Author: Bobbie

So You’re Going to Get a Lawyer

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It’s happened.  Something has happened that makes your current situation untenable and you need advice or action from an attorney. Congratulations in making this important decision! Now don’t screw it up.

As previously indicated, I’ve just spent the last (temporal period) in the murk of family court, and learned a few things about how to select an attorney, how to work with an attorney, and how NOT to work with an attorney. NB: This advice is built out of my own personal observation and experience, so it’s entirely possible you may find exceptions to the rule.

 

Step 1: Find a Lawyer

This is so easy, right? There are tons of attorneys in the phone book; just pick one, right? Wrong. Things you need to look for in your attorney: 

  1. They should either have been in practice for ten years, or be working directly with/for someone who has. This is because the first five years of post-law-school is spent in the fog of “Holy Crap I Need To Remember All This Stuff” and it takes some getting used to. Doctors have residency, attorneys do not (formally). You do not want a newb.
  2. They should specialize in the field you need. This does not mean they do this sort of law and that sort of law and some other sort of law. If your attorney says they do tax law, family law, disability law and criminal law, for example, this is not a good sign. For one thing, it’s nearly impossible to keep up on all the legal precedents that change in those fields, and some of those fields operate so wildly different from one another they would serve you WORSE if the attorney switches methods. Case in point: in criminal law, if you have a warrant to search a house and the address is one digit off, or the name of the street is misspelled, or the name of the recipient is misspelled, it can be (usually is) grounds for dismissal. In criminal law, the exception drives the decision. In family law, the court looks down on attempts to draw exceptions based on a misspelling or single unchecked box.  The practical upshot is you wouldn’t go to a cardiologist for your brain tumor, and you wouldn’t go to someone who says they’re a cardiologist and oncologist and gastroenterologist for anything because there’s no way they’re an expert in all three. And the rules of the game are interpreted differently.
  3. They should be honest. I know, right? Honest attorney? Like any other public practice there is likely a certain finessing of some truths, or dramatic characterizations, to prove a point. Fine. But if your attorney lies in big, easy-to-detect ways (e.g., “I’ve been in practice 30 years!” when they were admitted to the bar in 1991), it’s not a good sign – because they will lie as easily to you as they will to the court (or others).
  4. They should have a publicly available reference. Use sites like Avvo or Justia to see what former clients have said – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Avvo has a ratings systems for attorneys provided by clients, along with reviews and testimonials. (Full disclosure – Avvo was built by expats of Expedia, the company I work for as of this writing).
  5. They should be able to give you full alternatives. That is to say, there is no guaranteed legal outcome, ever. A good attorney will have a game plan going in, and you will know what it is. The discussion goes like this: If they do X, we will do Y, because of this and that reason. If they do A, we will do B, because of this and that reason, etc. Remember, it’s your dime: you are paying them for professional services, to advise you, and a good advisor is always aware of alternatives and should have contingent plans.
  6. Speaking of dimes, they should be able to tell you how to minimize your fees. For example, in my case, I racked up some fees early on in the process by sending an email for every little question I had; instead of saving it for a fifteen-minute phone call (despite warnings from my attorney, who in her defense tried to train me out of this habit). The time it takes to read the email, formulate the response, and send the response (to multiple missives) is typically longer than you can get the same information via phone. A good attorney will point this out to you.

 

Step 2: Get ready for some discomfort.

Once you’ve got your attorney, there are some things you should know and understand about the process:

  1. Attorneys are expensive. Rates vary from $200/hour to $500/hour (or more)– and typically the more experienced your attorney, the higher the rate.  Here’s some basic math: let’s say you hire an attorney to help you go to mediation. S/he sends 2 or 3 letters, preps for mediation, goes with you to mediation, and then does the clean up. That would run you about $7-10k, not including the mediator fee (which is usually attorney rates as well). Take a long look at you bank account, your savings, etc. and be prepared for some nasty drains.
  2. Justice is swift… but only sometimes. There will be periods of frenetic activity (filing motions, entering pleadings, etc.) and periods of waiting. It’s hard to tell which is more frustrating – the weekends spent digging up financial data for the last 3 years (I held the process akin to a colonoscopy in terms of preparation and comfort), or the seemingly interminable waiting on SOMEONE to do SOMETHING – a court-appointed evaluator, the other side to make a move, your side to make a move, the court date or mediation date or settlement date to arrive. You’re juggling the calendars of the court, your attorney, their attorney, and any experts called in. In my case it was complicated by a school year. So don’t expect this to be “I hired an attorney this will all be sorted in a few weeks”.
  3. The best way to not go to court is to be prepared for court. In my case, we were two civil parties trying to reach an agreement outside of court, but in order to do that, we had to follow the court schedule. In a family law case, before your actual court date – mine moved 3 times, the last one was the 14th of January – there are a series of “assignment due” phases, as doled out the court. There’s the list of witnesses. Then a little bit later you have to supply your first (1st) batch if interrogatories and requests for production (basically, here’s everything we’re going to look into in the court case and you have to answer it like you’re sitting in front of the judge). Then, you usually have to supply YOUR answers to THEIR “rogs”. Then there’s the inevitable follow up (hey, this is missing, or hey, what’s that). Then there can be depositions (mine didn’t make it that far) and/or a second round of rogs. Then there’s all the paperwork and letters and facts and case stuff you hand to the judge BEFORE the actual trial – so all the Perry Mason-like things you expect your attorney to say, quote, or reference have, in essence, already been forwarded to the judge ahead of time.  Keep in mind every one of these steps comes with a price tag – yours and your attorney’s (for you spend a not inconsiderable amount of time getting ready for these steps), and theirs and their attorney’s.  Each of these steps though gives you a bit more information to work with, and the price tag (and time, and information) can help drive parties to WANT to settle, as you get a very good idea of what all would be covered in a trial.
  4. Speaking of “you answer their rogs”, the notion that you have any sort of privacy should go out the window. Like, now. In the course of this process I got a very basic set of “rogs”, probably boilerplate, adjusted just a bit to suit the circumstance. I think it was 20-something pages. I’ve seen rog requests top 50 pages, 110 questions, and 25 requests for production. There are no sacred cows – in mine, I had to answer about my health and health history and every possible thing about my finances you could conceive (really—including did I have offshore bank accounts, a trust fund, etc.). In others, you can be asked about your alcohol consumption, any felonies/misdemeanors, if you are or have ever been in counseling, what you “feel” about the situation, etc. Therefore, as of present, my embarrassing purchased coffee habit is not only known to the world through foursquare, it’s also known through the courts system.
  5. Do not ever bluff, and do not let your attorney tell you it’s okay to bluff. If you indicate you are going to do something, do it. If you say you’re going to bring a motion for example, do it. Saying you are going to do something and then not doing it pretty much undermines your whole position and renders any prospect of being taken seriously in jeopardy.  Corollary: do not assume anyone else is bluffing, either.
  6. Your faith, and trust, in your fellow man will be tested. You’ll be tempted to “just talk” to the other party, surely if you just used the right words to explain yourself, THEN they’ll understand, because it’s just not possible that you can both be so far off, right? Surely it’s all just a big misunderstanding? That may be: but any discussions you have will likely get twisted horrifically and thrown back at you, probably in a court document, and it will sting like the bejeezus. Save discussions and attempts to explain for after, for your attorneys, or for mediation.

 

Step 3: Try to enjoy the process.

I’m serious. Try to, at least if for no other purpose than to recognize you never, ever want to be in this position again, and you’re paying a lot for the privilege. Try to look at the process as a learning experience, watch how it works, and so forth. It helps take some sting out of the fact that you are spending a lot of money and time.

 

One final note: as I sent out the news to family and friends who had been asking near daily how it was going, I was asked a lot if I “won”. You don’t win in a family legal battle, any more than you win at a family argument. Damage is done, beyond finances, that is fixable but the scars remain permanently. In this case, it’s damaged trust. I didn’t “win”. I did however manage to get written down, and ordered by the court, the things I found important. That is defined, then, as a “good outcome”.

