointments, the fact that she was on the Rite Aid pharmacist’s Christmas card list. It was just another thing to survive every day like the temptation to have a burger and cheese fries from the cafeteria or having to attend a meeting run by The Minion Supervisor or just dealing with the drama of working with the insane people or brushing her teeth.
And to be honest, Nora honestly thought that was all there was to life and all there was ever going to be.

And even more honestly, Nora was afraid that was true and also that it wasn’t. How many times had she told those around her that nothing good ever came from change? Change just brought more insanity. Insanity led to more change, which led to more insanity.

And so it began one painfully sunny morning in The Minion Supervisor’s office…

To Nora, Bob looked a bit like a shiny, slimy evil Muppet, if Muppets could truly be evil. His mouth seemed too wide for his large, balding head and beady eyes peered out at the world behind black-rimmed glasses. He always wore a greasy smile that made Nora feel as if he were merely pretending to be inept all the while plotting the destruction of the world or at least of anyone who dared to challenge him with something so trivial as the truth. Oh, yes, he seemed to bop around the office and The Company with the naïve exuberance of an eager first-time manager but all the while, simmering beneath the surface was a true brownnosing bootlicker who would tell anyone anything to make them happy and truly believe that if he was constantly running from meeting to pointless meeting lugging a stack of unsorted computer printouts, then he would be considered to be a productive member of The Company and promoted. Nora suspected that he knew the true secret of success at The Company.

And quite frankly, not only did Nora not care for him one bit but she also felt that he seriously underestimated her and everyone beneath him on the totem pole, but mostly she felt that he didn’t know what to do with an intelligent female employee. Not to mention that he didn’t seem to have a clue what the people on his team actually did even when he hovered over them like an annoying gnat questioning every little thing and yet never quite comprehending.

She’d caught him more than once asking other people in the office questions about the software that only she knew the answers to and worse, brownnosers that they were, they’d answer and wrongly at that! In fact, if it weren’t for her, the whole place would probably collapse. It was quite a lot of pressure for a young woman to shoulder particularly with her poor health.

But there she was in Bob’s office with the sun refracting off of those horrible glass bricks everyone was fond of building walls with and the migraine was throbbing to a rhythm matching the anxious beat of her pounding heart. Though she knew deep down that she was irreplaceable, that the systems analysts didn’t call her The Programmer Queen for nothing, that she was the Scotty of the department, she still hated being called into The Minion Supervisor’s office or, worse, The Evil Director’s. It was just too much like being called into the principal’s office back in elementary school – nothing good ever came of it. Certainly no one ever called you into their office to secretly tell you what a great job you were doing. As it was, annual review time was pure agony for her despite never having received a bad review. The anxiety was just too imbedded in her to not overreact. Paranoid thoughts spiraled out of control, spinning out of any sort of regular pattern. She simply would not be able to concentrate on anything from the moment the reviews began until her own review was over and she was sure that she’d received excellent marks as well as the usual recommendation that she get sent to training that They never actually got around to sending her on year after year. Once she even got kudos just for donating a cheap toaster to the office kitchen.
To be called in a month before the annual review was enough to send Nora into a full scale panic attack with blood draining from her face, acid rising in her stomach, and heart pounding blood into her aching head.

He shut the door, cutting off her escape route, and joined her at the little table in his barren office.

“Well, I was working on the annual review paperwork, you know, and as you know, HR has us use this software that generates reports to help fill out the tedious parts. When I ran the report for you, I got an alert,” Bob was saying though to Nora he sounded like he was on the other end of a tunnel. She stared at him without responding. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that really. After a moment, he continued, “The alert is for absences – apparently you’ve had eight unscheduled PTOs. As you know, you’re only allowed to have three a year.”

Nora blinked. She was truly beginning to feel sick to her stomach. Of course, she knew she’d gone over the three unscheduled PTOs this year. This year had been the worst and some days she simply hadn’t been able to get out of bed and some days she hadn’t been able to face the insanity surrounding The Minion Supervisor and his pawns plus the migraine. She had assumed that since he knew of her medical condition and the fact that he never commented about the fourth or the fifth or the sixth absence that everything was all right. Perhaps that was naïve of the thirty year old, but then again, he was supposed to manage her, wasn’t he? He was supposed to warn her when she’d broken rules, wasn’t he? “Well, I’ve been sick” was really all she could say. What did he expect her to say? She couldn’t go back in time and not call in sick and instead sit at her desk longing to crawl under her desk and sleep with medicated help.

“Oh, I know! When I got the alert and saw the instructions that you needed to be terminated, I ran into Laura’s office and said, ‘Oh my God! They want me to fire Nora! What do I do?”

Nora blinked again. The throbbing was getting worse and somehow he seemed to be a little too jubilant about her impending termination for her comfort. “Oh, God! Oh, God!” she thought. “This can’t be happening!” All she could think about was how ruined and humiliated she’d be if she lost her job. How would she pay her bills? She was up to her kneecaps in debt. How would she face her parents, who had sent her to school and work when she was a teenage no matter how sick she was. She could remember only twice being too sick to go to school or work when she lived “at home” and one of those times she’d been sent home from school and told to stay until her fever was gone.

“But it turns out that I was supposed to give you a verbal warning at your fourth absence,” he explained setting a copy of the unscheduled absence policy in front of her to review. “And then, see, I was supposed to give you a written warning on your fifth. Then on your sixth, you should have gotten a letter of concern and on the seventh, you should have gotten a final warning so that at your eighth you would have to be terminated, but we haven’t given you any warning…I can’t be expected to keep track of your comings and goings, you know.”

Nora looked over the policy, toying with the edge of the paper. Mostly she was pretending to be studying it hard so she didn’t have to look at him. God how she hated him and she’d never actually hated anyone and he was ruining her life, punishing her because she was sick. She felt like throwing up right there on his desk on his unscheduled absence policy.

“So, what I’m going to do today is give you this written warning and have you sign it. I can’t not do that, but you know you’re a good team member and we wouldn’t want to lose you; so I did talk to Laura and she talked to HR and it turns out that chronic illnesses like migraines are now covered under the FMLA,” he informed her.

“The FMLA?” she queried.

“Family Medical Leave. I picked up the packet for you,” he told her with that weasely smile like he was doing her a big favor, not covering his ass from his own screw up. “You just need to fill it out, get your doctor to fill out the second part and get it back to HR as soon as possible and then everything should be all right.”

So there was hope, a loophole. Nora still felt the need to escape, to grab the packet and run for dear life. She wanted out of his bright little office with its closed door and candy leftover from the last Christmas season or the one before that even. She wanted to get the paperwork to her doctor and get it signed and get it to HR before anyone had a chance to think twice, before anyone changed their mind.

She glanced at the paperwork he’d put in front of her, including the written warning. A written warning put her on probation, which she didn’t like, but as he stared at her holding the pen in front of her, jerking it every few seconds as if to force her to take it, Nora didn’t know what else she could do. She didn’t think he’d let her out of that office without signing that dreadful paper that would put a horrible mark on her excellent record. No one would remember the years she campaigned for United Way or helped plan Christmas parties or donated a toaster, because when they looked in her file in Human Resources, they’d see this ugly mark. God, how she hated him.

Reluctantly, she took the pen from his chubby fingers and signed the written warning, feeling all the while that she was somehow sealing her fate, whatever it was, with that blue ink.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing