Was it just Communication - or something more?

I have always thought of myself as a pretty easy-going person who can get along with just about anybody. In fact, in confrontations I tend to apologize whether it was my fault or not. Like George McFly in "Back to the Future" - I don't like confrontations.

So when our company hired a second night tech for our department a little over a year ago, I didn't anticipate any problems. I knew she had been a professor in the Ukraine, but had been in America for several years. I knew she had some clinical experience, and that she was very eager to learn.

At first everything was coming up roses. We got along just great - in fact my family even had her and her daughter over for Thanksgiving dinner. She did seem to be a bit paranoid (she thought people at work were doing things to get her in trouble), but she had a great deal of enthusiasm and worked very hard. Even though she was several years older than me, she had a lot of energy.

Then little problems started cropping up. Sometimes she would refuse to admit that she had made a mistake - and used that reasoning that people were trying to get her in trouble. I tried to be tolerant as I realized she had probably grown up in a Communist country where there was good reason to be paranoid, but although she had spent several years in America, she did not understand my brand of humor. As an example, when the supervisor emailed me about a problem that had occurred on night shift (which was pretty evidently her mistake), she flat out denied that she had done any such thing. So I rather wearily said, "Fine, I'll email the supervisor and tell him that it must have been me, since you're sure you didn't do it." Her response? With perfect sincerity she said "Thank you". My somewhat sarcastic comment went right over her head.

She had been with us for a few months when things blew up. We had both had a hard night, and I was trying to finish up the last of the work. She asked if she could help, and I told her that I could handle it, and she could go home as she was already into overtime. She responded that I was in overtime too, and I replied rather off-handedly "That's irrelevant". After all, I AM lead tech, so making sure the work gets done is my reponsibility.

A few minutes later I found her crying on the shoulder of the lab assistant. When I asked her what the problem was, she said she couldn't believe that I could be so rude and unfeeling. To say I was flabergasted is a gross understatement. When I asked her what she meant, she kept insisting that I knew what she was talking about. I eventually got her to spit it out, and was flabergasted all over again. In her eyes, the fact that I had said it was irrelevant meant that I didn't value her opinion at all. The fact that I had mentioned she was in overtime meant that I thought she wasn't working fast enough, and that her work wasn't good enough.

I tried to explain that the irrelevant comment was more of a joke than anything else, but she refused to accept that. I tried to explain that my concern about her overtime was because I knew her daughter picked her up. She wouldn't accept that either. She kept going on about how I was over her, and I'm afraid I lost my temper. It was at the end of my shift and I was very tired. I told her that I had been treating her like a friend, but evidently she didn't want that - she wanted me to just treat her like a co-worker. To my absolute astonishment her response was "Yes, I think that would be best". I felt like I'd been kicked, and my friendship spurned. So I stormed back to finish my work.

As I mentioned before, I don't like confrontations and I felt badly about this, even though I didn't feel it was my fault. Therefore I wrote a very nice letter of apology and re-explained what I had said what I did. I told her that I did NOT think she was not working as fast as she could, and that she couldn't expect to be as fast as me when she had only been there for a few months. I apologized for losing my temper. I told her I would continue to think of her as a friend, but would try to treat her as a co-worker.

She politely thanked me for the letter, but told me that there was one part that she did not agree with - she did not feel that I was faster than her! After all, she told me, she had clinical experience from a previous job. Once again I was totally dumfounded. Either she had an extremely high opinion of herself that she could master this job in so short a time that she could equal somebody who had been there for 24 years - or she had an extremely poor opinion of how much I had progressed in that amount of time. However, I was emotionally exhausted from the whole thing, so I just smiled and let it slide.

I want to add that months later when I mentioned this, she vehemently denied that she had said any such thing. Either her memory or mine was slipping.

