The Trail (Part 1)

It feels like it's been forever since I last wrote here. I have been visiting your blogs on a half-assed basis, trying to stay current, even if not participating.

It's been a long couple of weeks riding the trail.

Not sure where that trail is going right now.

So, what's going on?

The stbx is going increasingly unstable. It is taking a lot of time and psychic effort to assist my kids and to stay fully anchored for their sake.

I have been headhunted for a job. The executive director of a high-tech industry association.

I got a disciplinary letter from work saying I was slack, shoddy, and disinterested (nonchalant) in my work (the quick summary of two pages).

One of the worst moments came when I went back to my office after the initial hour long meeting about the letter. I had just sat down and was trying to keep myself composed. The letter and the meeting had come right out of the blue - no expectation of it whatsoever. And my daughter called. Called to talk to me about her mother and the pressure and anxiousness daughter feels. Daughter is having trouble coping with her mother's instability and increasingly irrational behaviour and outlook on life. It took every bit of my being to not allow my voice to crack or to betray how I was feeling. To keep myself stable and calm and reassuring for daughter.

I am grieving the letter and the points it makes. I have challenged the way that my boss and the office manager have characterised the incidents they discuss in the letter. Resolution is currently bound up within the grievance process. I am making sure that I behave in a way that is unassailable.

One criticism is my arrival time. My office manager has hated my flex hours arrangement with my previous boss for the entire time I have worked there. She does not consider my flex hours reason (getting kids off to school in the morning) to be valid. She is angry and resentful that she had to do it all those years (she's in her late 50s) and still get to work at the appointed hour. She is angry that I am getting a "special privilege" because I'm a man. Even though flex hours is in our contract. She is mad because on of the other people (a woman) did not get granted flex hours when she requested it. The lady requesting it had as part of her specific job duties to open the office in the morning... at 8am. So the former boss said no to flex for her.

I would stay until later. But in the office manager's eyes, only the 8am start time counts.

So she revoked my flex and i was late a few more times - including for medical appointments - that's part of the grievance. No one else has been disciplined for coming in after 8am (arrivals go from 8 'til about 8:15am). Again, part of the grievance.

Also, they said I had missed/not completed a couple of pieces of work. I had handed them off to co-workers because I was working on a network problem. I have no direct supervisor right now, and had made my own judgments because my boss was unavailable.

Also, as we have re=formed in our new status as an office - all the roles have changed - and the job descriptions remain the same. I essentially have no list of duties right now. All but two of the things that they complained about are nowhere described in the contract or in any list of duties.

I should note that I am not perfect, and that they are within their rights and within reason to speak to me about the issues they did. They can ask for better performance (especially on the 8 am arrival time) - but part of that improved performance counts on them providing better direction.

They agreed that my counterpoints had validity and committed to doing better at providing guidance and direction. That they would actually give me a list of things they consider to be my duties. As I said in one of the meetings "I accept that i may have appeared to be wandering aimlessly - because I am. But that's because I have no idea of what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm just guessing. That's why I've wandered into each of your offices for sometime now, on at least a weekly basis and asked you what my role in our new structure is. Pieces of my old job have been moved around to other people - and I'm OK with that - but how can you give me shit when I don't even have a list of job duties? I'm not going to accept any formal discipline or formal complaint until I know, in writing, what I am responsible for."

They committed to giving me better direction, duties in writing, and a written list of priorities - as well as committing to being available when I need a decision made on conflicting priorities - and giving me written authority to make my own decision when they are (as they often are) unavailable.

The grievance process will be a long one - and will likely involve the revision of our collective agreement.

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The kids are shellshocked.

They have this terrible haunted look in their eyes.

I feel awful for them.

Daughter has begun discussing an endgame that would see her live full time with me. Son has been talking about moving out with his friends - I'm trying to assist him in thinking through that sort of a decision - which would be a bad one for him.

On a personal level - family level it's quite draining.

I will discuss some fo these details later.

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As mentioned I've been headhunted - not a perfect scenario, but one that would see me out of the current volatile work situation I'm in, and into another...

I'm going for an interview and thinking things through

more on that later.

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That's it for now

this post turned out to be longer than i had first thought

i am heading out with son to do a few errands

daughter is away in another city at an ethnic dance festival.