Ravings of a Corporate Mommy

To Do

Have I mentioned lately that I am in a turf war at work? I have? Can I mention is again? (Insert Silent Scream Here)

Corporate turf wars are very insanity-inducing complicated events. No rules. Intricate positioning. Highly frustrating.

It would be so nice and straightforward if (And I am only somewhat joking) someone would slap paintball targets on us and let the games begin.

Because I can take 'em on an even playing field. No, seriously. I am an evil bad witchy woman, let's draw paint guns at dawn. I'll take you down. Maybe you'll take me down, too - but then we'll both go down together.

And, as my cat as witness, I will be vindicated!

There are now two (yes, a-one and a-two) guys who think they are actually the ones in charge of my program. And the execs were going to have a meeting to decide the fate of us all and... and .. they invited the two guys but not me.

Dagdoubledangit and a bunch of cuss words in 3 other languages.

I managed to find out about it and diffuse the situation a bit and ultimately they all decided to cancel the meeting for now.

But it was a harbinger. A Groundhog in a corporate shadow. An omen.

I let things slip too much this fall while CD and I were waging our own battles. Did the minimum my job requires. And nature and corporations hate a vacuum. So now I need to earn back the job that was already mine to lose.

I am so angry with mysef I could kick something. But the last time I did that, I broke a toe.

This weekend, I need to get more than engaged. I need to kick butt and take names. I need to soak myself so deeply in what is going on that I have no blind spots left.

Yes, I screwed up, up, up. The Titanic is looking like a failed math quiz compared to the politics of my program right now. .

So here's my To-Do list for the 3-day weekend:

1) Work out
2) Manicure
3) Grocery Shopping
4) Hair cut
5) Mail Christmas Thank-you notes
6) Sledding with Bear
7) Finish 3rd chapter of my book
8) See new Dennis Quaid movie
9) Complete Snapfish Orders and Christmas Movie
10) Build fool-proof brilliant evil plan to reclaim my rightful spot as undisputed benevolent and all-powerful Queen and Empress at the top of my own personal molehill. (Memo to self: see if Wile E. Coyote is available for consultation).

GMAIL

GMail just bestowed me with 10 new invites. If you want a free GMAIL account, let me know.

Lucky

I recently followed a link from another blog to a little girl named Savannah [warning: midi music on page!].

Savannah is sick with a chronic and life-threatening disease. She is lovely, with curly brown hair and a gorgeous smile. And she is facing a transplant that the doctors hope will help her.

Her smile has been haunting me.

This morning, Bear packed up (as he will) all his favorite bed stuff (including the stuffed animal) and travelled across the hall and into bed between CD and I. He does this almost every morning.

We all talked softly for a bit and then CD headed off to take a shower. Bear snuggled closer to me and stroked my face.

Mommy, you're beautiful, he said.

I kissed his forehead and counted the freckles on his face. I found 12.

He squirmed and decided to share my pillow with me. Because of the bazillion pillows on our bed, clearly I had the primo one.

I tickled him and he giggled.

And then I started to cry.

What's wrong? Bear asked.

Nothing, honey.

Then why are you crying?

How to you tell your son that you're crying because he's a living miracle and you know just how blessed you are to have his small, healthy body next to yours? That his big heart is an inspiration to your life?

I told him that it was happy tears, because we are so lucky to be a family.

And then I told him to go brush his teeth.

How To

I was born under a rock.

I have no other explanation for how I ended up, at nineteen years old, living on my own without any of the most basic skills.

My first month in that first apartment, I washed my car with undiluted Spic and Span. Just poured the granules onto the car one sunny day, sprayed the hose and went to town.

The cop who pulled me over the next week had to ask.

Miss, what did you DO to your car?

I told him. I said I washed it with Spic and Span and now it was fugly and I didn't know why.

To this day I think he gave me that speeding ticket partly on account of my being so stupid.

Other people, they are a story of great romance or high mystery in their walk through life. They are self-help relevations. They marvel at the world as though it was a travel book full of big glossy pictures.

Me?

Yeah, I'm the 'How-To' experience. White paper, black ink, and some 3D sketches.

My very competant parents tried, Heaven help them. You clean the gutters every fall. You break an egg like this. You write thank-you notes immediately.

But somehow, none of it stuck to my brain. The words went in, bounced around, and then fell out my ears while I slept.

So there I was, on my own. And I had no idea how to check the oil in the car, how to balance my checkbook or create a budget, had no clue from pilot lights in the stove and couldn't properly shave my legs.

A day didn't go by that I wasn't either bleeding, broke, hungry or scrambling to find a ride to work.

This went on and on. Until I realized, Hey this is life.

As soon as I learn one thing, shit if there isn't always going to be another to learn right behind it. And knowing me, the hard way.

I was thinking about that today when I got a call from one of the junior folks.

My vendor had a meeting with my customer. Without me. She confessed. What do I do?

This was bad.

As a project manager, you are the Contractor on the job site. You represent all the work and all the vendors to your customer seemlessly. If the Roofing guy talks to your customer and tries to cut you out, that is a violation of the entire process. It's also a breach of contract.

And Junior was counting on me to tell her how to deal with it.

So I did. I walked her through it.

How do you know how to deal with this? She asked me.

I could have said, it's standard Project Manager process. Which it is, but of course I didn't learn it that way.