 

Moving On

Bobbie3 Comments

It goes to show that it’s been a while since I’ve blogged that the entire user interface of WordPress has changed since I last visited. Apparently I’ve been gone for a couple of months, courtesy of the legal quagmire I was in.

Now, to address the usual questions, NO I hadn’t done anything illegal and NO it wasn’t anything that impacted anyone else but my immediate family — such is civil law. But the entire affair — which could be measured at 15.5 months or 19.5 months or slightly over 3 years, depending on whose ruler you use and how petty you are — was exhausting. My ability to blog and post was limited to the most vanilla of subjects, as the process proved when you are in civil court the “other side” (or, more likely, their attorney) will write and say and twist things truly ridiculous given any length of rope.

I therefore had visions of scenarios like: “Bobbie posts about how stressful her job is, therefore she spends too much time working, therefore she is an unfit mother”. Or, “Bobbie posted about her recent dental appointment, where her dentist suggested teeth whitening, therefore she drinks too much coffee, therefore she is an unfit mother”. Like it or not, I was able to successfully (?) imagine in some weird six-degrees mental exercise all roads leading to the “other team’s” desired output, namely their contention that I am/was All Things Evil, Ever.

Now that that is finished, I’m free to post about whatever. Which, I am happy to say, I’ve actually given some thought.

My mother-in-law-to-be recently spent time with me in my kitchen and was extolling the virtues of a gardening blog she happened upon. When asked why I blog, I deferred to my older blog (which was divorce, and then dating, therapy), and then the current one (which before the Event was about physical triumph over a traitorous body and mental exercise over that which occupied me at work). The only consistent running theme has been “this is something that is occupying a percentage of my brain space”, but there was no consistency in the volume of the space it occupied or the genre of space. Nor, I must say, is it terribly useful (per se) to read. It’s more of a voyeuristic window in the frenetic ramblings of a mid-30’s (or, nearly 40) single mom with an interesting (to her) career and an inability to finally decide, once and for all, if she should get chickens.

Going forward, this blog will have three aspects: initially, I’m going to brain dump about all of my learnings of Court. It was a fascinating process, from beginning to end, and I certainly got my money’s worth (which, at best guess, is somewhere in the mid-priced luxury vehicle range). There will likely be a spike in Economics posts as I pursue my degree. There will be the occasional work vent, and possibly a vent or two in the parenting line, as my son is at the interesting and challenging age where I spend a lot of time playing chauffeuse, financier, and guidance counselor. You are hereby put on notice. With that, we begin again… seven years after we started the first time.

Welcome, again.

Miscellany

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NB: I don’t use the word “random” in the title because it’s often misused. I find people use “random” to indicate what I would call “miscellany”. Anyone interested in the semantics can look up the differences in the OED.

The very best corn maze in the state of Washington is in Snohomish, WA. The place is unassumingly called “The Farm”, and if you are headed north up the 9 take the Snohomish exit right past the bridge over the river, turn left off the exit and drive about 4 miles. You can’t miss it. It’s a giant corn maze.

In the shape of Washington State.

And the maze is made of accurate highways — all marked… including country roads, also accurate, also marked. Cities and interests (Grand Coulee Dam, The Space Needle) are all marked with actual edifices and both “Quick Facts” and a longer set of paragraphs about the history of the part of Washington you are in. It was incredibly fun and I totally recommend it. I may force the Male Person into going some weekend.

Our group got lost trying to find Vantage.

You see, the maze was so accurate it included Road Closures. The 90 was closed in a part of it, as were two other major highways (mercifully not the 5, because we had to hightail it down from Everett to Olympia). And we spent our life driving walking around in a hellhole trying to find Vantage, between the broken bits of the 90 and highway 97. I think I actually want to drive out to the REAL Vantage, WA in order to make myself at peace with the experience.

During the field trip I had the joy of watching 3 boys (one of them my son). I have a friend who now has three boys, I really have no idea how she will keep her sanity. That is all.

