Digging Out

Hey faithful blog readers!

How are you today? Are you all prepared for Christmas? In one word, I am NOT. But that's a story for another day.

The big news is that we moved into our house. We're official. However, I keep walking around it, feeling tremendously blessed. I'm not sure how we ended up with a house like this and on moving day, I kept thinking someone was going to run up and tell us there'd been a huge mistake and we needed to pack up and ship out! Alas, no such thing has happened yet. But we are blessed to have this house.

Moving day brought us freezing rain and temps hovering around 32 degrees. The day after moving day, where we had to go finish up at the rental house, brought us an epic blizzard, into which my mom and I ventured to go buy Christmas lights. Priorities, people!

We're nearly unpacked and my poor hands are dry, cracked, and terrible. You can only wash your hands 29 times a day for so long and use harsh cleaning products before your hands just fall apart. We did a highly illegal dumpster run on Monday night, just to have a security truck chase us through the subdivision. Jack lost him, though, so we weren't arrested. What a stupid offense! Next time, we'll just wait for trash pick-up day (or drive a faster car on roads that aren't ice-covered!)

The other big news, work wise, is that I have my first grievance and EEOC charges. In my role, I have increasingly become the "ball buster" (pardon my french) and I am being asked to shake up departments that haven't had any discipline in 20 years. It takes about a year to fire someone, when you go through the proper steps of progressive corrective action. And I had my first two bad firings last week…one for a glaring violation and one for 3,920 little infractions that added up to a massive impact on a department. The EEOC charge will most likely be dropped. The grievance, well, I've already spent something like six hours documenting everything and I'm not done yet. But that's what happens when employees are left to their own devices for 20+ years and then you suddenly come in with rules and hold them to the rules…they file charges against you because they cannot handle accountability.

But me? I cannot handle complacency or low performing staff. If you're going to come to work with a crappy attitude and "forget" to do core facets of your work, well, you will be on your way out.

In short, this administrator gig is NOT easy. In fact, I'm exhausted and my stomach is producing way more acid than what is considered healthy. Or normal. Even for a goat that eats tin cans. Holiday preparations, employee recognition dinners, and other Christmas parties are happening all around me and I'm too busy to take much notice...it stinks. My wonderful co-workers threw me not one, but two parties (one at each campus) for my birthday. I had two of everything and they TP'd my office door. That corny stuff makes me feel loved and appreciated for my insane hours.

The other interesting thing that happened to me last night, as Nurse Jackie and I were dashing across the street from the physician office building to the hospital, a medical helicopter landed on the hospital with what we suspect was a highway trauma patient. I had my EEOC paperwork clutched tightly in my portfolio; good thing, because the landing helicopter threw us back on the pavement with the force in which it landed. Plus, it scattered trillions of microscopic snowflakes and burned our eyes while blowing my hair irreparably out of place. It was a moment from M*A*S*H* and I felt proud that I withstood the airy blast from a helicopter without actually falling out or scattering my confidential paperwork all over southern Chicago.

Whew!

So that's what's been going on here…still working crazy hours, firing people, and unpacking. I think I still love my life, but I will let you know for certain when I catch up on my sleep and can tell left from right!