It’s Friday afternoon, it must be time for a roundup

August 10, 2007 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Life, Religion, Sports, Work 

You may be wondering why I do these on Friday afternoons.  You see – my employer does something called Summer Hours between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  Employees who choose to take advantage of the program work an extra hour Monday through Thursday and go home at noon on Friday.

I do not choose to take advantage of Summer Hours, so the place is quiet on Friday afternoons.  I have time to write a little on break.

Work
I had a good conversation about career paths and discovery and discernment with my boss this week.  This is probably setting off alarm bells in most of your minds, but we have a really good rapport (we’ve worked together since about 1996) and I fully trust her to be discrete.  There are benefits to both sides in being open and honest with your boss, and we plan to make good use of them.  I can’t say more here.  I’m glad that it went well.

I had a medium-sized project go live today.  It was a bumpy installation – caused mainly by a consultant who doesn’t know our setup and change management package.  It’s not his fault – everybody has a hard time the first time.  Once we got the issues worked out all is running correctly.  I have another one going live soon, and a third larger project going live at the end of the month (with pieces continuing to be worked on into September).

I am getting a brand-new laptop at some point in the next few weeks.  They’re here, but I’m a low priority replacement (others have broken systems or are new employees working on “loaner” PCs).

Work has been generally busy.  In the last 2 weeks I’ve had an overwhelming number of problems, issues, and small requests.  It’s like everybody decided to hold them until the last week of July and then dump them all on me at once.  I think I’m through most of them, but the workload did increase for no apparent reason temporarily.

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This weekend is a bit active.  My parents are coming over on Saturday evening and we are headed out to see a Trenton Thunder baseball game.  The Thunder are the AA affiliates of the NY Yankees and have been playing in Trenton since 1994.  Our seats are behind the 1st base side dugout and I think they’re the 2nd row behind the dugout (or maybe the first row).

Then on Sunday I head up to Camp Johnsonburg for check-in for the last week of regular camp.  I’m going to be in charge of medical form paperwork this week due to my friend Jill’s vacation – she is usually the person doing the job.  It’s looking to be a bit warm.  I think there are lots of kids from my church going this week, but I’m so far away from the actual check-in tables that I probably won’t see them.  This isn’t my last visit for a long time – I’m also planning to attend the Youth Worker Training on September 7, and I’ll be chaperone when my church’s Sr. Highs attend the camp Sr. High Retreat in November.

Church
We’ve finally got the Welcome and Outreach Task Force started.  We have 8 members with 2 outstanding invitations.  For the month of August, we’re doing optional reading assignments on our topic.  I’m reading The Present Future:  Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal.  In September we’ll get everybody together face to face and really get started.

The Youth Director came all the way to Bristol for lunch earlier this week.  We talked about my career search and the upcoming Confirmation Class.  He had lots of good input on the career discussion.  For the Confirmation Class, he’s asking how he can get me involved without overbooking my time.  At this point it looks like I will end up being the Cat-Herder for the group of mentors assigned to the confirmands.  That’s an easy assignment – a bit of work up front but after that just keeping people on schedule and watching for problems.  I’m also probably going to teach a few lessons – probably polity and beyond that we’ll see.  I really want to be involved in this process because the youth that I know who are the right age are really great!

All other areas of my life are fine at the moment.

Have a good weekend!

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What’s Going On? Redux

July 13, 2007 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Life, Religion, Work 

It’s been a while since my last post, so I’ll give you another wrap-up.

This past Monday at work I experienced what might be a last-straw event.  As last-straw events tend to be, this was a little thing that pointed out a pattern that I had seen before.  The short version – I was helping a co-worker and a Vice-President work through an issue.  The Vice-President said some rude things and cut off discussion with an “I make the decisions, I don’t have to listen to ideas I don’t like” attitude.  I responded by starting to walk away, and then returned to finish the discussion when drawn back by my co-worker.  I was upset and talked to my direct supervisor about the situation.  I was even more hurt later during a conversation with my co-worker.  She stated rather vehemently that she didn’t want to get involved because you can’t take on a Vice-President and it would only end up hurting both of us.  I found this ironic because I have fairly recently gone WAY out of my way to help this co-worker.  I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to work in an environment where power and position bring the privilege of behaving badly towards lower-level people.  I also expect myself and others to speak truth rather than avoiding conflict.  I really don’t think I fit in here anymore.