In other (see? not random, ‘cuz we’re still talking about me, but miscellaneous, because this is a complete non-sequitir) school is both more and less than I thought it was. Believe it or not, listening to the Freakonomics podcast weekly and reading the Economist will still leave you with some knowledge bits lacking and so you actually do have to read your course materials and respond to the class discussion items. Fortunately, I seem to be able to do so. I psych myself out before every “problem set” that is due, and I leave each one going “Oh. That’s all right, then.”

Finally (again, miscellany, not randomness) I have not at all determined what I want to be for Halloween. Now accepting suggestions. In the past (recent) years, I have been: Elphaba, a Catrina doll (bride), a dominatrix, a Knight, Zorro, Alice in Wonderland (complete with blonde wig), and (when pregnant) someone with an Alien chestburster (a little lower, thanks to the BoyChild). Oh, and a Vampiress and I think there was a witch in there somewhere.  Rules: no massive face paint (Elphaba was impossible to clean — myself and then the items I cleaned with). Must be work-appropriate. Points for creativity.

And if you are saying, “But you promised us legal poo!!!”, well, I’m sorry, but that’s still (STILL) going on, and looks to be through the end of the year. Maybe you’ll get some dish for Christmas.

Here We Go Again…

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Greetings from South Satellite at SeaTac! Yes, I’m actually writing BEFORE I get on the plane, which has no WiFi. More awesome is my pre-planning on this, so I am the smug owner of both the most recent issue of Discovery and the most recent issue of the Economist. That plus hopefully some decent sleep will aid in the 9 hour flight to Heathrow, and the 2 hours down to Rome.

The verdict on the back/neck was essentially I’ve got degeneration in a joint and in a disc — so, um, I’m old. And apparently we fight age with muscle relaxants (which suck, because if I take one, I have to plan on not doing anything for 12 hours), anti-inflammatories (which suck less but the digestive tract does not like), and lots of Physical Therapy (which sucks because it means the nice PT dude pokes all the owie spots and makes them more owie).

I know I promised more on the Legal Fun, but since it turns out getting a Summer Schedule in place ran a tab of about $850, I think it’s safe to say I’m still in it, and won’t be out of it for a while, so maybe those blog posts can come in October or November. Hey, just in time to scare people for Halloween!

At the rate time is flying, though, that’s not long. The major milestones of the summer are flying by, Kevin and Margaret got married, STP has come and gone, our Leadership Summit has passed (short: YAY US! And… there’s a lot more to do); there’s this trip and then the next trip (fun trip!) and then camp and back to school and PTA and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Net-net (and I say that because it makes the Editor cringe, and that looks almost like a smile on his face, so it’s nearly the same thing) this has brought me to the Big Decision to… Not get chickens. I just added on a running routine (to replace the cycling one), a knitting class, I still have a quilt, and I keep having to remember that in about a month I’ll be back in school, too. I think chickens may drive me nuts, as fun as they sound. In a way this feels like giving up, or maybe it’s just streamlining. The male person is not secretly relieved.

So. If you’re in Seattle and you’ve got chickens, I’d like to come help out once in a while, and buy some eggs off of you. The same way I like to occasionally go to the dog park to pet the pups but do not foresee another puppy for some time (Bulimikitty, I’m looking at you).

With that I sign off… as the long metal tube of the jetway beckons to the OTHER long metal tube that will take me to Olympic-land, and then to the land of caprese and carbonara. I can’t complain, try as I might :).

Personal Challenges

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[Editor’s note: this was written actually nearly a week ago on a trip out to Montreal.  I have since completed this trip for work and proceeded smack into STP — complete with some sort of pinched nerve which really, really didn’t like the STP. I’ve also managed to do something to my upper right rear ribcage near my shoulder blade. I should know more later but typing is a more deliberate exercise now. The good news is that the rickety knees are fine!]

Greetings from 21F, which on this little plane means I have a window seat, and good thing, too: having stayed up late watching Aliens (we are the proud owners of the Blu-Ray boxed set now) I got a whopping 4 hours of sleep before the flight. That was me, then, mouth likely slack and head up against the window for the first hour of flight. The lady next to me was nice and didn’t mention my probable lack of composure and/or drooling. I complimented her purse.