I learned because I once took a flamethrower to a vendor over a 50 million dollar contract. And once I had pretty much burned down the house, the yard, the block, the car, the vendor, and oh - myself.... along came a guy, probably dressed in black.

He leaned over my steaming self and said, calmly, You know Maverick, we got lawyers for this.

Junior laughed. They say there isn't much you don't know how to do.

I thought about the Engine light on mini-van, my "Universal" remote control, the so-called instructions to my son's Lego Pirate Ship, the dozens of burnt Christmas cookies I threw away this year, my unused wireless laptop, my unsubmitted travel expenses, and the 72 inches of paper that represents my retirement plan.

They, I told Junior firmly, would be wrong.

More Shark Bait

Ben Browder once said in an interview that it was great when a shark warning came where he was living in Australia - it meant that half the surfers would clear out and there were more waves for him and his fellow hard-core buddies to enjoy.

So I guess it's all in how you look at things.

Last summer, I made a mis-step and now a certain VP doesn't take my calls so readily any more.

And of course he is the exact person I need to decide what happens now.

Had several phone calls in the last hours, pushing me to take my recommendation to this VP.

So I better decide what my recommendation IS.

There is no right answer. I have skin in the game, which means that if I say "Keep the program going and just re-set the timeline to take into consideration all the changes" then of course I look like I am out to keep my empire and I better, better, BETTER be rock-sure I can pull it off.

If I say anything else, I look disengenious at best and weak at worst.

And the sharks are circling, ready for me to open my mouth so that they can start making the opposite recommendation.

No. Big. Deal.

Fins to the Right, Fins to the Left

I'm in a shark tank at work. There are several factions wanting control of the program I am running.

So. There are guys who hijack my meetings, run parallel sub-projects, forget to copy me on reports, announce things in the middle of my status meetings that leave me breathless.

I am under seige.

I am playing triple-A ball now, this isn't Cape Cod league.

And if I ever want to make The Show, I need to put even more into this. I need to pull on my plastic fin and my grey swimsuit and pretend I belong. Swim harder, smarter, longer.

Except?

I'm not sure I want to.

Quod erat demonstrandum

That which was to be proved...

*ahem*

Is this thing on? Testing... testing... 1. 2. 3.

OK, for the record. ...

These are Days

SO Bear has decided he doesn't need naps any more.

Except, he does. Which is how we ended up at the grocery store this evening with a wired up 4-year-old bouncing in the cart in the exact manner it says not to do. Right there, in the pictograms.

We barely made it to the check-out lane with our sanity intact.

Note: Every Friday we get an "allowance". We take out the money we will need for the week: Babysitter, Groceries, Take-Out, Gas for the car, like that. When the cash is gone, it better be next Friday.

So CD asks me, casually, as they are ringing up the magilla-billion items from our cart, grabbed in haste while keeping our overtired son from committing 4 kinds of federal mayhem. He asks me, as we read on the rags facing us that Jen and Brad are Together! Breaking Up!, How much money do we have for groceries.

And I freeze.

I have no flipping clue.

And as I start to pull out my wallet to see how much money we have, and I look over and realize that the cashier in the next lane is the boy next door. Literally, our neighbor's son. Who has been forced by his mother to babysit for us on occasion and I think that's why he growls and runs when he sees us.

And in my head, I picture it: I don't have enough money, CD's left the cash card at home, we're torn between charging groceries on the credit card or having the manager come over and approve a void. The line behind us grows restless. And there, the boy from next door, watching us.

All this. Because I have a mind that Stephen King would envy, y'all.

Just an average day at the grocery store... but NO, now they are "THE NEIGHBORHOOD OUTCASTS".

The total came to $120. I had that and money to spare. Of course I did, silly. We do this every week.

Gotta dial back on the Tylenol or something.

I made sure we waved to the neighbor boy as we were leaving. Us, lovely family. Who had PLENTY of money. And who's son is not the one yelling C0ck-c0ck-c0ck-c0ck-a-DOODIE! as we head for the exit.

How to charm me

So, being the people we are - we did the math. How much we can afford to pay for a car without having to do the Bad Thing.

You know, the Bad Thing. Incure a Car Payment.

So we set ourselves a budget. Looked at the cost of keeping the Piece of Sh*t car on the road. Talked about priorities. And then, because he had to take the morning off, CD hit the web. Edmunds. Carmax. Like that.

10 minutes later, he instant messages me.

With a link to a used Jag.

In our price range.

Ha! I scoffed (Scoffed!). What about...? I shouted to him, 3 rooms away. Repairs. Upkeep. Insurance!

He ambles to my office, leans against my desk.

Honey, face it. It's in our budget.

We can't have a Jag in Pleasantville, I demur.

He raises an eyebrow. (Damn, I wish I could do that.)

We'll get a Honda, I suggest. Safe. Reliable. Gas efficient, I remind my husband, the Environmentalist. Friendly to the environment. If only there was a used hybrid in our price range....

He shrugs. Look, the Jag is in our price range. It's a second car, you've always wanted one, and we can afford it.

I sit, stunned. I sit, charmed. A puddle of charmed. He winks at me. I smile. It occurs to me, that this is the first time in the longest time that he has pushed one of my fantasies, one of my never-will-happen dreams. The silly things. The things that you mention, looking in the window without ever really thinking they will come true.

It feels warm and good.

I wink back.