New toys!

I bought a new car!

Ahem...let me be honest. It's new to me. To the rest of the world it's a 2002 KIA Spectra with 55K miles and dark green paint.

Since my dearest has returned to work, she's been filling up the Grizzwold family SUV each week to the tune of around 80 bucks a tank. Your ol' pal Clark was eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches in order to afford the near $500 a month gas bill. Now, my dearest is driving my Dodge and I'm driving the KIA (or Speck as the kids call it).

Believe me folks, it's just basic transportation. Check out these pictures:
http://www.motortrend.com/cars/2002/kia/spectra/photos/index.html.

It has an engine, doors, wheels, glass, and a host of other features. However, it is lacking a radio, power windows, and power door locks. I miss those features a lot. But, it gets decent gas mileage (27 mpg in city commuting). I hope I made a good choice. So far, it has performed flawlessy.

Clark

I can't make this up folks....

Hey folks!

I am really not making any of this up. Really.

"She" is back and "she" is in charge of a project that I will have to work on. We are upgrading our IT Service Management product to the latest version and "she" has been put in as the Project Manager working for the PMO team. I kid you not.

This "person" is serving out a settlement of some kind or other and has a contract to not work on the same types of projects that I work on. Now we are working on the same project.

It looks like your ol' pal Clark is in for a rough summer.

Clark

Teamwork

I've spent a great deal of my career working with people. I must say that I've gotten along quite well. Except for "she", I can't recall too many people whom I would label "enemies". However, I'm struggling with the group of people where I work that don't seem to want to participate in the concept of "teamwork".

In general terms, being a member of a team means that there is a common goal. In most sports, the goal is to win the game, match, or tournament. Having been a coach I can tell you all that a single person who spells the word "team" with an "I" can really bring a team to its knees. It's really not that different in the IT world. When you are a consultant, contractor, or employee, we all get our goals from our leadership and we try to make the goals happen within a specific time frame.

Not so recently where I work. For some reason, some people on the team have decided not to cooperate. They have no professional ethic, they are disrespectful, and they have their own set of goals that aren't necessarily in line with the rest of the organizations. It's sad. I guess they are selfish and only have their own best interests at heart. But, if they participated in the team dynamic, they would be part of a larger success. Win as a team, lose as a team. It doesn't matter if you think you spell it with an "I", the team falls when those around it are marching to a different drum.

Clark

OCD threes

For those of you out there that have little children (or remember how it was when your big children were little) I'm sure you can remember "the terrible two's". Tantrums and crying and misbehavior...I'm still having nightmares about it. Well, my dearest and I have come to a conclusion that there is another life stage of the toddler: "the OCD Threes".

Our littlest obsesses over certain things to the point of absurdity. She has to close the door. She has to pour the ketchup. She has to set the plates on the table. It's to the point where I think the child needs therapy. If she doesn't get the response to "let me do it" there are tears and much gnashing of teeth. Anyone that's been through this with their children feel free to drop me a note. An especially juicy story get's an Honorary Grizzwold mention.

Clark

Final Chapter?

You'd think by now that everything would be back to normal regarding "she who's name will not be spoken" (heretofore referred to as "she"). I guess I was wrong. However, I think we may be at some sort of crossroads.

I can pretty much guarantee that "she" won't be going away. She's managed to leverage all of her friends from the government and land a job supporting some kind of IT project for the same division where I work. According to the folks in the know at my company, some sort of "settlement" was reached between my company and "she's" company and mine. From my position, it would have been nice to know the terms of the settlement. Regardless, she's been slithering around my area recently. I ran into her two times in the space of a week. I overheard someone say to her: "sometimes things happen for a reason". I'm sure that she was talking about her "ordeal". Lest we forget about the things that lead to her "dismissal", here they are:

1. Constant disagreements with other team members
2. Lack of communication with the team to the point where important information was not disseminated, resulting in embarassing situations and emails
3. Emotional ourbursts in public and private
4. Inappropriate social relationship between her and the client
5. Falsified credentials - she claims to have a PhD. However, the college from which she received this PhD. is a "diploma mill". While this didn't really contribute to her dismissal, it was more of the same kind of dis-information she touted as "real"
6. Refusal to accept the generous offer of a paid leave of absense from the company. This would have given her time to get her head together (something that I personally recommended to her)

There were a couple more, but those were the big ones.