I woke up in time to make the poor decision of paying for a breakfast sandwich which, now that I’ve eaten it, has informed me it doesn’t like me. My stomach is also telling me it doesn’t like the sandwich. I’m telling them both to shut up but they don’t listen.

I haven’t had much time to blog as of late courtesy of a hyper-packed schedule and a continuing reluctance to blog about Things Court-tastic. When that gets put to bed – ostensibly by November, or, you know, not – I’m planning on doing a series of “So you think you’re going to court” posts; I’ve found the experience educational and am going to share. You are forewarned.

But here I am, sans internet but with the time to blog (perhaps mostly because there is no internet and I’ve done all the work I can do disconnected). I don’t expect to have this luxury much come fall, as I am going back to school.

Since the crash in ’08 I’ve had a morbid fascination with economics and that fascination has not died, despite reading lots of tomes in great detail. I’ve finally decided to feed the monster and go back for my PhD, which is more than a little daunting considering I’m intending to do it whilst working full time, being a mom, and I’ll be about 45 when I’m done. This is not as daunting as the suggested Half Iron Man entry a friend proposed with the same deadline—that is on the table, depending on how I do in STP this weekend – but already it’s showing me that academia is indeed a different world.

For example: I took Pre-Calculus in high school. I then went to the local community college (so my parents could stretch their generous funding of my 4-year degree) and took Calc 1 and 2 (and I think 3). (I can’t remember, it’s been 20 years). Because I can’t remember it – when’s the last time you used yours? (Engineers, shut up) – I want to re-take it and the entire Calculus series before I go on to graduate school. I also need to take some basic Econ classes I missed the first time around. So I enrolled in that same local community college (following my parents’ wise steps).

I was told I could not register for Pre-Calculus, because I had already taken its successor, and therefore I’m asking to take the classes out of order.

Yes, you read that right.

I called the registration office and patiently explained that I knew I took the successor (and the successor to the successor), but that I was planning on taking all those over again, too, so be a good lad and enroll me?

No.

You have got to be kidding me, I did not say, and instead asked how one gets around this particular brand of administratea. “You can petition the Math department for a waiver…” they said.

Herein lays one of the more interesting notes: while I was at this college 20 years ago, I worked at the college in the Math and Science Department. It so happens that the Math Chair remembers me, so I succeeded in getting into Pre-Calculus in the fall (yay). However, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t known him, if I’d still be battling to get into a class I’ve already taken.

Then there’s the textbook.

The “me” of today is not the hormone-poisoned, lazy person I was 20 years ago. I want to get the book now, read it, study it, and be fully prepared come mid-September. I therefore sent an email enquiring if the book for Summer Math 141 is the same as Fall Math 141. Two weeks ago.

To no response.

Not from the instructor, not from the bookstore.

In the working world – at least, in my working world – you may lag behind in emails a bit but eventually you get to it. Especially if it’s a relatively simple question: Yes, No, or I Don’t Know would satisfy here. I’m not sure I want to take a $127 gamble (yes, the text costs that, no, it’s not in eBook format) and it’s irritating to know that the likely reason I haven’t received a response is they just don’t work that way. I had this same problem when I was in my MBA program and it is funny how, like childbirth, you don’t remember the inconvenient parts.

I do realize I’m setting myself up for a serious challenge — unlike the STP where you merely give away 10-20 hours a week of your life to training on a bike, here I will be giving away that time to equations that use symbols you have to learn the Alt Key codes for because they do not appear on your standard keyboard. 

Still, like the court experience, the ultimate result will be positive and the journey itself will be fruitful if not completely pleasant. And yes, there will be bloggage – but possibly after finals.

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Floatsam and Jetsam

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I have not been in the office for seven days.

I managed to avoid work related email for three of those days. While normally I would give myself a very hearty pat on the back over that, I really needs must thank my friend Kevin for getting married, and Andy and Joyce for planning his bachelor party. This is because the portion of the party that I attended involved camping — with no cellular service.

