Apr. 29, 2003 ~ Changes
For those who have been praying and thinking good thoughts for Soldier Boy, thank you from the bottom of my heart. He's okay. Something happened last week which could have been quite serious, but he's fine. I can't help but think those prayers and good thoughts made a difference.
My coworker has been out of the country for several weeks, and I've been filling in for her, in her absence. She's scheduled to come home today! While I was grateful for the extra money and was glad to help her out, I'll be glad to go back to the old schedule, the old way of doing things. If that's possible. What she doesn't know, and what I just found out last night, is that our supervisor has stepped down and another person is taking over her position, effective yesterday. The new supervisor is someone we all know and like very much, but she lives near the home office, about two or three hours' drive from here, and I can't imagine that it would be easy to do her job from such a distance. This is bound to be temporary.
I've been working for this company about two and a half years, and it's an unusual job. It's almost like being self-employed. They give me my assignments and I do them. I call if there are problems (coupla times a year, maybe), and I usually see my boss no more than four times a year, max. Two of those times are for my evaluation; the other two might be training. My former supervisor is the person who trained me and has been the only boss I've had... same situation for my coworker who's been absent. Because we are all so far from the home office, my boss (and those of us in this area) had a more laid-back approach to doing things than most of the other higher-ups. So I don't know... about all these changes. I knew exactly what to expect in the past. Now I don't. Such is life, right? Roll with the punches?
A few months back my husband also wound up with a new boss. Husband had these same feelings of uncertainty.
"It might be even better," I told him then. He was skeptical. It has not been better.
Last night, he said, "It might be even better."
My words came back to haunt me.
Recent happenings at the farm -- Sugar seems to have killed our meanest, nastiest possum, whether she meant to or not. We found it dead in her stall. Probably stepped on, or stomped. I found it hard to be sad at his demise.
Our neighbor's cow had twins. One of the calves wasn't doing so well, so they decided to bring him back to the house and bottle feed him. They loaded him up in the pickup... he lay on the floor, held firmly while Mrs. Neighbor drove. They stopped at our place to borrow a bottle, then headed home. He's doing great. Whew. Mrs. Neighbor invited me to come visit him, and I'll take her up on that. It's fun to bottle feed calves, as long as you don't have to do it all the time. Kind of like being a grandparent, maybe. You get the joy of seeing the little ones and the joy of walking away, letting someone else do most of the work.
Yesterday our cows managed to sneak into one of the hay barns, and got kind of stuck. The gate had swung shut behind them, and they thought they couldn't get out. Really, they only had to push against the gate and it would have opened, but they didn't know that. I was on the way to my truck and was leaving for an early-morning meeting, but heard them mooing. They sounded like they were in the barn, but could have just been on the other side of the barn. I called them, and they didn't come to me. So, dressed in my girly clothes, I walked to the barn. Boy, did they look embarrassed. Such babies. I opened the gate and they all quickly ran out. Husband later said they'd torn up five big bales of hay. Silly animals.
Our most recent bank statement just wouldn't balance, and I couldn't figure it out, until I looked at the checks for about the tenth time, and realized that one check for $150 had actually been keyed in at $450. Oops. Not a good thing, having an extra three hundred dollars missing from our account. But this is a small town, and many of the bank employees... from the president to those who work in bookkeeping... are my friends. So it's not like I can throw a hissy fit. As if I would! I did let them know the situation, and checked to see if we had any hot checks (we didn't). They apologized profusely. That's it. All done. Would it be different in the big city? I suspect I would be more upset. But knowing these folks so well, I see them in human terms, and everyone makes mistakes.
I have tons to do today, and have been up and at it for a couple of hours already. Better keep going.
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