Embarrassing moment at work
The other day I had one of my most embarrassing moments at work.
I was in a meeting. It had been called by a man we'll call John Doe. He's from Africa, and is an engineer. When, at the end of the meeting, we began writing up action items, I kept referring to John as Tom (also not his real name). Tom Deer is another African engineer who works in another building, but who I deal with semi-regularly as well.
When I realize what I was doing, I stupidly said "Why do I keep calling you Tom?"
I said that because I really didn't know why. Then someone else in the meeting said "You are calling him Tom because of Tom Deer."
Well, needless to say, it was quite embarrassing. It wasn't true, at least not consciously. I apologized and fortunately, haven't seen John since. Two black African engineers. I can't tell them apart? Except I can. It was just like when you call one of your kids by the other child's name. It just happens. The child is usually in trouble so you don't have to worry about it.
Sigh.
Is it the first stages of my mental decline? The voices in my head say that's ridiculous.
Bureaucracy Exposed!
This is something that bugged me the last time Morgan changed schools. You get a sheaf of forms from the new school, in which you need to enter all kinds of information. Name, who does the child live with, address (so far so good), phone numbers, emergency contacts, alternate people to contact if they can't contact me or Ash (that would be nobody, btw, how pathetic are we! More on that further down, though).
"Why are you bugged by this?," you ask. "It's all good information for a school to have."
You are correct, and thanks for asking!
It bugs me because every school he's ever been to has exactly the same information. His kindergarden school has it. When we moved him to a new school, they asked the exact same question (sometimes on the exact same form! More on that later.) When he hit first grade, same questions. When they moved him this time, same questions.
Why not just have a group of standard school district forms and send them on to a new school? The information hasn't changed. If it had, they could just ask before they forward the information. "Excuse me Mr. Shaffer, has any of the personal information we have on your family changed?"
"No."
"Right, then we'll just forward copies of it to the new school."
"Great! Thanks!"
Nope. Well, we know its the same information, but we just need you to fill it out all over again.
"Why?"
"If you could just fill it out."
"Sigh."
Hmm. What else? Oh yeah, we have no backup person in case the school can't call me or Ash. Well, all our friends are in New Hampshire or Maine. All our family is in New Hampshire, Maine, Houston or San Antonio, so who are you going to call? Why don't we have friends here? Because we can't get out! We have a son with autism and we can't get a babysitter for him to have a nice night out and meet people! Shut up!
Anyway, that was a concrete example of bureaucracy and why I hate it.
Amazing!
Amazing!
Today the most awesome thing happened. My son slept in until I woke him up.
In fact, he didn't even get up until after I went into his room to wake him. Normally, now that he's on his new medication he will get up early. I mean really unbelievably early. I'm already getting up earlier to get him off to his new school, since the bus comes at 6:45 a.m. instead of 7:35 a.m. This is the first time in a couple of weeks that he wasn't already up and making noise at 4:00 to 4:30 in the morning.
Let me tell you something. I don't want to get up that early. Hell, I don't want to get up at 5:15 in the morning if my alarm is going off at 5:30. Those 15 minutes are like golden drops of honey to me. I want to sleep for those 15 minutes, dammit! But, my son has other plans. He's up. He wants to get going and start his day!
So, I drag my ass out of bed and tell him that he can stay out in the living room if he's quiet. But, if he makes too much noise, he's going back to bed. That usually works, but depending on how soon it is before I have to get up, I will either stay awake or fall back to sleep.
But, like I said. Not today! I woke to the alarm and no sign of Morgan. These are the days I go in to check if he's still alive. Yep, he was. Still breathing, and rolling around on his bed like he does sometimes. He eventually got up and we started his day. After I got him on the bus, I took out the garbage and went back upstairs for a cup of coffee.
I woke up in my chair at 9:00 a.m., two hours later, feeling somewhat refreshed but an hour late for work already.