A Little Rant

On Thursday we took our service users to the company Christmas party. I rode with my manager there. On the way we made small talk about things like my oven not working (their best idea is to get me a microwave that grills, etc. I don't want another microwave. I want my oven fixed. And Pascal wants a shower.), the rent on the volunteer flats not being paid since June 2002 (that's right, 3.5 years) and my CRB still not coming through. He also asked if I was homesick, and not having much of a buddy-buddy relationship with him, I shrugged and said that if I was home right now, I'd be taking my finals for the semester. He asked if I was taking a break from school, and I said no, I'd graduated in the spring. 'What did you study?' 'My degree is in sociology with minors in psychology and art.' To this he replies: 'Oh! If I had known that I would have been using you properly!' I decided not to let him off so easy by saying something like 'Well, now you do.' Instead I simply said 'It's all right there in my file.' He made some poor excuse about not having time or whatever. As I was only interested in getting to the party and getting done with it so I could be done for the night (I'd been working since 9 in the morning and with the party it was going to be a 12 hour day), I was neutral the entire time and didn't react in- for me- a normal way (read: mildly sarcastic, irritated, annoyed, etc.). Now here comes my little rant.

EO is new, so you do have to give him some patience when it comes to his disorganized, but after 8 months.... Anyway, Pascal and I have been there for 3.5 months now. And he hasn't even flicked through our files? C'mon! What is he thinking? I don't know about Pascal's, but mine has my original application to the YAGM program which clearly states in two different locations my degree. The deputy manager, JB, has even told him that I'm a sociology and psychology person. Apparently when I first came EO had been worried about my suitability to the placement because I was reading the residents' files- which I had been told do by JB- and wasn't doing anything. JB explained that sociology and psychology people study and read to get to know things before engaging. Or something to that effect. (By the way, I spent a week and a half reading through all those files, and I haven't found them to be in the least bit helpful.) Am I the only person to think there's something wrong with a manager who can't even take a few minutes to flick through a new employee's file before they start work? At the very least, within the first three and a half months?

And as my computer time is about up, there ends my little rant. Thank you for reading.

Newsletters

By the way...

I've now put my first three newsletters online. The fourth (December) should be out before Christmas. (For those of you not familiar with my habits of procrastination, that translates to after the new calender year.)

You can view them here:
http://kdrefke.tripod.com/id15.html

Happy New Year!

I'm a little late in this, but happy new liturgical year B. The church year begins the first Sunday of Advent (Sunday immediately after Thanksgiving). This weekend we celebrate the fourth and final week of Advent. And next Sunday is Christmas. I honestly don't know where the months of November and December have gone. They literally flew right past me. And yet, in some ways, September and October seem so far away.

I was on the bus Tuesday on my way to do last minute Christmas shopping for my family when I realized that I experienced 2005 in three very distinct chunks. Coincidentally enough, the three chunks are also roughly 4 months each. A brief overview:

Chunk one: January to May 5. My last semester as a college student. That whole time was spent stressing about classes and jobs, extracurricular, what I was going to do next, how obviously stupid I had been to take 20 credits my last semester when I only needed to take an art elective and SO408. I burned out.

Chunk two: Graduation to Orientation. After graduation weekend was over, most of my concerns were boredom related. I suddenly had no classes, no jobs, no extracurricular activities. What was I supposed to do with myself? I went crazy with boredom. I went to synod assembly for fun! [Now that's just sad.] Gradually, I found little things to occupy my time and I really did enjoy my 'summer of nothing.' I got to work at Vacation Bible School, go out with friends and not have to worry about homework or getting up early, I did a sort of internship collecting signatures against a proposed sulfide mine. And eventually (ok, the week before) I 'prepared' for what lay ahead: a residential home for adults with learning disabilities in Hackney.

Chunk three: Orientation to Now. August 22 my parents put me on a plane headed for Chicago (actually, they took me to the security line and then waited in Detroit until the plane took off about three hours later because of 'minor engineering problems'). Among their parting words were 'try the food in England,' like shepherds pie which has meat in it. Do my parents really think I'm going to forgo vegetarianism for the sake of trying more (presumably) bland British food? Anyway, after Chicago I came to London and have been here since working in Hackney and adjusting to coming from very white small towns in Michigan to a very big, very diverse city. There are at 30 different ethnic/nationalities in Hackney.

I'll expand on my chunky reflections later, but for now, the timer on the library computer is telling me that time is about up. Talk to you again soon!