A Rose By Any Other Name...

So I'm a little torn ... and kind of ticked off... about a couple of things and I thought it might help to blog it out. (hehe, OK saying "blog it out" makes me chuckle for some reason. Am I just weird that way?)

Ahem. Anyway.

I started writing a post and it felt like I was just ranting in an unproductive way. And I don't like that. So here's the gist of it...


I've basically been offered a title change. It's a title I'm quite familiar with. It's actually funny how it seems to follow me around: Assistant Director.

The title doesn't come with more money (which I kind of need and will hopefully get once I have license in hand- another source of ranting, don't get me started). The title might come with more responsibility, which would mostly be on paper (literally the classification in HR would change on paper)... but I mean, I've been doing the stuff already ..it would just be official. It would mean I would supervise people. It would probably carry some credibility with parents and maybe students. It might pave the way for some changes down the road.

But honestly the title seems to be quite overused around here. I'm not sure it means much to many people. Even though I'm already doing most of the stuff now...this would make it official and might create more administrative nonsense for me...which might take away from direct client care. And the supervisory responsibilities might be a bit much if I'm expected to keep my schedule the same.

So I'm not sure what to do. I need your thoughtful input. On the one hand...if not much changes, why wouldn't I take the title. I guess it looks pretty. On the other hand, is having additional responsibility worth it? Am I missing something? Am I just being weird and overthinking this whole thing?

Part of the complication is that I recently learned I kind of got screwed on my salary when I got here (thanks to one person who is no longer working here)...and that's what I'm trying not to rant about and y'all don't really need to know all the drama and sordid history. But yeah, I'm a bit bitter about that.

Thoughts??

I Could've Died! Part 2

When I wrote about my near-death experience earlier, I didn't mention that the facilities guys were actually working in my office BEFORE the thingy fell. Here's that drama...

The other day, I had noticed this yucky brown spot on my ceiling, right above the door. Yesterday morning when I came in, it appeared the spot had grown overnight. When I pushed on it with a pencil eraser, it seemed soft.

Uh oh. I prayed it wasn't some toilet upstairs leaking.

However, that prompted a work order and soon the plumbing guys showed up. They were actually working right next to the light cover that later nearly killed me. (My guess is that they had jarred the light just enough to loosen it?? Who knows. The thing fell hours later.)

My coworker is convinced that one of the plumbers has a crush on me. She told me that when the plumbers arrived, she felt she needed to leave the room to allow us "to flirt with each other." Apparently, unbeknownst to me, she proceeded to tell everyone else in the department about this. They were all abuzz about it later.

Anyway, once the light thing fell, the office manager et al., started saying that plumber guy was "too busy flirting" with me to do his job right. I think someone also said that he probably just wanted an excuse to come back. Some excuse.

Now I not only need to deal with PTSD, but also with endless teasing about the plumber's crush on me. Which will add to my trauma.

I Could've Died!!

See that gianormous grid thingy? That thing covers the fluorescent lights here in our offices. Note how big it is.

So why isn't it on the ceiling, serving its purpose, you ask?

Good question.

IT CAME CRASHING DOWN YESTERDAY, NEARLY SLAMMING INTO MY HEAD! I could've DIED! Or been very seriously lacerated!

I was sitting at my desk, just like I am now, just about to finish up some paperwork at the very end of the day. Seriously, it was about 5 minutes until we close up and people don't typically stay long after "quittin' time." So I'm working, I'm feelin' good, gettin' things done, when I hear this sort of quiet ka-chunk. I barely glance up before this thing is swooping down, barely hanging by a corner! It slams into my computer (sitting on my desk) and then suddenly it is not hanging onto the ceiling at all. Thank goodness for my lightning-quick reflexes. I am barely able to grab it with a finger or two so it doesn't fall onto my computer monitor. Cripes.

I go over to the health waiting area/front desk where our office manager is and tell her what happened so we could get a work order put in before she left... and she didn't believe me! (Why don't people ever believe me when these things happen?) So I lead her, an office assistant, and the 2 nurses back to my office to show them what happened and finally they a) believe me, b) exclaim and worry about my health and well-being, and c) assure me everything will be just fine. My student intern kindly pointed out that had I been hit in the head, I may have lain there unconscious and bleeding for who knows how long, since it was the end of the day and people were leaving. Thanks for that.

I think I have PTSD.

Freaky Friday

This is going to be very quick... it seems as though today is going to be one of those "interesting" days.

I finally finished one of the books I've been reading forever, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which was on my list. I will write more about that in an upcoming post, as well as unveil my further revised "Influential Books" list.

I've had a bit of housing drama this week. I'm hoping everything works out, but it looks like my closing date will most likely be pushed back a few days. It's not the end of the world, I know, but I really didn't want to push anything back. I mean, come on already! I want to live in my own house!! The most frustrating part is that this is out of my control and there isn't anything I can do to speed up the process. I just have to wait for the pieces to fall into place...and in the meantime, obsessively monitor those pieces so I at least know what's going on! Ugh!

Save the Drama for Your Mama!

I'm getting tired of drama. I've had quite a bit of it lately and I really don't need any more!

I woke up motivated and ready to work on my dissertation revisions. I turned on my laptop and waited... and waited... and waited. Things were running so slowly and the programs were non-responsive. I spent the next hour trying to remove unnecessary programs, update my virus software, scan for viruses and spyware, and figure out what was wrong! Grrr. Finally, I got things up and running...

Right now I'm taking a quick break from making dissertation revisions. These revisions fall into the "Tedious and Boring" category- things like APA style revisions and grammar corrections. My next set of revisions will be "Rearranging"- I think that category speaks for itself. Lastly (I hope), will be my "Additions" category, also known as, "Things I Stupidly Left Out." I'm really hoping all of these revisions go quickly because if they don't, there will be some drama. I don't want to rewrite my whole paper. I want to get it turned into the Grad School before I leave Colorado... messing with that stuff long distance is too much!

The house I was hoping to rent fell through. I found out yesterday afternoon. I most likely won't be able to get into a place until April 1st at this rate, though I'm not entirely homeless yet (thank you Gina & Jason!). So, without a place to live right away, I need to send the dogs to live with my parents for a while and I need to figure out how I'm moving all of my stuff. I would love to use one of those PODS units to move and store my stuff, but I'm afraid they're going to be very expensive (I'm checking prices later today). I could rent a truck or trailer and then rent a storage unit until I find a place to live, then figure out how to move everything from the storage unit into my new residence... Cripes. Too much drama.

One of the dogs decided to have a midnight snack last night. The culprit pulled my bread (about 1/4 loaf) off the counter top, ripped open the bag, and ate it all. There weren't even any crumbs left in the remnants of the bag. My diagnosis? Stress-induced nocturnal snacking.