I have to live in the environment where each time I run into her I'm reminded of the stress and turmoil she put me through (the nasty comments, emails, dirty looks). Perhaps your ol' pal Clark is a little paranoid? I personally think it sucks, but I have to stick it out in order to pay the bills, if you know what I mean.

Clark

Honorary Grizzwold

To the family who drove their sainted Grandmother to the great Northwest in their RV only to have the woman pass away on the trip: you are an Honorary Grizzwold family!

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_011408_news_grandmother_roadtrip.1fd45426.html
Reminds me of our trip to Wally World!

Clark

Nused car

My cousin (You remember my cousin, the one who visited at Christmas time in the RV?) had a car he was trying to unload. He had it checked out and everything. I looked at it myself and thought it was a pretty good car. The kids were even excited because it had a connector for their MP3 players!

Well, we worked out a deal that I would pay him in a couple months with the tax return I was getting. The car had a lot of miles on it, but my cousin took pretty good care of it. The car did great on the trip back home. I thought we were very lucky to find a decent car for not a lot of money.

Well, everything was good until I drove it to work. It did great on the way to work, but started acting funny on the drive home. It started missing under acceleration. Well, I stopped by my mechanic and he took a look at it. He thought it was either a spark plug problem or a distributor problem. I tried to leave with it, but it wouldn't start up. So I left it there. Long story short, what seemed like a great car was in need of about $1000 dollars worth of repairs. Not such a good deal. The mechanic was able to get it running right again

Thankfully, my cousin was cool with it and he decided to donate the car to charity...eventually. Right now it's sitting in my garage with a mostly flat tire. I hope I can get it inflated before the tow truck comes!

Clark

New job!

I'm proud to announce that my dearest Ellen is back to work full time!

Since money has been so tight, Ellen decided she would get a full time job and we would put the baby in child care full time. It was really weird...it took her three weeks to get her resume together and about three days to land this job. She is working at a call center for a pharmaceutical company. You know, the folks at the end of the 1-800 number on the back of the package? She loves it and she's making good money.

I'm very proud of her.

The kids have made the transition fairly well. We found a neighbor with a set of home-schooled kids that agreed to watch my 11 year old. The baby has even taken to the day care setting. It took a while and a great many tears, but she is almost completely transitioned. I have had kind of a harder time because I have to get up at about 5:30am in order to be able to leave work at around 4pm to make sure that I am home in time to pick up the baby from daycare. By Friday I'm pretty exhausted. I've also picked up all the dinner obligations. I really don't mind cooking, but the cleanup really stinks.

Happy Holiday!

Hi folks, it's your old pal Clark again.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas (or Hannukah...or Festivus...or whatever you do this time of year) and a safe New Year. This Christmas was just OK. Money was way tight, so we really had to cut way back on presents. Still, the kids had a blast.

I got the worst flu I've ever had the weekend after Christmas. I honestly thought I was having some awful headaches. My heart was racing, I was wicked hot or cold, depending upon my fever. I begged Ellen to take me to the doctor, but she kept telling me they wouldn't really do anything for me. So I suffered. I had horrible things coming out of both ends of my body. The worst of it was coming out the back end...if you know what I mean. I was sick for about a week. I couldn't stray far from a toilet for 5 days. Even after that, my digestion was affected for about another week after that. I really couldn't eat anything with any substance. I ate a lot of soup and pasta and drank a ton of water and soda. Ellen said she had never seen me so sick (I don't get sick much).

