Maiden, Mother, and Crone

I recently read a review for The Lightning Tree, a book by Emily Woof. The last sentence of the review said "...she succeeds in conveying the 'infinity of moments' that make up a lifetime."

Well, THAT scared the ever lovin' crap outta of me! I know it was meant to do otherwise. I realize the reviewer was reaching towards his/her best truth. In fact, it was a good sentence. However, I wonder if the concept of "a lifetime" is flexible, depending on your age?

I am going to tell you my theory on all this and (be forewarned) I will generalize like crazy. None of it will be new or insightful. Like on Battlestar Galactica, this has all happened before and it will happen again. Here goes.

When you are young a lifetime seems mostly ahead of you. The idea of building a life is formidable, but also exciting. I like to think time is meant to be filled with joy and wonder. The young still seem to know that. Youth is about hope, anticipation, and energy. You learn about yourself and so much more. If the young tend to romanticize the future, it is their right. Youth is a dangerous, wonderful, adventurous stage.

Middle age is when you might consider your accomplishments and bask in your strength, or vice versa. You've probably had your ass kicked a time or two. In middle age people are a bit more savvy. A lifetime is no longer an idea, it has become a concrete reality. Middle age is when you finally figure out the mechanics, the process of living a life. At this point a person is usually sustained by responsibilities, duties, and love. Middle aged people are busy, busy, busy. It can be a stable, fulfilling time in a life. 

Older people know they are living on borrowed time. They realize there is an end to all this. If you are lucky enough to retire you eventually find yourself freed from routine distractions. Old age can be messy, fraught with physical limitations, health issues, money worries, and unresolved fears. Oh yeah, and sometimes you leak. However, your time is your own.

I am not really "old" yet, but I am no longer middle aged by any stretch of the imagination. As I age, I begin to think old age has more in common with youth than with middle age because time has that lovely transcendent quality I was too busy to notice in middle age. Now I have time, once again, to experience the moment with eyes wide open. Old age is a glorious and terrifying time of life. It depends on the person to balance that conflict. It is a struggle, I'll tell you that.

So when I read a sentence like "...she succeeds in conveying 'the infinity of moments' that make up a lifetime" I am not thinking, "Oh isn't that a beautiful thought?" Nor am I thinking "Hmmm, I'll have to remember that one when I have a few moments to reflect."  I am thinking "Holy Shit! A lifetime has a lot of moments to live through, but they are definitely not infinite."  

Yep, winter is coming.

Time for Medicare

Holy Shit! Both T and I will turn 65 soon and we must sign up for Medicare.  Are you one of those people who always thought you paid into Medicare with every paycheck so that health care would be free when you got old?  Wrong.

We retired at 62 with The University’s fabulous health insurance plan. We were lucky to have that policy. We paid a reasonable monthly premium and, if we got sick, we could go to the doctor without breaking the bank. In addition to the reasonable premiums, there was a low co-pay and no deductible.

We’ll be kicked off the fabulous plan when we turn 65. The University requires Medicare-eligible retirees to switch to their less desirable 80/20 Insurance for Retirees as a secondary policy to cover what Medicare doesn't.

1.     MEDICARE AS PRIMARY INSURANCE

What is Medicare?

a.     Part A is “free” in that we spent our entire working lives paying into this fund. However, it is pretty much only for hospital bills.

b.     Part B is for routine medical services (e.g., doctor bills). You have to pay for Part B, so it is optional; however, you’d have to be wealthy, foolish, or poor enough to qualify for Medicaid not to buy into this program. After paying out of pocket for the annual deductible ($166), Part B pays 80% of covered costs.

For most oldsters the Part B premium is $104/month. Since we both turn 65 and sign up for Medicare in the fateful year of 2016 (when there was no Social Security increase) we are instead stuck paying $125/month (each). Don’t ask me to explain why. I don’t understand and I don’t really want to think about it overmuch. I have anger management issues. It is better for everyone if I think of it as simple bad luck.

c.      Part C is an optional “Advantage” program you can pay a private insurer for if you choose.  It then replaces Medicare Parts A and B (and sometimes D) and becomes kind of a super HMO, with similar restrictions on doctor choice. We are not HMO fans so we will not be opting for this.

d.     Part D is the government’s prescription drug program. You can choose to pay monthly for this if you want a prescription drug plan, which is not covered in Parts A or B. In addition to monthly payments, there are co-pays. Luckily, we will not need Part D because The University 80/20 Insurance Plan for Retirees has a decent prescription drug coverage. 