No internet.

No electricity.

The only running water was slightly over freezing, rippling over rounded stones and fallen tree branches in a nearby creek.

And it was wonderful.

In the eight years I have worked for Expedia, I don’t think I’ve been out of touch for that long, ever. From the day I was handed my crackberry, which I cannot seem to leave alone, I’ve always eyeballed incoming mail (even if I don’t necessarily respond). It is not ego — the company seems to chug along just fine with or without me — but addiction. It was great to have something else meter that out for me.

I wish I could say I stayed off the email in the ensuing days but I have not — the addiction is aided by ready availability of internets and cellular service — although I’m pretty happy to say I’ve been on only rarely and only responding to those things that I think actually require attention.

In my time off though I’ve had the chance to do all manner of fun things. I have:

  • Gone camping! For reals! and acquired a new level of gear-wanting
  • Taken a four hour midday nap
  • Had a mini mamacation with Ms. Mindi
  • Got a massage
  • Planned the oncoming of chickens and raised bed gardening for the next year
  • Successfully avoided going under the house to reorganize books — although that shows every sign of happening tomorrow
  • Eyeballed the jam jars and fruit with every intent of probably making some jam in the next 24 hours — who likes Strawberry Rhubarb?
  • Attended spin class
  • Caught up on all manner and myriad of minutiae that one shoves aside in favor of work craziness

Monday promises work catch-up and craziness, although I feel pretty psyched and positive about the couple of big projects again coming our way. There’s only three weeks of school left and I know both the boy and I are looking forward to summer stuff. All in all, pretty happy here.

Staycation is hereby listed as a successful venture. Highly recommended…

Pig Foot

Bobbie2 Comments

“Do you like food?”

The question was put to me, last night after work, over a glass of wine. Sebastien, bless his Teutonic sensitivity, was concerned that I hadn’t made Official Dinner Plans in Montreal. This is apparently a sin of some sort. Add to that, it was Friday, and well, he was concerned.

“What did you have for lunch?” he enquired. I answered — smoked salmon over a bed of lettuce with capers, onions, and two small blinis. “That seems awfully healthy,” he observed pityingly, “Not like Quebec at all.”

When he asked me, shortly after this, about whether or not I liked food, I laughed out loud — I am not anorexic, it’s pretty obvious I like food — but it was such a pitying, concerned way he asked it that I found it funny. I assured him I liked food — really, really liked food. And I had one real night in Montreal (the other one I had arrived into my room, straight from the airport, at midnight. Everything was closed.)

Sebastien had two recommendations: Chasse et Peche, and Aud Pied de Cochon. The first translates roughly as “Hunting and Fishing” and is a super-fancy restaurant for surf and turf. The second translates literally as the Foot of the Pig.  When we found that Chasse was sold out for the night and Sebastien just barely managed to get me room at the bar at Pied (“You can go at 7pm but you have to be out of there by 9:30, okay?”), he proceeded to sell me on it.

They serve poutine (gravy fries) with foie gras on them. “Because,” Sebastien said, “they can. It’s schweinemast.”  “Ah,” I said knowingly, “like Emeril Legasse. Pork fat rules, and all that.” “Exactly, exactly,” he said.

I did not have poutine with foie gras (the lady next to me did, and we discussed it in-depth). I did have duck tartare (and had a private little moment at the bar over it) and then had Plogue A Champlain, which is basically duck bits with foie gras over a pancake and syrup and hey, don’t judge if you haven’t tried it. This is what comes from listening to Sebastien over a glass of wine and then putting yourself utterly in the hands of the nice waiter person at the bar.

Yes I had dessert.

Yes I promptly went for a run this morning to try to ameliorate the caloric destruction of last night. Old Montreal is great for a run if you don’t mind a. taking your life in your hands at every cross walk and b. can find your way as quickly as possible to the waterfront where there are a few k’s of unbroken (or only moderately broken) running/biking paths. Montreal is a lot like the newer bits of Paris in terms of architecture (buildings 300 years old!), tons of little cafes here and there, and friendly people.

