I think part of the problem is I only sort of understand my role myself. I mean, I've been here since June. I had two days of overlap with the guy I replaced, and then I just kinda jumped in and did what needed to be done. I never saw it as some kind of larger mission than just keeping the bureaucracy at bay so the chaplains can do their job. And I don't really WANT a larger mission. Really, was completely busy and a bit backlogged already. I'm just not sure how to describe my role, because it's just doing what needs to be done, and there are always different questions and needs flying at me from one direction or another.

I'm just not sure how to describe my role, because it's just doing what needs to be done, and there are always different questions and needs flying at me from one direction or another.

This is a perfectly valid and honest description.

t, We have something like this QiGong Massager. It has a vibrational thumping that stimulates the tissues for repair. Works like gang-busters too, in my experience.

Ooh, interesting. Thanks, d!

Ooh I get an official certificate of completion. It says I completed 2.5 hours of training when it was actually 2:05.

edit: and I wasn't wearing pants

I remember being in monterey when the fog rolled in. I was like "should we call the fire dept?" & my step sisters was like "why" "where is all this smoke coming from?" she laughed and laughed. Once I knew it was fog, quite amazing. Mind you i was about 12 or so.

OK, I've had lunch and feel a bit better. I emailed our Assoc. Director who was the Acting Director and therefore my boss when I was hired, and if she can squeeze me into her schedule, I'm going to ask her advice on how to deal with this in a productive way.

One thing I'm going to try to communicate is the fact I feel like I'm already overloaded. I may be able to take on more in another 6 months, but right now I'm still learning the ropes and often have to spend more time researching where to GET information than actually getting and processing it. So I feel like I need some space to consolidate what I'm already working on before taking on anything else. Only that's very hard for me to say, because it feels like admitting weakness and maybe she'll think I'm not up for the job and all that stuff.

I also think she needs to understand that I can offer a 40-hour work week, and that because I'm smart and quick I can do a lot in 40 hours (at least, once I get past the reinventing-the-wheel phase of the job), but that's all I can offer. I have a daycare pickup to make, so quittin' time is quittin' time, period. The second part of that, which I think everyone else gets because we talked about my writing during my interview process, is that I'm a bit different from the chaplains in that this is their profession, but it's just my job. I'll do it to the best of my ability, because I was raised to believe in commitment and duty and all that stuff, but I want the space to treat it as a job. One thing that's been bugging me about her is that I feel like she's trying to make me enthusiastic and rah-rah about bureaucracy and budgets. ("But you're an INTJ, Susan! You're supposed to love budgets! Budgets mean people and programs!") I'd much rather be left alone to be a little cynical with a side of gallows humor. Everyone else on the staff seems to like me that way!

Oooh. Now I want a Qi Gong massager! And go you, d, with the three miles and feeling great. That's wonderful.

Hey, was it omnis who waaaay up thread recommended okCupid? If so, big kudos to him...if not, omnis, take a bite and please pass the kudos to the appropriate party.

I put up a profile that I quite (withaven) like and, in 1 day have gotten more good responses than eharmony, soulgeek, greensingles and match combined.

Lest it look like I'm mounting a blitz, eharmony was years ago (bad experience), soulgeek was a lark...and I like supporting them, greensingles was recced by a good friend who met his new wife there, but I had no luck and match was a total bust.

okCupid just 'feels' better and, as reported, pretty good results.

Including a absolutely lovely couple looking for the last leg of a triad marriage. No thanks, but I'm flattered.

Oh dear, Susan, my BigBoss appears to have cloned herself and moved to Seattle. I'm so sorry. (I'm not entirely certain what she thinks my job is, but whenever she asks me what I'm doing, the answer I give prompts a lecture that boils down to "Well that's a waste of time" without offering any helpful insights into what she thinks might not be a waste of time. Other than listening to her belittle my position, which is apparently my top priority.)

D has a chest cold (we've been trading it back and forth for a month now) and it's driving me mad listening to him cough. He's otherwise fine - active, alert, smiling, laughing, playing - and has no fever, but he's spent his first 90 minutes asleep coughing for 2 nights in a row now. I just wish I could go in there and magically decongest him. (I did clean out his nose with the Evil Nose Suction Device and some saline drops earlier, and the humidifier's on right next to his crib, but I want a magic wand to make him feel all better right away.) Oh well. He's not waking himself up, at least, which means this cold is worse on me than it is on him.

I'm not going to be able to talk to the Associate Director today after all, since she's in a meeting over at the Other Hospital. Would anyone be willing to look at what I put together for a questionnaire response at some point this evening? Or, more likely, my tonight and any other time zone's tomorrow morning, since I probably won't get to it till after choir practice.

Sigh. And I was so looking forward to getting back into the scene I'm currently working on tonight, and I've been trying for a week to carve out time to respond to a really helpful and thought-provoking critique I recently got on the WIP. Damn it. I'm a writer. I hate it when anything comes between me and that.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I may need to go job-searching again if we can't come to a mutually acceptable vision of what I'm supposed to do. At least, "We had a new director come on board whose vision for the organization and my position is different from what I was hired to do," strikes me as a reasonable answer to "Why are you looking for work?" But I hate the thought of it. I thought I'd finally found such a good place, and I was planning to stay here for 4-5 years unless some external reason to leave came up. It's just so weird. I've literally had other staff tell me they think I'm the best thing that's happened to this place in years. New Boss just doesn't seem to see it that way.