2.     SUPPLEMENTAL INSURANCE

Like I said above, our current fabulous University health insurance terminates when we turn 65.  Boo freakin’ hoo!  The University’s “80/20 Insurance for Retirees” will become our secondary health insurance. It requires a slightly lower monthly premium payment than the fabulous policy, but requires a yearly deductible before it will start paying 80% of the 20% Medicare does not pay. Yes, this is confusing, its not just you.

First there is the 80/20 primary Medicare Part B coverage (after their deductible is met), then 80/20 secondary supplemental coverage (after that deductible is met). I don’t know about you, but thinking in terms of repeating percentages  gives me a headache.

Here is the bottom line: When we 1. sign up for Medicare Parts A and B, and 2. switch to The University's 80/20 Insurance for Retirees we will pay $4,044/year more for health care for the two of us than we used to pay for the fabulous plan. And this does not include co-pays.  Ouch!

I wake up in the middle of the night trying to wrap my mind around this. However, I know it could be worse - we could be a struggling young family with obscenely high monthly health insurance premiums! I feel for them.

We are some of the lucky ones.  We knew this was coming and we will figure it out. We roll with the punches pretty well. We will just have to spend less on other things...

I understand why medical insurance becomes more expensive as one gets older, but I am not sure why it becomes more complicated. I had more brain cells to figure these things out when I was younger.

A brain cell image from the internet! Isn't she gorgeous?
medicalpicturesinfo.com430 × 323

Buddy the Cat

My shingles are almost gone.  However, when it rains it pours.

Buddy, our cat, died the other day. Although he had been really, really ill for a few days and was staying at the vet’s to be rehydrated and treated, it was still unexpected. Death always is for me. It catches me off guard every damn time and never fails to piss me off.

He was his sweet old self one night, begging for treats, waiting for us to get in bed, hissing and growling if T dared to put his arm outside the covers, etc. The next morning he was seriously ill, lying under our bed with the look of death about him. Even with our vet’s best efforts, he never rebounded. Based on his symptoms, it could have been any number of causes.

The night after he died I had a dream about change. First I dreamed I saw his dead body. Then suddenly Buddy the Cat was alive again and with my Mom, his original owner. We took him in 2008 when she went into assisted living where they did not allow pets. I remember we had to pull him out from under her bed and he clawed T’s arm open. Buddy was always a bit anxious and neurotic, as I am. We shared the same mother.

Then, in my dream of change, I was suddenly in my old workplace. There was no one there I knew. All had changed. All was different. I was alone and it was disconcerting. And like dreams always are, I remembered that dreams are about the dreamer. This was a message to me from my self. I had to think about it hard.

Change has always been a trigger for me. Even if I try to ignore my fear of change, my discomfort with loss, they are always there. They do not go away from refusing to feel. I know, I've tried.

Unresolved emotional themes have a life of their own. They come back to haunt us, to try and get our attention in the form of nameless anxiety, depression, and also in archetypal dream figures.

It is odd, this particular fear, since change is the stuff of life. Do we all ultimately fight the same fight? Is it the nature of being human to fear change?  Do I have to become a "*&!@#" zen master to achieve some peace of mind? 'Cause I don't think I have the stamina for it and I certainly do not have the attention span. 

Our lost boy, Buddy the Cat, on our deck in NYS overlooking one of our equally lost perennial beds

At last!

I did some serious gardening this morning.  Now my lower back is killing me.  I need to bounce back fairly quick, as there is still a lot of digging and planting I need to do.

Last August I wrote, rather pathetically, about the Louisiana irises I planted in a wet area. I have been desperate for color in our small back yard for almost two years. I know most Central Florida people plant hibiscus and crepe myrtle to satisfy their color needs. We have both, but apparently I am a bit of a glutton because they are not enough. I want flowers, dammit! 

