Idaho Insomniac

So I find myself unable to sleep once again.  It’s too late to take anything for it if I want to be functional in the morning.  Might as well write what’s going on in my head.  I’m hoping to “move the files” as opposed to “copy the files” from my head to this computer.  Perhaps if I change their location, they’ll no longer swirl around and keep me up?

Life doesn’t feel stressful.  Not really.  Not abnormally. 

Potential causes:

Finances

Money is okay.  We’ve set ourselves up for this very circumstance.  I’m so glad we have made some of the decisions and strategic moves that we have!  This is our 4th house.  We’ve made money on the sale of each of the previous homes, and don’t owe much on this one.  We were able to put the entire balance of our mortgage to a home equity line of credit, and our interest rate is very low, and we’re able to make interest only payments while our income has been reduced. We WERE on a 10 year plan to pay it off, but we’ll be fine if we have to bump that out a couple years.

ADHD

We are on the right track with C.  His behavior and the related stress have improved greatly.  I have the conference with his teacher tomorrow.  I’m pretty sure I know what that will entail, and I’m not worried about it.  Well, I was a bit antsy, because the principal had told my husband that she’d be attending.  I don’t care for her much.  Okay, I think she’s entirely void of capability and her ineptitude spans more facets than a single being could possibly count.  Perhaps one day I’ll share that story.  At any rate, I’m settled on that front as I spoke with the teacher and asked that the principal not be present.

Job Search

I had an interview today.  For a job I didn’t really want.  Though  this is my second interview since I’ve been laid off.  This is the second time I’ve been stricken with the call of the “old” profession.  I interview, see a fantastic challenge… a way to use my current skills and to learn something new… and part of me wants it.

Perhaps that’s what’s troubling my mind?  I DO want to go to school.  I DO want to change industries.  But I really did enjoy so much of my work previously.  This other job paid peanuts.  So it was a no-go.  I was underpaid by 50% at the company.  (yes, I have legitimate sources)  There’s no way I could cut that in about half to work for this place.  Even though it’s 10 minutes away.

School

I need to take that test.  The GRE.  It’s the final step.  Then I’ll be accepted (assuming I score over 1000).  Then the future will be a little less nebulous. 

Conclusion

I think the feeling of missing process engineering coupled with the relative uncertainty of school is what’s bugging me tonight.  My reasons for the career move are solid.  The career path is robust.  I guess I just have to navigate my way through the change.  I love fixing processes, bringing functions up to some “standard.”  I’ll be able to do this in healthcare.  It will just feel different. 

The Principal

So here’s the story.  When C was in kindergarten, he found a condom on the bus.  I guess he put it in his backpack and took it to the babysitter’s, who found him blowing on it.  It was out of the wrapper and unrolled when he found it.

Of course, my very first action was to call the principal.  This was not okay, and the district needed to know it happened so that it could be prevented from happening again.  Though the chances were small, the risks were there… that it had been on a body, that bad behavior was going on on the bus, any number of things. 

I shared these concerns with the principal.   She agreed they were legitimate concerns and that it shouldn’t happen again.  Her response??  “There’s nothing I can do to help you.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

She essentially told me “that’s not my job.”

Granted, I do think she meant that she had no authority over the bus department.  But I don’t care.  My thought was (and is) that the principal is the face of the school district to the parents.  The first line of contact.  Even if there was absolutely nothing she could about the BUS aspect of this occurrence, she could have talked to people for me, brought this to the attention of somebody who could have helped me, given ME names and phone numbers… any number of things. 

Instead she covered her ass.  She was more concerned about liability than about my son’s health, or the potential for this to happen to another child.

Several (bounced) emails and phone messages to her boss (director of elementary ed) later, I decide to play the media card.  Low and behold, someone decided to help me.

Interesting how her boss had a list of about 7 action items to help solve this problem and ensure it didn’t happen again.  One of which was to have the school nurses in the entire district talk to the kindergarten AND first grade classes about picking things up off the floor or ground.  Hmmmmm… the principal could have done this.  She didn’t care to even think about it.

At any rate, this was my first interaction with the “leader” of my son’s school, and it’s never improved.  There’s a bit more to the story, but this post has become a veritable epic, and I think I’ll try to sleep once again.

By the way… the pediatrician did recommend and I did take my kindergartener in to have blood drawn for an HIV test… due to the conditions provided by the school district.  Confidence NOT instilled in this parent.

I'm the winner!

Gosh, it's been a few days.