You read that. Go read it again. Friendly. People.

I had heard about Quebec — some of the kinder phrases said things like “all of the attitude of France with none of the scenery” — having been to France I can verify that the attitude was there (for I found France friendly), and it had its share of scenery. The only crappy bits were the tourists at my hotel during the manager’s reception (I went for a drink and left before having it — when you have 200 odd guests getting “free” drinks and only 3 servers and 2 barkeeps to attend, it’s a nightmare and people suck).  Even the airport was a pleasant surprise — a 2pm departure on a Saturday usually means get there 3 hours early to fight your way through security– which took all of five minutes.

And so here I sit in Cleveland — stop 1 of 2 stops on the way home (ooh, Philly is next!) having only marginal guilt about last night’s excess (it makes the not-eating of airport food easier to go by). Airports really are the least glamorous part of travel.

Not So New Driver

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And now we come to the part of the flight where the soporific effect of the hum of the engines has caused me to sleep through the food service. Damn.

I write (again, without wireless, and again, at 35 thousand feet) en route to Montreal, a first for me. It’s for work (naturally) and it’s of short duration (I arrive 10:30pm local, am in the office all day tomorrow, and fly out the next morning), but it’s exciting nonetheless.  Instead of being sandwiched between a large German and a larger Swede (as I was in my last flight), I’ve the enviable window seat and a surprising amount of leg room for economy. I have a 40 minute stop in Chicago, just long enough to change planes, so dinner will be elusive if present at all.

I haven’t written in this blog much, actually, since I started my current job. I’ve had jobs before where I thought I worked crazy hours, I thought I was busy, I thought I was stretched to my potential. It’s funny how, when you’re stretched that much farther, you look back at those previous thoughts and smirk at yourself.  In this job, I’ve had to go to 11.

It’s not that my hours are so much more, really, or so much more crazy – I’ve managed to keep them “normal” for the most part with the sloppy excess in the wee early hours, the very late hours, or the weekends when needed. When you average 36 meetings weekly, you’re going to be working at weird times to clear out your email inbox. It’s that the expectation levels and the number of things to keep track of are exponential – I previously managed semi-high-profile projects within Business Development, and had no direct reports. I now manage a semi-high profile (or very high profile, depending on who you talk to) department of 105-135 people (depending on contingent staffing) and their output, with two consistent major initiatives and a few smaller ones. It’s people, it’s projects, it’s resources, it’s allocations, it’s budgeting, it’s analyzing, it’s justifying, it’s explaining –oh, it’s a lot of explaining.

When I got into the job I was underwater the first 90 days, just trying to keep afloat and get to know what this department was about, what was (and would be) expected of it, of me, and where does this particular cog fit in that particular mechanism. I didn’t spend much time getting to know my teams (beyond my direct reports) and it meant I had only a very superficial knowledge of what they could do. It was like renting a Porsche. I knew, I absolutely knew, it could do more and better and faster and impress the hell out of anyone; but I was a newbie driver, not checked out on paddle shifters, and I hadn’t read the owner’s manual. So it was a tedious 90 days for the folks on my team, patiently explaining to me the why’s of certain things, the how comes of others, and the limitations of yesteryear.  A couple of times I put the gas pedal down way too hard, way too fast.

In the last 60 days, I’ve spent more time with people, and in the next 30 I’ll be spending even more. I’ve had a chance to take this Porsche out onto the track for a couple of initiatives and I have a *very* good idea of what it can do.  I know, for example, that it can corner like it’s on rails, even though we’ve only been asked to turn sharply a couple of times and at a slightly slower speed. I know it can brake on a dime even though we’ve been given a longer roadway to do so.  And when I look at the next 60, and 90, and 120 days, I know we’ll be set out to even more challenging tracks, and I know we can take the corners at full speed and I know we’ll be able to break to a full stop without engaging the airbags.  The Porsche itself is not new and hasn’t changed – I got lucky and inherited a team of really fantastic professionals, who are passionate about their work and the quality of it – but I think their driver is improving.   At least, I hope so.