The rainy season (aka summer) is really hard on flowers down here, so I have been trying to plant things in the wet areas of our small yard that will survive both the mercilessly hot summer deluge and the drought that torments all growing things for the remaining 8 or 9 months of the year. I am happy to report that the first of the irises started blooming this week. They are fabulous! I will try to name them for those of you who lust after flowers like I do.  I believe this one is called Spicy Cajun Louisiana Iris:

I have also inexplicably fallen in love with canna lilies. There were some red ones in front of the house when we moved in and I just didn't like them. I'm no spring chicken and moving to such a drastically different climate was hard for me.  And when I say hard, I mean mentally hard. I was a huge sulking brat about the whole gardening thing. I thought I needed something familiar. Now I realize I just need something colorful, some flowers for crying out loud. Is that too much to ask? 

I missed the many varieties of flowers that can only be grown up north and resented the cannas for not being day lilies. Does that make me a bad person? Probably not.

Well, all I needed was more time to adjust and a few victories, because now I am in love with these crazy cannas.  I planted a few varieties last summer and they are starting to take off and bloom this year. They are slightly deranged flowers, always a bit out of control. I have discovered that is part of their charm. Each variety seems to have a slightly different personality, yet they are all stark raving mad. In a good way.

The next two are Cleopatra dwarf canna lilies in various stages of bloom.  They are not really all that dwarf: 

 













 

The next one is my favorite.  It is a Louise Cotton dwarf canna, and the color just knocks me out.

And here is a repost of that red canna out front that I didn't used to like.  I don't know what kind it is.  Now I love it.  What a difference a year can make.

And here is a precious flower from the past, Etta James singing "At Last."

  

Through the glass, darkly

An old comrade-at-arms is retiring on Tax Day (April 15) and I have been busy this week putting together a photo album to honor his many years as a manager at the university. We served together on scads of college committees, tried to organize the other university academic unit managers into a cohesive group at least twice, challenged authority as if we were Jedi Knights, and generally tried to make things better. It was fun going through old pictures and thinking about those days. 

I was always a fiend for pictures. I feverishly documented every job-related person, place, and thing. I was the one taking photos instead of socializing at parties. I organized my photos in a variety of ways. I know everyone's names dating back a million years not because I have a good memory, but because I wrote it on the back of a photo, or named the e-photo with the person's name. I am also the go-to person when someone dies or retires and a photo board needs to be created. And yes, everything is dated. A fiend, I tell you...

I suppose I spent all that time taking pictures to distract myself. Back then I was all about doing and not a bit about feeling. Staging and taking pictures was the perfect means to avoid my internal life. With camera in hand you experience the moment externally, through a lens. I was capturing the moment and saving it for later, when I would have the time and energy to feel deeply.

Looking at all the old pictures of co-workers, campus buildings, off-campus eating establishments, parking lots, and walkways this past week was also bittersweet. Although it was fun, it has been a little painful. I am surprised.

I wonder, why? Why would I be surprised?  

 

Part II: Supervising a difficult person

As I said in Part I, I don't think you can change other people unless they want to be changed. In Part I, I made that statement as a co-worker; now in Part II, I am speaking as an ex-supervisor. I confess. I am a recovering supervisor. Ick.

Supervising a difficult and problematic employee is a little different than working alongside one. No better or worse, just a little different.

Handling performance issues and promoting group harmony is a big part of a supervisor's job. People who only want to be a supervisor for the prestige, power, or the extra money should think again. Supervising is a job you cannot do well if you are conflict averse, a people pleaser, give a shit if someone hates you, or (especially) if you don't want to work hard at unpleasant tasks.

It helps if you care strongly about people, policies, and organizations. A blogger named The Cranky commented on Part I of this 2-part post, telling a great story about how, as a supervisor, she eventually had an impact on a young employee and made a real difference in that person's life. It is a good example of the difference between working with someone you have no control over versus supervising someone. As supervisor you cannot just step away and avoid the person. You are supposed to try and change them...