For the next several months we got along OK - at least most of the time. She would often make little jokes with me, and when I didn't respond, she told me that I didn't have a sense of humor. I replied that I did, but the last time I had 'joked' with her, I had gotten into trouble. Mind you, she was making little remarks herself like, "Oh Megan, sometimes you are so kind, but not very often". To be quite honest, I did not know how to take her. She would get upset about something I had said because she would interpret it in a different way than I meant it. When I would try to explain this, she would stick to her opinion that I had meant it in the way that she had taken it. But she would continue to behave like nothing had happened.

She was also extremely emotional. The night that she couldn't get on the computer (new system), she finally started crying and asking "Why is this happening to me?". She even said that perhaps she should kill herself. I tried to be off-hand about it, because I didn't really know what to do. She had told me once before that every day when she goes home she cries and thinks about killing herself.

We got her into the computer with the new system, but she didn't really like the new programming. She was constantly telling me how I ought to change it, but would add in a self-sacrificing sort of voice, "But what I think does not matter". We were extremely short-staffed and I was putting in a lot of overtime as well as being the major programmer for our new system. Her constant complaining about how things were turning out got on my nerves, although I tried to be polite about it. However, I imagine I did sound exhasperated once in a while.

Then we had another 'incident'. We had been getting along pretty well, and I forgot and made a little joke. She had enlarged the graph on the screen, and I said "Good heavens, your eyes must be worse than I thought". I said it in a joking voice, but I might have guessed that she would take it seriously. Sure enough, a few minutes later she told me that she found my remark highly offensive and did not appreciate me making negative comments about her appearance. (Eyesight is part of appearance?). When I told her it was a joke, she did her denial bit. I'm afraid I totally lost it.

I mentioned a couple of the negative thing she had said about me, and she replied in her stiff self-righteous voice that she had never said anything negative about my appearance. By then I was practically shouting (yup - I'd really lost it). I told her that I had forgotten and thought of her as a friend, and would have to go back to thinking of her as a co-worker again. I don't remember exactly what she said - something about not being appreciated. So I told her to switch to day shift - maybe they'd appreciate her there since she didn't think I did. And I stalked off.

I guess I should have apologized for losing my temper, but I was so tired of having my remarks misunderstood. Granted, she is from a different country, but she had lived in America for several years and should have learned how to get along with people better. It is so frustrating to try to explain what I meant, and to be told that I am wrong - that wasn't what I meant at all!

So she went out and found another job and gave notice. When she told the supervisor she was leaving, she made it very clear that it was because of me. Whenever I tried to ask her about her new job, she would get very weepy and sad and talk about how hard it was going to be to get there (4 bus transfers) and how it wasn't as good a job, etc. I tried to talk to her one night to find out why she was leaving, but the only thing she would say was that she 'Didn't feel appreciated". I don't know if that was a reference to the last argument we had had, or a commentary on the fact that I didn't praise her every few minutes on how wonderful she was. I often did tell her she was doing a good job, but apparently not often enough.

On the last night we worked together, she gave me a present and then proceeded to tell me how this had been her dream job, everything she wanted and she had hoped to retire from here someday, but the situation had become intolerable. However, she was sure I would be happy once she was gone. Wow - talk about a guilt trip! I drove home stunned and depressed. I didn't know if she felt that she couldn't take working with me anymore, or if she was being a martyr and quitting so I could be happy. She was so weepy that last week that it was hard to talk to her about anything.

I wanted to give her and her daughter Christmas presents. I thought quite a while about what to give them. The last really good conversation that we had had was about Dickens and his story "The Christmas Carol". Amazingly, she had never heard of it. So I bought a very nice copy of the book with illustrations. Both she and her daughter felt very strongly about all of the stray cats and tried to feed them, so I bought a cat calendar for her daughter. I wrapped them up in Christmas paper, attached a Christmas card to each with their names on them, and left them in her drawer on the last night I was working before she left. She was actually working a few more nights as I was taking some vacation.

Well, last night was my first night back, and I found both the presents shoved into my drawer. The cards had been ripped off, but I have no way of knowing if that was because she was going to open and read them, or she had thrown them in the trash unread. She had totally rejected the gifts I had left for her, even though she had given me a gift on our last night together. I was furious, mad, and very hurt. I allowed myself the luxury of crying as I was the only one there.