I did manage to wean myself off of diet soda while sick (and without the withdrawals too!) I was drinking so much water that there wasn't room for soda. Your ol' pal Clark used to drink 4 or 5 diet cola a day. That's a lot of caffeine. Now I drink (on the average) 1 diet cola a day. I drink tea or water the rest of the time and indulge on decaf diet sodas (not colas) the rest of the time. I've also gone back to making fruit smoothies and drinking juices. Not sure if this is going to lead to any kind of long term benefit, but I think I'm the better for it.

Clark

Playing catch-up

It's been a while since I've posted...the holiday seasons took a majority of my free time away. So what have you been doing since January 1 you ask? Slacking off, obviously.

Thanksgiving this year was pretty average as they go. We spent our day at my mother in laws eating and watching the games and then eating again. It was a nice time. Now after that, I lost part of my life to....Black Friday!!!

Yes, your ol' pal Clark camped out in front of my local Big Box electronic store in order to queue up for the possibility that a $200 laptop would be available for him to purchase. Problem was it was wicked cold and windy. I had layers of clothes on, camp chairs, and a cold weather sleeping bag. I started out at around 8pm. There were already a bunch of people in front of me. I bundled up and sat...and sat...and slept...and sat some more. A friend came by to check on me about 1am. I must have been quite amusing as they made a recording of me snoring on their cell phone and sent it to my wife! According to this friend, I was keeping people around me awake! Sorry!
It all worked out for me thankfully. I managed to get the laptop and survive the human ice box and onslaught at the 5am opening of the store. I hope that next year is different!

Clark

In true Grizzwold fashion

We had an extraordinary (and stressful) Grizzwold implosion recently.

Our youngest had been sick off and on over the past few days, so my dearest Ellen decided to take her to the Dr. I had been in a training class during the week, so I had finished that a bit early and started home when my love called me from the Grizzwold mobile in a panic. The baby (now 3) has pneumonia and has to go to the hospital. To add to the stress, she said the Grizzwold mobile was acting funny. The battery light on the dash had come on earlier in the day and now that it was nearly dark, the dash and headlights weren't working.

I found her in a close by neighborhood that was under construction. We swapped cars and managed to get to the hospital without incident. The battery was nearly dead according to the gauges, so I knew that it wouldn't be going anywhere after I shut it off.

Baby Grizzwold was admitted with bacterial pneumonia. She and her mom are there right now. She is getting better, but she hasn't kicked the fever yet. It got up to 103 yesterday at the pediatrician. Lots of love and prayers being sent her way.

clark.

You'd think I was making this up...

...but since there's already one writer's strike going on....ha!

In all seriousness, I have found out some interesting information about "she who's name will not be spoken" and her whackyness. It turns out that she was hired back on by a competing consulting firm on a contract WITH THE SAME GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION!!!

I also found out that she DID INDEED sign a non-compete clause in order to get her last two paychecks. Therefore, she is working on our job site illegally. Let the lawsuits begin!

On a side note, I also found out that the whacky wonder has a fruadulent PhD. HA!

clark

Hard to believe

Sorry its been so long between postings. Sometimes we get way too busy at the Grizzwold house.

It's been my suspicion all along and recently confirmed that my government clients have hired back the nut job that nearly cost me my sanity. I haven't confirmed where exactly she's working, but other people on our contract have seen her and I've heard her name mentioned in conversations outside my cubicle.

I fail to understand how someone like this could be hired back after the disaster she made of things.

clark

Another Chapter?

I guess that perhaps I had relaxed a bit too soon.

I noticed on two occasions that the government project manager was emailing (or had received email about) the wacky nutjob!

I suspect she's trying to get nutjob back to the office in some squirmy way.

I hope to hell not. She's contractually obligated to stay away from people in our company. Maybe she WANTS to get sued.

Ugh!

Clark

Finally...

I've survived!

