ladynox25

The most important family event of the year, of course, was the March 11 earthquake & tsunami, that thankfully spared our loved ones in Yokohama.

Work-wise, I started the year teaching OChem labs at UTTyler. John was teaching Special Ed at GW Carver ES. Around March he got the word that his position would be eliminated due to budget cuts and tendered his resignation. In late April-early May I got the word that my contract would not be renewed. So, at the beginning of June, we were both without work and with a 2 year-old to support. Not good. Immediately we started pounding the electronic pavement, and the first weekend of August I flew to Charleston for a face-to-face interview that turned into a job offer. For a job that started orientation 6 days later!

Three weeks later, I was teaching at Ashley Hall, where Joanna was enrolled, our stuff had finally shown up at our new apartment, and John was about to start teaching Special Ed at North Charleston HS. Talk about a whirlwind! Since then, life has been nothing but busy.

Joanna has grown so much this year, especially developmentally. She is so articulate for a 2 1/2 year-old. Her teachers love her, and vice-versa. She can be exhausting and aggravating, and her tantrums are, well, tantrums, but most of the time she tries to act like a "big girl". I couldn't be prouder of her, especially after the last road trip we went on. We were originally supposed to drive 2 days from Charleston back to TX for Christmas, and then back home. We ended up taking a detour by way of Boston when we heard that John's grandmother's health is fading. So, instead of 4 days on the road, we ended up spending 7!

On that last note, it is pretty evident that Baba will probably not last too much longer, and I am very glad we got a chance to see her, and she got a chance to see Joanna.

My four New Year's Resolutions:

1) Help John through what is probably going to be Baba's last year
2) Stay at AH more than one year, so that I can (finally!) spend a year perfecting a course, rather than running full-pace to catch up
3) Potty train Joanna
4) Try to conceive Baby #2

Hubby: Home from school and ecstatically happy to be so.

Baby: Starting to stand on her own. Pointing at things and saying "Cha?" (Which I translate as "What's that?"). First official word: Dada. Generally getting into trouble whenever she can. 11 months old!!!! WTF?

Me: Interview today (4 pm) including 15 min mini-lesson. Working frantically.

Couldn't be happier.

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Edit: Update on the update:

Interview over. Thought it went well. Should hear from them by the end of the week.

So, July 2, I gave two weeks notice at Ana-Lab that I was resigning my job there.

Why, you ask? I'll tell you.

belle_canto was coming to visit over the July 4th weekend, arriving the morning of July 2. hoya99 and I needed to do the typical hostly thing and make a bed up, get the laundry washed, etc. on the day before, July 1. Which meant that I needed to leave work no later than 4 pm that day.

A little background seems to be in order, here. Two weeks previously, hoya99 and I were in Boston, visiting his family. I had spent the subsequent week catching up on piled-up work. Which included a large number of huge (100-200 page) organic raw data sets. Which I had almost completed as of Friday (June 27), when the computer connected to the scanner decided to break. Specifically, it refused to recognize the J: drive, which is the drive that the lab computer system looks at when it looks for data. I could scan all the data to the local C: drive for all the good it would do me; the data was not in the system unless it was on the J: drive. Which the computer would no longer recognize. I informed the person in charge of the computer system[1], whom I will call Z. Z acknowledged the problem, and said he would "take care of it". Of course this was fairly late on Friday, so I wasn't expecting miracles.

Monday came and went, and the computer was not fixed. Z had done something to it, because the old programs we used to "post" data from one drive to the other now no longer worked at all. However, the replacement program did not post the data to the J: drive either. It posted to the Z: drive. Which didn't do any good when the computer system was looking at the J: drive. So, it was still broken. Tuesday came and was going, with still no fix, when the company CEO, the big boss, whom I shall call B., walks into my office and tells me that a client wants a Level 4 data disc mailed to them today. Only it's not ready. Why isn't it ready? First of all, the person who burns the discs, T., is off on vacation and has been since last Thursday. She returns tomorrow. No problem, B. says, I will burn the disc, you make the file. However, one file cannot be made because the set hasn't been scanned yet. Why hasn't it been scanned? Because the aforementioned computer was not fixed. B. goes off to talk to Z.

3 pm rolls around, still no sign of anything being fixed. 3:30 comes and goes, still no fix. 3:45 approaches and I go talk to B. I say basically that if Z. fixes things before 4 pm I can go scan the data, make the file, no problem but that I have to leave at 4. I say that in that case, the other files are already made, here is the file path, here is the number of the set that needs scanning. I say that S. can scan the set, you can make the file, it won't take long, and you will have your disc to send to the client. I say I am sorry, I would stay any other day to make sure this got done but today I need to go. I explain why.

B. says "I will tell you what I expect. I expect you to stay until this is fixed."

I say, but this doesn't make sense. What if it's not fixed until 5? Midnight? Tomorrow? Next week? I ask, does he honestly expect me to sleep here every night until Z. fixes the computer?[2] B. repeats his statement and leaves. It is now sometime around 3:50. I go over to S.'s office, scan the file, run the (useless) posting program, which transfers everything to the Z: drive, whoopee, hand copy it to the J: drive, go back to my office, make the file, and leave a note on B.'s desk with the file path. Meanwhile, B.'s schmoozing with some science teachers that were supposed to come visit at 3 and have only now shown up.[3] I left around 4:10, and was still so upset when I got home that I was almost in tears.[4]

As we folded laundry, I unloaded the day's events on hoya99's patient ear. When I was done, he asked me if they were paying me enough to take this sort of thing. I said "No". Which resulted in him typing up three letters of resignation that night which I delivered the next morning.[5] Which resulted in my last day of work being July 15.

Of course, none of this could have been possible were it not for the fact that hoya99 received (and accepted) a job offer from a local public school to teach 2nd grade starting this fall. For which I am grateful. It is a very sad fact that most days, I liked my job at Ana-Lab. I liked most of the people and had some genuine friends there. The job was not very stressful, and occasionally fun. But B. spoiled the whole thing by being a hypocritical, petty, bullying, favoritist. If he had not been the CEO, I could have lived with his personality. But him being able to fire me for any reason or no reason at all[6] was just too much to live with.

And that's the story of that.

[1] And thus in charge of fixing said problem.
[2] In my experience, asking Z. to fix something generally means it will take several days once he starts working on it. And he usually will not start most things right away. He's also really good at not being around when he's needed.
[3] Not his fault they showed up late.
[4] There is a long involved story behind why I was so upset, which has to do with him threatening to fire me back in May for disagreeing with him in a conversation (which he started) about politics. But essentially, I was wondering if now he would in fact fire me and also upset that I got chewed out for something that I was not at fault over.[7]
[5] I had an eye appointment that morning and they were going to dilate my eyes, so I had taken the day off.
[6] Texas being an at-will employment state, there doesn't have to be a reason.
[7] I was also starting my period, which didn't help my mood.

I have had occasion, I believe, to comment about some of the interesting samples that sometimes appear at Ana-Lab. Well, today I saw what had to be the cutest looking samples that have ever come through login.

A half-dozen music boxes.

Yes, music boxes...of the sort you give to children[1]...decorated with elephants...and carousel horses...and ballet dancers...and bunny rabbits...and, somewhat incongruously, Betty Boop. Sent by a San Francisco importer to be tested for lead paint. (No doubt related to the current import crises with China...which is where these music boxes come from.) Which means that all that pretty paint is going to look not-so-pretty by the time the techs get through sampling and scraping. Ah well.

I wonder, though, what they're going to do with the mechanisms. Technically, all samples must be properly disposed of...but how on earth do you "properly dispose" of a music box? (Reminds me of the time some advocacy group sent in some frosting[2] samples to be tested for alcohol) Hmmm.....

Oh, and I heard that we're going to be getting more lead paint samples, possibly from this same importer; matchbox cars and other toys, etc. Should be interesting to see those come in.

[1] Usually, but not always, little girls.
[2] Yes, as in cake frosting. Boy did we have a lot of people volunteering to dispose of those samples. Alas, 'twas not to be.

As I may have said once or twice before, I work at an environmental analytical laboratory. Which means that our job, day in and day out, is to test the various kinds of samples we get for various kinds of things. In order to achieve the best, most reliable, most accurate results possible, most, if not all of the samples we get have to be preserved. The point of preservation is, of course, to retard growth, decay, degradation, or other change that might affect the sample's characteristics. Sample preservation comes in two forms, chemical and thermal.

Chemical preservation includes such things as acidification (for which we use either H2SO4 or HNO3, depending on the test), basification (NaOH), and other miscellaneous chemicals such as hexane and sodium thiosulfate (which is used to preserve bacteriological samples).

Thermal preservation is simple; every sample, whether chemically preserved or not, is supposed to be shipped to us on ice. In practice, of course, this doesn't always happen, especially when someone comes in the door with a sample in their hand, but in most cases, when a sample is shipped, it is shipped on ice. This lowers the temperature of the sample to approximately 4 C.[1] For some types of samples, such as BOD samples, this is the only preservation they get.

I heard today at work that one of our clients, apparently inspired by the "If a little is good, more must be better!" school of thought decided that if putting samples on ice at 4 C was good preservation, putting them on dry ice would do the job even better.

Think about that for a second.

When the sample cooler was opened in Login, the glass containers had shattered from the cold and the plastic containers were frozen solid. By the time they had warmed up enough to thaw, the samples were out of holding time for their tests. So now, the client has to resample everything.

[1] I should add here that once a sample gets to us, it is also stored at 4 C, either in the huge walk-in cooler or in a dedicated refrigerator.

Last night I dreamed that I went to work...

Stop sniggering, it's not *that* kind of dream. *wink*

I went to work and I found this piece of paper on my desk. It said that, due to increased volume, everyone was being assigned to different shifts, in order to spread the load out. Since there are only three people in the QC department, my shift was going to be 5 pm - 5 am (or something like that). Effective immediately.

Now, normally, I don't verify anything except for Micro tests, which are maybe 1/100th of the total volume of samples. Which meant that, in the next 24 hrs I would have to learn everything there was to know about verifying the *rest* of the tests that we do. Oh, and move my sleep schedule around, of course, because I would be working during the time I currently sleep. In 24 hours.

I remember thinking, "Hell, I *knew* this place was crazy, but now it's even crazier. What kind of crap is this? It's *impossible*." Or something to that effect.

Life has been so busy lately. What with working, and teaching, and grading, and all the things in between, I've hardly had time to keep up with everyone else's LJs, much less sit down and write in my own.

Let's see....news:

( Japan )
( exercise )
( teaching )
( car )
( last week )

So, to sum up: At the moment, things are okay. Could be a lot better, particularly on the financial side. The car repair I'm estimating to cost me a minimum of $600. I'm budgeting as much again for the trip. And a new computer system would probably be a minimum of $500. That's a significant chunk of my savings right there, especially all at once. Ouch! But I suppose it could be a lot worse.

A little note that probably matters very little to anyone but me:

Today was my first anniversary of being employed at Ana-Lab.

Considering that my first anniversary of being employed at Hydroseal was marked by the termination of my position, I feel what I hope is understandable relief that my day today was normal. Well, as normal as a day at Ana-Lab gets.[1]

When I first started, I hated my job, most of my coworkers, and my life in general. After battling my way back from a horrible, black, suicidal depression, I had finally surmounted it only to see myself stuck in a sort of quicksand. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to, professionally. I wasn't moving anywhere, at any speed, and I was profoundly frustrated and stressed thereby.

Today, not so much with the frustration. My job has become more varied and interesting, and I get to do some truly important (and even fun) work on rare occasions. I've found more and more of my coworkers that I like, and some are becoming good friends, in the go-to-lunch category.[2]

Most important, I can see where, if I wanted to stay at this job, I could go very far with it. Ana-Lab, for all their growth, is still very much a small company at heart, in all the best ways, and one of those is that if you put your time in and make the effort, you do get ahead. You get tenure. You go on.

I could conceivably spend the rest of my working life here, unless the company folds, which doesn't seem at all likely. And I think I would enjoy it, mostly. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that's not going to happen. But at least I get to enjoy the time I spend here.

[1] One of my coworkers put it best: "We're all crazy here. You have to be crazy to work here."
[2] Which, considering that I have no friends living closer than Dallas, is a big thing for me.

I slept hard last night so of course I woke up early. Like 5:20 am. And I knew if I tried to go back to sleep I'd oversleep so I got up instead. Which led me to being at work at 6:45. Which was a good thing. 9.5 hours. 'Nough said.

Ow.