The thing is, there are plenty of people who may not be particularly like-able or sociable, but they mind their own business and do a good job. Some of my favorite employees had difficult or prickly personalities. However, working with a difficult person who also has performance issues makes everyone's work-life a long, slow, super-annoying nightmare.

Contrary to popular opinion, in a large, progressive organization you can only fire someone on the spot if they do something sufficiently egregious, like being seriously insubordinate, or threatening another co-worker with bodily harm.

Firing someone who does substandard work, or falls sleeps at their desk every damn day, or consistently disrespects customers and/or other employees requires a long, excruciating process Human Resources likes to refer to as a "progressive disciplinary action." Let's call that a PDA, even though it is nothing like "public displays of affection." It involves months of mentoring, monitoring, documenting, and agonizing. You may not realize this but supervisors hate implementing progressive discipline as much as employees hate receiving it. True story.

The ex-union organizer in me strongly approves of a PDA. It's a pain in the you-know-what and it seems like sheer torture for everyone involved, but there is a point to it. Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone should have the time and opportunity to turn their performance issues around so they can avoid getting sacked.

Because supervisors have more power in the workplace, they SHOULD be required to prove an employee deserves to be fired. Otherwise we would definitely fire people who don't laugh at our jokes, or who wear too much perfume. You know who you are.

In doing performance evaluations for employees over a period of about ten million years, I discovered you can be stunningly straightforward and honest with most people if you are respectful. Sounds New Agey, I know. It often worked if I could muster up the emotional intelligence to pull it off. Now there's a big, fat IF.

Unfortunately, I am also an imperfect employee AND a hothead, so I wasn't always successful at getting people to change. However, it was satisfying when I could, and a supervisor can promote positive change more often than you might think. I am not kidding when I say there is nothing better than helping someone achieve their goals. Most people want to do a good job. If you are clear about expectations, people usually respond accordingly. Still, there is always at least one employee with performance "issues." If that employee also happens to be a difficult person, things can get complicated.

I always felt like a failure if a problem employee didn't improve their performance or change their attitude. I am still not sure if this is true or fair, but I always had the notion that I could make a difference if I could just do or say the right thing.

The right thing? As a co-worker I think doing the right thing really IS to accept there are some things I cannot change, avoid difficult people like the plague, and get on with my life. As a supervisor I had fewer choices.

When someone is doing a bad job or driving everyone out the door with their negative and/or condescending attitude, it is the supervisor's job to pull that employee into their office and find an effective way to tell the employee to cut it out. More often than not a difficult person doesn't think they are doing anything wrong. Sigh. AND, if your best efforts have no discernible effect you can be quite sure the other employees are bitching about you behind your back for not addressing the problem. Like the cheese from the Farmer in the Dell, the supervisor stands alone.

And then you can start a progressive disciplinary action.

And oh yeah, sometimes it is your supervisor who is the difficult person and a monumental slack ass. Good luck with that one.

I am happy to be retired and done with all that.

Part I: Working with a difficult person

As the saying goes, "One bad apple spoils the bunch."

A fellow blogger published a thoughtful post about the negative effect one difficult co-worker can have on a group. More to the point, she also talked about compassion. I was inspired to write.  Here is a link you to her post. P.S., she is a much better person than me.

It is nearly impossible to develop a mutually supportive team when there is one co-worker thinking only about themselves. We've all been there. You know the type. Certain people make me want to throw up when they walk into a room. My stomach tightens, my thoughts constrict, and my posture instantly shifts into fighting stance. What we sometimes lose sight of is that those people behave badly because they are unhappy. Unless, of course, they are psychopaths, but that is another post...

I think back on my experiences in the workplace and I don't believe we can affect change in another person unless they want to be changed. So, maybe the kindest way to deal with a difficult co-worker is to detach?  Easier said than done, but a worthy goal.

Maybe you don't want to be kind to a difficult co-worker? I understand. Some people are really begging for a slapdown. Still, a negative reaction to a negative action IS a double negative. That can't be good, and although everyone else in the office would cheer you on if you want to kick the difficult co-worker's ass, Human Resources won't. Can't.  And then your supervisor will have to haul you into her office to give you hell even though she was secretly cheering you on, too.