The two week "transition" is over and I've now finished my first week as project manager. As a result, I've started drinking, smoking, and mainlining heroin!! (Just kidding, your ol' pal Clark's only vice is food and the internet).
In all seriousness, the past two weeks have been hell. The wacky wonder managed to get paid for doing very little. I tried to keep up with her hours, but she spent very little time around us. We got very little transition during that time, but we did have a nearly 5 hour meeting on her last day where she made up this "list of activities" which really told us a lot of the stuff that she kept hidden from us. The rest of the stuff was mere fluff designed to make the list seem long and to "scare" me.
I spent few moments along with "she who must remain nameless" but when I was, the nasty comments flew out of her mouth like vomit. She accused me of plotting against her to take her job (like I really wanted that in the first place). She told me that I could go on and report all of the nasty things she said because she would deny it anyway. And she finally suggested that I stop by the street corner where she planned to stand with a tin cup to collect change because she had no job (remember folks, our company offered her a paid "leave of absense" for several weeks so she could get her act together, but she burnt all the bridges and quit).
I couldn't have done this without all of the support of my company. I hope that it all works out in the end.

Clark

More changes

The saga of the workplace continues!
One of our team members, the other half of the fighting females, has been ordered off the contract. Fortunately, our CEO is smart enough to know a valued employee from a nut job, so she's been transferred to a new contract.
The whack job is allowed to stay on as a 1099 based contractor for a specific daily fee. I have to keep track of her hours and I've already made requests to have materials downloaded from her desktop computer.
The next two weeks should be very stressful...as if I need any more stress.

Clark

It's Not Over....

....until the psychopath sings!
Truly my friends, I am not making any of this up. In my last post, I told you that my crazy project manager had quit. Sadly, in the intervening days between the end of the week and the beginning, she managed to worm her way back in to the office.
I believe it to be the work of the government manager and her nearly illegal social relationship with this wacked out wonder. As a result, I have to endure an additional two weeks of suffering. While her resignation was officially accepted by my company, the government manager made it clear that she wanted the spaz to stay behind and "transition".
I fear that this woman will continue to make life difficult for us on the account, both during and after she leaves.

Clark

Out with the old and in with the new

After two weeks of Dante's flames, my micro-managing control freak of a project manager has burned her Kwai River bridge and quit. The company upper management tried to do right by her by giving her some paid leave to perhaps go off and clear her head, but she threw that back in their collective faces and was quite disrespectful. What's worse, she called the client manager (with whom she is VERY social outside of the office) and tried to undermine the whole team. The client manager called each of the members of the team to try and make some sense out of it all (a rare thing and usually something that will get an account cancelled), but that didn't lead to anything that would change what had already happened.
As a result, there were many late evening phone calls and meetings, a ton of added stress, and more than a few emails. The project manager has sent more than a few hate-emails, so I've blocked her from sending me email (at least to my work accounts). It's over now and the team has regrouped with the help of upper management. As a result of my level-headedness (not my words, upper managements) I've been named project manager.
I never intended to march up the corporate ladder in this fashion. I was quite content being a team member until the former project manager decided to make life too miserable. I haven't detailed all of the strife in my previous posts, but there's enough there to give you an idea. After all is said and done, I've managed to stay above water. Now all I have to do is sail the ship (and try to save face with the client).

