mulling and ruminating

So, life has been kind of busy lately.  Shall we catch up?

I missed two days of work last week.  One day because my darlin' number one son was home sick.  And then a later day because I was sick.  Ugh.  It was short-lived but ugly, if you know what I mean.  A couple of emergency runs to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I hate that.  I can tell you this - I'm not touching those almond crackers I was eating earlier that day for a looooong time.  Yuck.

I recovered enough to join 100,000 or so of my closest protesting friends at the capitol for a little farmer-aided protesting last Saturday.  It was awesome.  Actually, it's sad how the proposed budget changes are going to affect the farmers too (did you know 1 in 7 farmers in WI have badgercare, our state's version of Medicaid?).  I mean, making cuts that hurt farmers of all people.  Those farmin' folks should get a pass for just about anything and not be so poor they have to have badgercare.  That is now going to get cut.  But I digress...  I'm not going to make this post all political.

I came home to recover from the tractor protest and planned to return, sans children, for the welcome home rally of the Wisconsin 14, but I felt too darn yucky still to venture out again.  And, although it was a beautiful sunny day, it was only 38 degrees out and windy.  We are hardcore here in Wisconsin, but it wasn't a comfortable day to be outside for hours - at least, not for me.  So, I watched it online here at home, bundled in a blanket.  Jesse Jackson offered a prayer at the beginning for the folks in Japan, which was quite moving.  I'm not a big prayer person (if you haven't picked up on that yet) - not that I have any problem with it, I just don't really know how to do it - but this one was very touching.  Of course, it didn't hurt that Jesse Jackson delivered it.  That guy could read from Green Eggs and Ham and it would be moving.  Oh wait, he did that, didn't he?  :)

Anyway, later that evening, we went to a friends' annual St. Patrick's day party.  I look forward to this party every year, so this year, a few weeks ago, I arranged for one of our little neighborhood teenagers to come over and sit the boys so we could go and whoop it up, kid-free.  Bob talked with another friend earlier in the week, and this friend said they were bringing their kids, so we should bring ours.  Against my wishes, Bob cancelled the sitter.  Turns out that it was probably an ok thing, as I was still feeling pretty punky and there was no whooping-up for me going on.  We came in, hung out for a couple of hours, and left.  Kids grumbled a bit about going (and I silently grumbled with them) but we saved a bunch on a babysitter, so I suppose that's something.  I had a fun time reconnecting with old work friends, which is always enjoyable.

The next day, I bought a new bike at the annual spring bike-o-rama sale.  (insert picture of pretty, green bike here - oh, I have yet to take a picture of it.  Well, here's a link - picture it in a lovely olive green.)  I absolutely lurve my new bike, and I've ridden it to work 2 days this week.  Love, love, LOVE the springtime weather we're having!

Something else happened that I'm not sure I want to blog about (ha!  how's that for being stinky!), so I'll just move right along...  Oh, fine.  I'll spill the beans.  I'm pregnant.  NO!  Kidding!  I'm not sure what came over me - I'm NOT pregnant, at least, I better not be.  I'm waaaaaaay too old to that again.

Anyway, back to it... well, briefly (ha! is anything I say brief?), I had a job interview with the department in which I previously worked.  Turns out it was for the exact position that I have the bulk of my professional experience doing.   When I left working at the county (because I was a new mama who couldn't bear the thought of putting my new babe in daycare while I worked taking other people's children away), I left in good standing with a good, I believe, reputation of being a hard, smart, compassionate worker.  At least, I think that's how they viewed me.  I mentioned to the main HR person that I was thinking about returning to work at the county.  She was excited and said she looked forward to my application.  OK, so I applied, scored high on the test-part, and was offered an interview.  I interviewed with a panel (one of whom, currently a manager, I trained when she was a new worker in my unit) and thought I did a good job.  I was, I hoped, the right balance of knowledgable yet funny, serious yet engaging.  You know, I worked the table a bit, and left planning on receiving a job offer.  Guess what?  They turned me down.  They offered a job to an intern.  An intern.  I am still in a bit of shock about it.  Turns out I had decided to turn them down (I didn't want a full time job there, since I knew it was more like a 45 or 50 hour/week job and that won't work well with my family), but they turned me down.  For an intern.