Since then I've been thinking about this a lot. I do feel that some of it is my fault. I definitely should NOT have lost my temper with her. I should have apologized after I shouted at her. Even though we were incredibly busy, I should have tried to take more time to talk with her, and find out what she was feeling. It is possible that there is something in her cultural background that exacerbated the situation without my knowing it.

On the other hand, I can't feel its 100% my fault. Her inflexibility, her emotionalism, and her refusal to discuss things with me made it very difficult for me to communicate with her. She would ask me questions about things that she had known just a few weeks ago, but would deny that I had ever told her. She was always so certain that she was right. And she didn't try to sit down and talk things over with me before she decided to leave.

Although I am still hurt by what happened, and feel considerable guilt (whether I should or not), I feel that her leaving was probably better for both of us. She was right about one thing - I will be happier without her being there. I won't be walking on eggshells wondering how she will take my next comment. Also, with the economy being what it is, there is a good chance that our business will downsize. As she was the last one hired, she would have been the first one to be let go, so perhaps getting another job was a good thing for her. And perhaps she can feel saintly about leaving so that I can be happy again. But I don't think she is very happy, and for that I am truly sorry.

But what I don't know is whether this entire situation was just merely a matter of miscommunication (or not communicating), or whether there were culture reasons behind a lot of what she said and did. I will probably never know, and I will always have a bit of regret in my heart for what happened. But as Uncle Scrooge's nephew said about his Uncle in Dicken's "Christmas Carol", what did he get by refusing to come to dinner with them? - a good dinner with a lot of friendly people. And what does she get by refusing what is offered to her? - she loses her 'dream' job, my friendship, and a couple of Christmas presents. And who is to say which would have had the most worth.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Our Bishop

A couple of weeks ago we had a change in our bishopric. Bishop Patrick Garlock was released, and Brother Laurent Betteridge has taken his place. Bishop Garlock had been with us for quite a while, so I wasn't surprised that they are giving him a break. However, the Ward is putting together a memory book for him.



This posed a bit of a problem for me, as I have never been terribly close to Bishop Garlock. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't regard me with total approbation. During his tenure I have done less 'entertaining' at the ward functions than before. Although that might just be because I am getting older - and he DID ask me to sing something at our Halloween Chili cookoff. But I don't have a lot of good memories to put in a memory book.

Ah ha - but I DO have my talent for writing poetry. And I had already thought of a theme. If there is one thing that characterizes Bishop Garlock is that he is very emotional and cries at the drop of a hat. He tries to fight it, and the lines at the corner of his mouth go down so far they practically touch his chin, but he usually loses the fight. He is not unaware of this, and has made jokes about it himself in the past.

So here is my tribute to Bishop Garlock:

THE BISHOP CRIED

When called to be the Bishop,
Brother Garlock knelt and prayed,
“Oh help me, Heavenly Father,
For I am sore afraid.
I need to choose two counselors,
Please help me to decide”
And then he heard the Spirit whisper
“I will be your guide”.
And the Bishop cried

He stood before the congregation,
As a Bishop must,
And saw the faces looking back
Filled with hope and trust.
He felt the Savior’s love for them
Welling deep inside,
And he loved them almost as much,
They were his joy and pride.
And the Bishop cried.

It was his anniversary;
He thought back through the years,
Of all the memories that they shared,
The laughter and the tears.
He thought of all the vows they made
The day the knot was tied
And knew he still felt doubly blessed
To have her as his bride
And the Bishop cried.

It was the Bishops birthday and
His children gathered near
To stand before him, one by one,
And whisper in his ear
“We love you, Dad, you are the one
In whom we can confide.
We’ll try to be the best we can
And hope you’re satisfied.”
And the Bishop cried

The sinner sat across from him,
Wracked with guilt and pain.
He vowed he had repented,
And would not sin again.
“What shall I say?” the Bishop prayed,
And then the Spirit replied
“Tell him that he has been forgiven,
For he has not lied.”
And the Bishop cried

And when the resurrection came
He with many others
Stood before the Holy Throne
Amidst his righteous brothers.
The Savior said “These are the ones
Of whom I prophesied.
Thou good and faithful servants,
Come stand here by my side.”
And the Bishop cried

He's come a long way.