It seems like we do ourselves AND that difficult co-worker no favor if we allow them to drag us down into that miserable snake pit for troubled souls. Been there, done that. If we allow other people to change us for the worse then we are complicit in their bad behavior.

So maybe my sweet Momma was right when she said it was usually best to walk away from a fight?  Why am I only listening to her advice now, when I am 64 years old and she has been dead for a year and a day? I wish I knew.

For what it is worth, I say let the negativity stay with the difficult co-worker. Detach, with compassion if you possibly can. There is always a reason someone is "difficult." Hey, it might make you smarter trying to figure it out. But the next time s/he complains about how much she hates her job, her boss, or the company she works for, be a pal and encourage her to find a different job. Then everyone wins.

Next:  Part II, Supervising a difficult co-worker

Cruel to be kind, in the right measure

Although there can still be the odd day in the mid-50's (Fahrenheit...), now there are an increasing number of days in Central Florida when the temperature hits the mid-70's. The deciduous trees remain stark and bare; no sign of leafing out yet, but it won't be long. Spring is definitely on its way.

The crepe myrtles in the neighborhood have been cropped cruelly hard, looking like massive sticks. They look terrible right now, but it had to be done. Proper pruning promotes new growth and keeps plants full and lush.

Crepe myrtle waiting for spring, and some azaleas beating them to the punch.
Those are live oaks in the background, they are called that because they don't lose their leaves in the winter.

When it comes to gardening, you have to be cruel to be kind, as the man sang back in 1979.

Once again it is time to work outside, pruning, moving, dividing, and planting. That is exactly what I have been doing all week. It feels good to be outside digging in the dirt again, knowing good times are ahead. Any minute there will be a surge of life and all those gnarly twigs and massive sticks will wake up, bursting open and showing us what they can do.

I have been looking forward to this gardening season. We are less Upstate New Yorkers and more Central Floridians now. It is human nature to acclimate over time. It happens if you live someplace long enough, even if you stubbornly don't want to change.

I have a better appreciation for this place and some idea of what will grow here. More to the point, I know what will NOT grow here. I learned the hard way. I guess I have been pruned back hard, too. I am anxious to see what I can do, once spring brings me back to life.

And yes, that is the fabulous Carlene Carter who married Nick Lowe in this video. 

Ch-ch-changes

I have been thinking about how different office work was when I started my first "real" job, as a secretary, in 1976.

We still used mimeograph machines and/or carbon paper to generate paper copies.  Photocopiers were just being introduced but they were still too expensive for most offices.

I used a massive IBM Selectric II typewriter. Thankfully, I was not in the workforce before electronic typewriters. I was never coordinated enough to type on those old manual cross-bar typewriters with any speed or accuracy, although I did have one at home. 

I worked in an academic office at a university and most of the faculty did not know how to type. That was the norm. Faculty members wrote papers and letters in longhand and brought their notes to secretaries to type. The handwritten text was often a mess, with corrections, arrows moving paragraphs around, additional text written on separate pieces of paper to be inserted elsewhere, coffee stains, etc. In my mid-20's, with few marketable skills and no office experience, I was hired for my first job because I was the only job candidate who could read the professor's handwriting. 

In 1976 I did not mind being called a “secretary.” If someone tried to refer to me back then as an “office professional” I would have laughed, thinking they were trying to patronize me. And the title "administrative assistant" would have sounded like a demotion. Now office workers bristle if you refer to them as a secretary. It is interesting how the job title "secretary" diminished in status over the years.

In the late 1970’s I started doing research fund accounting. All my account ledgers were done in pen and ink. I used red and black pens, and I had my favorite brands. I remember it was a great pleasure putting pen to paper.

I spent my days recording columns of data by hand and then adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing on my electronic calculator, an essential and well-loved machine that took up a good part of my desk. It was big and white and looked like you could jump in and drive it away. 

Cutting and pasting was actually that, except we used tape instead of paste. I imagine there was a time when paste was used, but not in my life time. I cut typed excerpts and pieced them together on a plain white sheet of paper. I took great care to fit and tape the pieces together so they looked like they had been typed to look that way.