Talk about a blow to one's ego.

Since then, I have processed this with a bunch of people, and my collection of experts have concluded that the job was probably offered to the (gulp) intern because I made it quite clear in the interview that I was really interested in part-time and quite a bit less interested in full-time.  Since this is a full-time job, we decided they offered it to the person desiring full-time work.  The HR person was sweetly apologetic in her message on my voicemail at home, and she referenced this part-time/full-time dilemma and said my name would be on their list for the next 6 months, should another position become available.

My master plan was to receive a job offer from the county and somehow parlay that into a permanent job at my current employer.  I hadn't yet connected the dots yet on that plan, but I thought that if I had an offer, my current employer would scramble to keep me, since, you know, I'm so desirable and all that.  Since that plan went into the dumper the moment I didn't have my bird in the hand, I decided to let go of this pressure to get a permanent position and just be thankful I have a job that I like, that is the right amount of hours, that is within biking distance of my house, etc etc.

So, get this.  There kind of is a happy ending here.  In step one of my above-stated-not-well-thought-out plan, I had previously told my current boss (whom, coincidently, I met at the county when we worked together and whom I also trained when she was a new worker there), A, that I had this interview coming up.  Last night when I was leaving work, A asked me how the interview went and if I was leaving to work at the county.  I am an awful liar, especially on the spot, so I went with the truth.  I said, "nah, get this, they didn't offer it to me, they offered it to an INTERN of all people, I'm trying to be gracious about it but I'm really struggling, but turns out it's reminded me how thankful I am to have this opportunity here and how much I like working here" and bla bla bla.  A told me that, shortly after she returned from a brief out-of-state living arrangement after working at the county, she reapplied there and she didn't even score well enough to get an interview.  I said, "well, look at you now!" and meant it - she's a successful and respected manager at one of the largest, if not the largest, mental health clinic in the area.  Anyway, we segued into talking about the possibility of her being able to post a permanent opening for the job I'm doing now ("and I hope you apply!" she said - "that's the plan!" I responded) and I left feeling a bit better about myself.  If she didn't even get an interview, then I'm in good company being rejected.  I have a lot of respect for A.  And, sounds like she likes me too.  She added some sweet compliments she's heard about me, which helped boost my bruised ego.

So, this brings me to my point.  Ah!  My point!  A mere 12 paragraphs into this post and I'm getting to my point!  I do love a meandering story.

As I was mulling and ruminating and processing with many about the fact that they didn't offer me a job, I had a middle of the night revelation.  (Stephanie, funny you posted about this very topic today too)  I hate middle of the night revelations!  Anyway, I revelated that maybe I talk a bit too much about me.  Yes, I see the irony (I love irony!) in my a. having a blog, and b. posting perhaps the longest blog post in history in where I reveal that I think I talk too much about myself.  But, I think I do.  I mean, does anyone else really care that much that I didn't get a lousy job offer that I was going to turn down anyways?  No, and they shouldn't.  They have their own worries, their own blows to their ego, their own crap-in-life they are coping with.  Do I spend enough time listening to others?  Or is it all about me?

So, I am going to try a PDSA.  (I have no idea what those letters mean, but at work, when we want to try something new on a trial-run basis, we do a "PDSA" on it and check in after a few weeks to see how the new way is going.)  I'm going to talk less about myself and listen more.  Make it less about me and more about the other person.

Don't worry, faithful blog reader (s).  I will still come on here to blab and blab about my little life, but in interpersonal conversations, I'll try to zip it and listen more.  And on that note - zip!