A confession:  My birthday is coming up rapidly.  This will be a year ending in “9”.  I kinda wish that nobody would notice this year.  (THis is NOT a veiled attempt to drag birthday wishes out of my readers – it’s an emotional statement.)

Last Sunday I went back to camp to help out with check-in again.  As it turns out this was a good idea; there were about 230 kids to check in – nearly every unit between just short of capacity and just over capacity.  We ended up dividing the medical form job that I learned the previous week between three people and were able to hang on and keep up.  I was only there for a few hours – I went to church back at home first and then drove to camp.  I didn’t stay for dinner – it was 94 in the shade and all those bodies in the very full dining hall would be … ripe.  Camp must really mean something to me to get me to drive 3 hours round-trip to spend 4-5 hours working.
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I was scheduled to fly again tomorrow but the club canceled the flight – the plane I had booked needed a repair.  I just looked and another plane is scheduled to come out of maintenance just when I need it, so I don’t think I’ll chance scheduling that one.  I probably won’t get into the air this weekend, but that’s OK.  I have family stuff to do Sunday afternoon so Saturday I really need to spend the day on chores.

Job discernment continues.  I’m reading Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation right now.

That’s the roundup.  Lots going on in my head, but most people in my life wouldn’t notice.  The important people in my life do.

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What’s going on, Mark?

July 3, 2007 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Life, Religion, Work 

Just an update to say “I’m still here” and let you all know what’s going on.

I had a great time at camp last weekend.  The weather was perfect (low to mid 70’s, dry, blue sky with fluffy clouds) as Carolyn and I helped check in 12 units full of kids.  That’s a light week for Camp Johnsonburg, undoubtedly due to the holiday.  I was trained to do the medical form coordinator’s job.  This is a relatively new job for check-in.  Jill, a friend and fellow former camp alumni, made it her purpose in life last summer to organize the medical form process.  This has resulted in a significant reduction in chaos and an increase in making sure that medical information (particularly received prescriptions) is right and that the campers are safe.  She is going to be away one Sunday in August so I’ve been trained to cover that week.  I’m also going to write up the procedure for the camp because right now it’s all in Jill’s head.  I might go up to camp immediately after church this Sunday – they’re bringing in 20 units next week and they’ll really need the help.

I’m working every day this week except Wednesday – no long weekends when Independence Day falls on a Wednesday.  I might get out a few hours early today if management is willing.

I’m undergoing a career questioning process.  My job is frankly not challenging right now and there are other reasons that it is getting increasingly uncomfortable (very few having to do with me or politics – it’s more of a “do I want to be here?” issue).  I’m wondering whether or not it’s time for a career change rather than a job change.
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At one point about a month ago I thought that the ministry might be a career for me, but I’ve since decided against it.  I think it was a fit of overenthusiasm for church-related things in general due to lots of things at happening with me and church.  In talking with others about this idea, the reaction has ranged from shock/surprise to “Are you sure?”  That’s not really a rousing sign that I should be considering such a career.  I really don’t think I have the right personality as an introverted technical thinker who happens to care deeply about people.  I’m really a behind-the-scenes kind of person.

So now I’m trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  This might be a mid-life crisis (if you take my life expectancy at birth and divide by 2, you get something less than my age), or it might just be the start of a 2nd career.  Or maybe I’ll determine that I’m really supposed to be doing what I’m doing now.  I might even be at the right company.  Who knows.  What I do know is that when I work really hard at camp or at church it doesn’t feel like work.  That might be “a change is as good as a rest” or it might be my real vocation peeking out.  We’ll have to see.

And that’s the roundup for today.

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