Clark

My new job stinks

Well, its been nearly two months (since early May) on my new job and from what I can tell you, it is really stinking right now. It seems that I've walked into a real hornet's nest. Over the course of the months of June and nearly all of July, I've found out that one of my teammates and the project manager can't stand each other. I've also learned that the project manager is a micro-managing control freak that keeps information from the team so that she can be viewed as the only thing holding the project together.
The fact that my one teammate (a white female in her mid 40s) and the project manager (a black female in her mid 40s) can't stand each other was pretty much a forgone conclusion between them as I arrived on the scene. Over the time I was there it got pretty apparent and vocal between the two of them. I hated being in meetings with the two of them. The icy tones and the rigid body language made for tense and unproductive meetings. The project manager accused her rival (at one point, the white woman was being considered for the project manager position) of being a loose cannon and only doing what she felt was necessary. The teammate accused the project manager of purposely holding back information, talking poorly about her both behind her back and in front of her teammates, and yelling and screaming at her when they were alone or speaking on the phone.
The real problems started when the project managers lack of leadership started to affect my job. We were already pigeon-holed enough because the project manager required everyone to publish all their work through her before going to the client, but when it took days to get work reviewed, it started to become frustrating. When work was reviewed, the changes requested were more cosmetic than substantial. The other team member (a black male in his late 20s) privately made comments and then when he'd heard me make a comment, he called me in privately and agreed with them. Information was starting to be held back from me, information that would have made my job easier. One afternoon, the project manager started to talk to me privately about some really difficult private matters (matters that probably shouldn't have been disclosed). After listening to it all (and feeling pretty bad about feeling negative towards her) I suggested that she take a couple of weeks off to collect her personal life, reorder it, and relax. With all of what was going on at work and her personal disasters, I felt that it wouldn't hurt. I don't think she minded me making the suggestion, but a few days later when I asked her if she'd considered taking the time off she simply remarked "yes". I knew then that she'd never take time off because she was too much the control freak.
The last straw for me was when she embarrassed me in front of others by not telling me about some unwritten rules that I should have been told about before going into a meeting. What's worse, it happened twice in the same day! I finally complained to upper management (the white woman had been complaining for months, so now she had a compatriot) and they took things under advisement. We'll see what happens. I think that the client and other contracted employees are noticing, so I think our account here (and my job) are in jeopardy.

Clark

In true Grizzwold fashion

My dearest Ellen took my oldest daughter to one of her away tournaments this past weekend (June 23-24, 2007). The middle daughter came along for the ride. As is typical for the Grizzwold family, mayhem ensued.
During the prosecution of the tournament, the middle daughter decided to go back to the Grizzwold Family SUV for some much needed escaping from the heat. At some time during the hour or so period in which the middle child was in the car, some facets of the electrical system were used. When my dearest Ellen made it back to the vehicle to start it up, she was met with a whole bunch of NOTHING! It seemed that the battery had been stressed to the beyond its ability to start the vehicle. Several parents stepped up to help by removing some corrosion on the battery terminals with Coca-Cola and checking over the fuse boxes to see if perhaps a burned fuse was the problem. At the point where people were searching around for jumper cables, a man in a big pickup truck pulled into the empty parking space next to the Family SUV. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your battery dead?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck driver had a battery charger! Less than an hour later, the Grizzwold’s were up and running again.
The story does not end there. At the point where Mrs. Grizzwold entered the sports complex, she had more than enough gas to get back to the hotel where they were staying. It was a short ride, maybe 5 miles or so. As soon as she got the vehicle up and running, she decided to take it for a ride to charge the battery up and to refuel. Shockingly, the once ample fuel supply had been rendered to mere droplets! The computer display showed ZERO miles left in the tank, the needle on the dash was on “E”, and the “Low Fuel” light was on and blinking. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed on. She knew there was a gas station across the railroad tracks on the main highway leading to the sports complex. It was no more than a mile, she estimated. Surely she had enough to go a mile. Not this time. In true Grizzwold fashion, the truck ran out of gas on top of the railroad tracks! My dear Ellen was panicked as she expected that a train would be soon upon her, smashing the Family SUV to shrapnel. Being that she was in Southern Virginia at the time, another pickup truck pulled up behind her. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your truck out of gas?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck had several gallon sized gas containers on board. Fortunately, one of them had gas inside. The pickup truck driver was nice enough to give my dearest Ellen enough gas to get off the railroad tracks and proceed to the gas station.It’s puzzling how it was that the gas disappeared like that. The middle child had the keys to the vehicle, but claims only to have turned on the key to run the radio and turn on the lights (which explained away the battery situation). More than likely, there was less gas in the tank than there was and the computer did not accurately display the number of miles left in the tank: Garbage in, garbage out. In true Grizzwold fashion, she ended up no worse than from where she started.