We have been raising our grandson, Timothy, ever since he first came home from the hospital as an infant. We have been, in every sense of the word, his parents since day one. When he was two years old we legally adopted him, and later had him sealed to us in the Temple. Although it can make for a bit of confusion, as Maleen is both his aunt and sister, and her children are both his cousins and nieces, we have kept things simple. He calls me Grandma, and Bill Grandpa, and his biological mother (Miranda) is Mommy.

Tim is not a very social person. He has quite a few quirks in his personality, and there have been times that we could only shake our head in disbelief at some of the antics he has displayed. In Primary he would pull his coat over his head and pretend that he wasn't there. During Primary presentations (in the chapel), instead of singing he would be down on the ground between the pews, or making faces and disturbing the children next to him. During Sacrament meetings he would be writhing around on the seat, or down on the floor (again!). No amount of bribes, punishments, wheedling or threats could change this. He was definitely his own person!

When he discovered the joy of electronic games (GameBoy, Play Station, Computer) we at last had something we could hold over him, as if he had his way this is all he would do. Now we can use 'screen time' for rewards (or loss thereof for punishments), although this still didn't change much of his behavior. It gave us a handle, but he still continued to be his own kind of kid. The writhings on the church seat stayed off of the floor; he still wouldn't sing for the Primary presentations, but at least he would stand there instead of being down on everybody else's feet. When it was time for him to give his vocal presentation, one of the teachers would rush forward to be there in case he needed prompting (which he usually didn't) so I guess his behavior in Primary still wasn't perfect, although he had stopped pulling his coat over his head in primary.

Tim was in his very last Ward Primary Presentation last Sunday. He will be turning 12 next month, and will become a Deacon and move up into Young Men. I watched in proud amazement as he stood there SINGING the songs with the rest of the kids. He didn't look particularly thrilled to be there, but he was standing quietly instead of down inspecting everybody's shoes. When it was time for him to give his talk (which he had written himself) he did a magnificent job. The number of people who talked to us afterwards to tell us how wonderful it was could not be counted. In private, Tim told me that he had felt the Spirit as he gave his talk.

Don't get me wrong - he is far from being a perfect kid. The battles between him and Bill send me cringing from the room, and 'screen time' is still uppermost on his list of things to do. But when I think back on how we despaired of him ever being 'normal' - or at least as normal as anybody in OUR family can be, I am so grateful for the progress we've all made. I am SO grateful that the Lord brought this child into our lives and gave him to us to raise, and I hope we can do a decent job of it. And here he is, doing what he loves best.

Who do YOU believe?

Today, when I went upstairs to change for church, I heard a persistent beeping noise. In fact, I heard TWO beeping noises. I went to Tim's room first and found his alarm merrily trying to wake up somebody who wasn't there. It was pretty dark, so I had to turn on his head lamp in order to find the switch to turn his alarm off.

Then I went to our bedroom where our alarm was stubbornly trying to alert somebody (anybody!) that it was time to get up. I use this alarm a lot myself, so even in the dark I know how to turn IT off. I thought I would certainly get a kick out of teasing the 'men' in my life that they don't know enough to turn off the alarm.

Much to my amazement, instead of showing any kind of contrition, they both strenously insisted that they HAD turned their alarms off. Both of them had woken up early (so THEY say), and had virtuously turned off the alarm before they left their respective rooms. From this position they would not budge. They HAD turned off their alarms, and if they really had been on (were they doubting my word?) then somebody must have turned them on again.

As they had watched Ghostbusters together the night before you can imagine what kind of ideas they came up with. They didn't quite have the chutzpah to call me a liar, although they came pretty close.

I have to admit that I had a great deal of sympathy for Joseph Smith. After all, I HAD heard two alarms going off, and I HAD turned them off myself, and no amount of criticism could change that fact. So I ask again - who do YOU believe?