I had an opportunity to drive by myself for a few hours this week.  It was cathartic.  It's good for a person to have some time alone to do nothing.  To do nothing but think.

I came to the conclusion (which I've known, but have not OWNED) that I WON.  With this whole layoff deal.  Intellectually I've known that it's a good thing for me, but the actualization came this week.  It's nice.  The pride is still a bit bruised, but the black and blue is all gone, and it's just a light yellow now. 

Life at home is peaceful.  Well, when the boys aren't fighting, but let's face it: they are going to fight, and they fight when I'm working too... but the slower pace is nice.  No more rushing around to pick up the kids and throw something on the table.  I have the schedule pretty well lined up, and it's easy enough to move things around when needed, which is how I like my schedules to be.  Life is good.

SCHOOL
Well, I went to the CAT (commissioner approved training) seminar thing, and though I don't know if I'm approved to be able to go to school and collect unemployment benefits yet, I did find out that I probably still qualify for TAA benefits (schooling from NAFTA stuff since a previous job went overseas).  I'm still chasing it all down.  I have an orientation seminar for that in about 10 days.  And I can appeal the previous denial for WIA.  So many acronyms for basically the same thing.  I do plan to appeal.  I have no idea how they determined I was in a demand occcupation when my occupation wasn't anywhere to be found.  Yes, I do have a degree in organizational managment, however... that's a very broad field, and my experience is very specific to quality and process.  I'm just NOT going to qualify for a retail manager, or some department manager without other experience.  Besides, high tech and manufacturing are so male dominated.  I'm really just worn out trying to be some female poineer there.  I don't think I can do it anymore.  Not if I want to keep my sanity.

I'M GOOD ENOUGH, SMART ENOUGH, AND GOSH DARN IT, PEOPLE LIKE ME
Which brings me back to my driving thoughts.  Doggone it, I'm highly intelligent and very capable.  I had to scrap my way to getting the bare bones of my job done.  It is not easy telling other brilliant people whom you respect that there are problems with the way they are doing things (or not doing them).  It takes a special personality to get compliance from such people.  I had those skills.  They were underappreciated.  They became invisible over time.  Then I became invisible.  Then I believed I wasn't important, wasn't capable, wasn't valuable.  I cannot let that happen again.

There are only so many times a person can "charge the hill" and be defeated before they stop trying to charge the hill.  The process is hastened when those who are supposed to help you along (those sitting in offices with windows and doors, and whom sign your annual review) are the very ones blocking your way or telling you NO.

YOU CAN ONLY IMPROVE WHAT YOU MEASURE
I realized something else.  The foundation of quality is measurement.  We all do this, whether we realize it or not.  We measure. Height, weight, cost of groceries, gas, medical expenses.  Even if we don't chart and graph these things, we are cognizant of them, and it drives our behavior. 

Now I'm not exacltly a svelte woman.  And when I'm not working hard to lose weight, I don't weigh myself.  Why?  because I don't want to be confronted with the truth.  Same could be said for people with debt problems.  They don't sit down and look at their numbers and spending habits... no one wants to face this stuff.  It's not fun.  It doesn't make us feel good.  And we can't possibly NOT feel good, right?

One of my roles was to measure processes in order to improve them.  Now, one process in particular had a lot of opportunity for improvement, if you catch my drift.  So I'd worked with IT to implement a very simple and automated way to measure volume and lead time.  How many times an activity is performed and how long the activity takes are two fundamental process measurements.  It was ready for the button to be pushed, and at the last minute, the dude in charge (who also happened to be my boss, who understands process excellence, and who was supposed to be responsible to make my job easy... remove barriers and all that) said NO.  Suddenly he wasn't on board.

A different MANager took the same approach.  Forecast accuracy.  How well did we do forecasting sales?  How much excess and obsolete inventory were we carrying because of over forecast?  How many times did we have unhappy customers because we underforecast and had no raw materials?  How many times did they have to wait longer than promised to get their goods?  A direct quote: We don't want to measure that stuff, it will make us look bad.

So THIS is why my efforts have not been as successful as they should have been.  It's not that managers weren't interested in improvement.  It's that the preliminary measurements "made them look bad."  We can't have THAT in the era of the quarterly layoff cycle, now can we? 

Heaven forbid we do the right thing just because it's the right thing to do.

I'm excited at the prospect of changing industries.  Not that a different industry is without it's own demons, but at least the healthcare industry is on record for wanting to improve processes and reduce costs.  Who knows, perhaps I'll have an opportunity to participate in some REAL, meaningful change.  Be a part of history.  For the better.