Lufthansa FTW

BobbieLeave a comment

[from the flight two days ago…]

I’m sitting here in what *should* be the most awkward seat in flightdom: in this A330 the first row of economy-class seats past the bulkhead, left to right, is a line of 2, a line of 4, and then a line of 3. I’m in seat two of the four (so, middle-ish) and this wouldn’t be “awkward” but for the fact that, in the bulkhead row ahead of us, there are only 3 seats.

So there are only 3 video screens.

For 4 people.

I’m still not sure how it works completely but about an hour into the flight I managed to figure out I do not control the videoscreen to the front-left of me, but the front-right of me. This leaves it as an exercise for the class as to whether the person on my starboard side is screenless or owns the far-right screen, and the person on THEIR right thereby gets none?

Ergo, awkward.

And yet it totally has not been.

In a supreme display of German efficiency, although the plane boarded late we departed on time and are tracking ahead of schedule. Dinner (which was good!) was preceeded by drinks, had drinks, and complimentary after-dinner drinks (Bailey’s on ice, yo!), the wine came with an actual cork. In Economy.

I admit the leg room is wanting but I’m 5’10” and all my height is below the waist so it’s a bit unfair to judge.

As Lufthansa is German-based, the first language everything is in on this plane (think: signage, instructions, videos, etc.) is German. I have learned that Nouns in German are capitalized. So if I were to write in English like one would write in German, I would capitalize Nouns. It’s a bit jarring to read.

I am also getting one more stamp in my passport this trip of a country I haven’t previously been to: Germany. (Hence the Lufthansa flight). I’m stopping in Frankfurt on the way to Rome. As this is likely my last international trip before I must get my passport replaced, this is a nice lagniappe.

In my time with Expedia I have flown to Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, Geneva, Paris, Lyon, Rome, and London. I drove to Vancouver for one meeting. And yet the bulk of my travel has been in the last two years – there was a stretch of a couple of years where the annual Vegas event was “it” for my work-based travel.

In all that time you think I’d have the foolproof formula to combat jetlag – but I don’t. It’s 4:20pm my time, shortly after 1am the place I’m going, and I know that I will not sleep enough on the flight to make up the delta. I have a day in Rome to purportedly get over this, and I can’t quite figure if I will do that or go sightseeing or lock myself in my hotel room and catch up on work.

But at least the flight in was sweet.

Counting One’s Blessings

BobbieLeave a comment

“At least you have your health!” — often said when one is disparaging one’s fate, usually accompanied by the statement one should count one’s blessings.

My health took a brief holiday on Tuesday night, having (correctly) assessed everything else was going very well so it may as well take its turn. It started with the usual sore throat — and then, as my son puts it, you feel like you swallowed sand. Then you get the fever. And then a wet cough that punctuates every third word.

Three days later you’re still pretty much there. There was one brief respite where the fever had broken and I felt better, I now feel like that was likely the result of DayQuil and not actual healing. Now it appears the fever has broken (again) and I’m hopeful, as this time I can talk more before the racking cough, and the joint pain is subsiding.

One of the most frustrating things about being sick is that you take time off of work (if you can, and you should if you can) so you can heal up. As a result, you look at this startlingly clear calendar, this wide-open schedule, and fantasize about all the things you could do! You could — garden! You could sew, you could catch up on those books, you can reconfigure your pantry, you can …

…oh, no you can’t. Because you’re sick. So while your BRAIN is perfectly capable of envisaging these things, and of planning and plotting and wanting to go do them, your BODY is calling you four-letter words, aching at every joint, and requiring obscene amounts of sleep. In the space of 24 hours I used up an entire box of kleenex (plus five individual packs); in the space of the last 4 days I exhausted the remaining supply of tea and honey. I’ve lost four pounds (silver linings, anyone?) I am both BEHIND and AHEAD at work because I’ve done everything I can that didn’t require me to talk — because I couldn’t — but now I need to make up all that talking time with a voice that sounds like I’ve been sucking on helium and pickles.

This is okay thought. Because it appears I can once again count my health.