Definitely sick!

Just an add-on. I woke up with such a sore throat this morning (and swollen glands) that I actually went to the doctor and discovered that I have strep throat! They were amazed that I had been fighting it off on my own without antibiotics for so long. I guess all those immuno-enhancing pills that Bill gives me do help. So now I'm on antibiotics, and should be able to go back to work Saturday night.

I should have guessed I was really sick - I haven't had much appetite.

What is sick?

In our house, probably the most dreaded phrase in the English language is "I am sick" closely followed by "I don't feel well". My husband is misophobic, which means he has an abnormal fear of germs. I cannot count the number of nights that I have gone off to work 'not feeling well' and he has been mad at me because he thinks 'I'm sick'.

To my mind, the only times that you are 'sick' enough to stay home from work are 1) You're throwing up 2) You have severe diarrhea and can't stay away from the bathroom for more than 10 minutes 3) You are coughing and sneezing non-stop or 4)You have an extremely high fever.

Last Saturday night I went off to work not feeling very well. Primarily I was very cold and just felt crummy. In fact, I crawled home Sunday morning, fell into bed, and slept for 10 hours. I continued to feel bad and cold for the next couple of days, sleeping fitfully off and on most of the days and nights, but nothing I could put my finger on, so I went off to work Tuesday night as usual. It was a bear of a night because two of our three lab aides weren't there and I worked for over 8 hours before I even got a break. So I came home feeling ultra-crummy.

Wednesday morning my husband got suspicious about my 'feeling cold' and insisted I take my temperature. Horrors - it was 99.8. A sure sign that I was at death's door. He said there was no way I could go to work that night, and I said it depended on my temperature when I got up. I said it would have to be over 100 before I would stay home.

I slept about 9 hours, and when I got up my temperature was exactly 100. A mammoth argument ensued that included me, my husband (Bill), our grandson (Tim) and the boarder (Bob), (whose wife was off to Mutual and he was bored and had wandered upstairs). Both Bill and Tim insisted I had to stay home, I insisted I had to go to work, and Bob (wisely) kept out of it, other than to suggest that we google 'fever' on the Internet and see what the official definiton is.

I retook my temperature about 45 minutes later and it was up to 100.5 and Bill put his foot down and declared I was NOT going to work. I finally gave in. I called work to find out that the two lab aides weren't going to be in AGAIN, so there would only be two of the five workers there. Wow - not a good scenario.

However, I slept another 9 hours last night (drifting in and out of semi-hallucinatory dreams), and this morning my temperature was up to 101.5. I might have to admit that I really am 'sick'. However, I will be taking my temperature again this afternoon to decide if I'm going to work tonight. I'm not throwing up, I don't have diarrhea, I'm not coughing or sneezing - so everything hinges on the fever.

I have a gut feeling that even if my temperature is totally normal this afternoon, Bill (and probably Tim) are going to put a lot of pressure on me to stay home and 'recuperate'. In Bill's mind this means watching movies with him! Anyway, I need to get into the kitchen and do dishes. When I'm sick Bill always tells me that they can wait until I feel better, but by then just looking at them makes me sick all over again!

What's really scary?

Around our house, Halloween is a big holiday. My husband's birthday is the 30th, and when he was growing up, his birthday decorations were always black and orange. Over the years, we have collected an impressive array of 'scary' things, and this year we actually dug a lot of them out and put them up for Halloween.

We went to the local Spirit of Halloween store but were sadly disappointed. Everything was cheap-looking, sleazy, and over-priced. So we didn't buy anything new. In fact, we went to Walmart to get Tim's costume (vampire cape and matching teeth). So here are some pictures of the Halloween decorations we had in our living room. If you look carefully you'll see some of last year's Christmas decorations that never got taken down - including the Christmas tree!

However, I don't think anything we used to decorate the house is quite as scary as my daughter, Miranda, dying her hair blue. I think it looks really, really cool - although I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do it - even though blue is my favorite color.

I thought about including a picture of our kitchen sink, but I don't think the world is ready for that!