If you made a typing mistake you used a covering liquid like "White-Out." That was a little tricky when using carbon paper, but we managed.  If it looked bad you simply started over again. We were touch typists; we were very fast.  Retyping a page did not seem like a big deal.

Before computers we communicated via paper or telephone. If you wanted to tell an individual something you picked up the telephone and called them. There were no answering machines, so you had to keep trying to catch the person at their desk through an elaborate game of telephone tag.

Communicating with large groups was labor intensive. We made copies of a memo to place in each faculty/staff/student mailbox. If you worked in the central administration you made copies, addressed and stuffed a zillion envelopes, and sent them in mass mailings via campus or USPS mail.

In the early 1980's IBM Displaywriters replaced electric typewriters. They were word processors that allowed typists to digitally view a certain amount of text and correct errors before printing the page. Displaywriters also included a mail merge ability. It is hard to imagine how revolutionary these functions were. I was doing accounting then, so I did not get a Displaywriter. I remember being jealous of the office staff who did. Not to worry! Personal computers and spreadsheet software were just around the corner.

About 1985, personal computers were introduced and everything changed dramatically. Suddenly work became fun. At first not everyone had one on their desk. Instead, you went to the computer room to use a shared computer. There was a sign-up sheet and you signed up for a time slot to use a computer.

Computers did not yet have hard drives storing software or files. You inserted a “systems disk” to start the software from, and you saved your files on a separate floppy disk. I remember becoming confused at first and accidentally erased the software system disk. It was an embarrassing mistake. I quickly learned to pay closer attention.

I distinctly remember when email was introduced soon after computers. Suddenly you could communicate quickly and effectively without wasting time. However, at first you could not count on someone checking their email messages every day. 

I am out of the workforce now, but I wonder what changes the next 40 years will bring?  With future advancements in Artificial Intelligence I wonder if there will even be a need for human office workers in the future?  That is a sobering thought.

IBM Selectric Typewriter

Bon Voyage!

When you work for a large organization you are expected to fit in. After a number of years of putting on your game face every workday morning you become accustomed to being less of an individual. It starts to feel normal being one of many, of being part of a team. Individuality can be problematic in the workplace. Sometimes I felt being "professional" actually meant being generic.

It took a while, but eventually I surrendered to my place in the larger scheme of things. I settled into a job skill that seemed creative to me.  I made it work.

I am not complaining. I enjoyed working and I was happy to be part of something bigger than myself. However, I am relieved to be done with that part of my life. I enjoy being retired. I can finally be myself everyday, all the time. That is a big change from being a worker bee.

I love the character “Seven of Nine” from Star Trek’s Voyager. Voyager ran for 7 seasons, but the first three were a bit clunky. Seven of Nine was introduced in season 4, and absolutely "made" the series from then on.

As a young child she and her human family had been forcibly and physically assimilated into the Borg, an alien cybernetic society representing the ultimate workforce collective: The Hive Mind.

The Borg Collective organized their technologically enhanced workforce into teams of 9 "drones." Borg do not have individuality or names, but her team designation was Seven of Nine. Eventually the all-too-human crew of the Starship Voyager captured her and liberated her from the collective.

Before liberation she was the perfect employee, absolutely without individual will or personal reflection. The Borg Collective was a monster of efficiency! The post-liberation Seven of Nine struggled to rediscover what it meant to be human, what it meant to think or act as an individual. Seven did not always approve of the lack of efficiency that arose when one acted alone, but she was intrigued by humanity. She thought she would give individuality a try.

A dear friend of mine retired last Friday. Yesterday was the first scheduled workday she did not get up and go to work outside her home. I just asked her how she was doing and she said she felt "undefined."  That is the perfect word to describe the early days/months/years of retirement: undefined.  After years of being part of a complex collective effort what are we when we stand alone?

If her experience of retirement is like mine, it will seem like vacation for a while. Retirement isn't a vacation, though. There is still work to be done. You need to redefine yourself, not as part of an organization but as an individual.

An look inside the Apollo 14 Command Module at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida