Week following Oct 16, 2011

The title of today's page is an example of how we name our archive folders in the document center.  It seemed like a fitting way to count down the remaining weeks to its extinction.

So this weekend I got to catch up with my life a little bit.  I really wanted to sleep late Saturday, but cousin Phil was insisting on taking me out for my birthday (it's "Tradition!" - which song he may have even sang at me) and I had already canceled on him last weekend, so I literally rose for the occasion, we ate and celebrated, after which I stopped off at the market (a hugely valiant effort), stuffed the food in the frig and finally fell back into bed.  I would nap a couple hours, wake up depressed and fall back to sleep, or wake up refreshed and fall back in bed exhausted after only brushing my teeth or feeding the cat.

Oy, such a week I had.  My manager couldn't even smile at me.  The receptionist did smile at me, which was eerie because she never had before (not because she's unfriendly, just too frazzled to look up). A paralegal I had barely ever conversed with reduced me to tears in the lunchroom.  She inquired about each of the doc center operators and I thanked her for her interest, because she was more inquisitive than anyone else had been.  She exploded into a rampage of appreciation for me and the doc center that was so emphatic ("couldn't have done her job without us, and don't think we won't be missed") that she left me in the lunchroom a crying mess, where I thought I would have enough time to regain composure before anyone else entered, but I didn't. The hostess found me and became terribly concerned before I had a chance to run into the bathroom and clean up.  All week long I have been hearing an earful about how things will be after we're gone.  Entertainment won't send their work out (even the doc center never had access to their documents, much to their own constant annoyance).  A paralegal gave me an extremely well thought out analysis of exactly what will happen without the document center.  Two attorneys told me they would be a reference (against firm policy). The office was like a morgue.  I'm wondering if it will continue to be this glum all the way to 11/11/11?  It all made me want to run home and find my tin foil hat.

And, don't forget, this is all deja vu to me.  I'm still reeling from the big life change of David dropping dead.  I arranged my whole life around my job, so now my life is arranged around nothing.  It is easy to say that I could find another job - in fact, I have easily said it, and our old manager already emailed and regaled us with stories of horrible operators he has suffered since leaving us, and let us know what he had available at his firm which was basically nothing.  But, I can't enter that pressure cooker again.  I have an anxiety attack just thinking about it.  No, I've been rode too long and hard to do it any more. The decades of TOA tension is reason enough to run screaming from ever again getting another doc center job, but the last few years of schedule changes, no raises and refused vacations have finally caught up with me.  I've been running on fumes pretty much since David died already.  Whatever kept me pumped at work has died.  I have no mind left.  

G started taking a bag of stuff a day home, and I followed suit.  So, now I reach for pen trays that are no longer there - something is rearranged every day.  My old familiar cubicle had been like a private office because nobody could see me back here.  It is up against the proofing tables that run along the back wall, so I had a lot of space for all my personal projects (the proofer was laid off years ago).  It was heaven.  I really had a dream job.  I'm really glad I wasn't escorted from the premises by security and had time to say goodbye, apparently sometimes to people I hadn't even known were my friends.

But, it's sinking in.  I'm REALLY retired.  I really can do anything I want for the rest of my life.  I'm finally free to become the crazy lady with 100 cats that never leaves her house.  I can really do this.  I can live the creative life I have always wanted to.  I can read and draw and write and bead and cook or travel or do nothing all day.  How long have I wanted to do that?  Since high school.  Now's my time!  Yay.  I'm so blissed out.  I just wish I wasn't so depressed about it, and I wish it wasn't so hard to get through big life changes, and I wish I had a boyfriend.

Today I told all this to a guy that called me from a dating site, who is also a recluse.  I asked him what he thought the odds were of one recluse meeting another recluse on a dating site?  He didn't think the odds were that high.  We have a date next Sunday night, which he's already calling "our first date."

Announcement Day

The email announcement was long and fascinating. Clearly we can't provide this kind of 24/7/365 service:

"In partnership with the General Counsel's office, we created a solution that exceeds our internal security and client confidentiality requirements. These requirements apply to both the people at Integreon, as well as firm data. Background-checks, conflict-clearance and non-disclosure agreements are required for anyone working directly on our account. In addition, our operators will be located in a separate and secure physical space within Integreon's facility in Fargo, ND, with a number of monitoring and reporting procedures in place." 

And, clearly, those in charge prefer order to the chaos that currently exists:

"For our users, the new platform will offer immediate benefits.  Currently, our users are partially responsible for directing their work into the centers by using one of seven email addresses, three phone numbers, three fax numbers or a limited web form (or contacting their preferred document center employee directly).  At implementation, this will be streamlined into one email address, one phone number, and one fax number which can be reached by anyone with an email address." 

This is what greeted me when I walked in this morning, next to G's photograph du jour:

G is behind "The Scream" trying to explain style separators over the phone.  The caller probably doesn't realize that it is a customized application that will be gone when the Document Center closes.

Then End of the National Document Center

We found out this morning that we've been outsourced.  I was sharing a super rush (the most unstable document I have had in my entire career) with the Doral doc center when we received word that they were about to go into a meeting with our national document center manager.  On my end, the office and human resources managers interrupted my mad rush with no concern, closed the door, and sat down looking very hang dog at me and G.  Since the first thing out of the office manager's mouth was "this is not good news," I figured it wasn't going to be good news.

So, I have been forced into early retirement today!!  Life doesn't get any more exciting than this. Thirty or so national document services specialists are being outsourced by Integreon.  I had thought of applying with them but they require a college degree (my stints at every city and community college within a 50 mile radius of my metropolis resulted in only an AA degree).  My last day will be 11/11/11.  I'll have a chunk of money from severance and over 9 weeks of accrued vacation, plus I'll get unemployment and let's not leave out the whopping $30 a month pension David left me, so soon I'll be off to see the world.  First stop, South Africa, via New England to visit family there.  My blog should get exciting now!  Any more excitement and I'll really lose my mind.  I was freaking out all day today.  I couldn't believe the document I had to work on today.  I mean, my concentration was basically absent.  I had thought of seeing if anyone else was available to work on that devil document, but I figured everyone else was probably freaking out also.

Well, except for the Silicon Valley operator, who was never part of the center.  She just crashed our party.  I kept her secret.  She saved my butt a time or two.  My James Bond life is over now.  I'm going to publish the Document Center Incident soon, and then leave that life behind me forever.

They are going to announce the closing of the Doc Center to the firm tomorrow.  Oh boy, won't that be fun!?

Sunday morning

Had a wonderful conversation with my daughter on the phone today.  We both finally got brilliant at the same time and figured out that - duh - we should just turn the video off of skype and then we can actually talk, and having figured that out, we can talk every Sunday, and it won't cost us anything, which is good because we are both broke.

So, here she is starting a new life over after being thrown off Mothership and losing her business thereby, and being basically unemployed and homeless in the street with her toddler, and here I am starting my new life over after having jumped Mothership myself, and my husband dropping dead, and finding out who I really am without him.  I'm finding myself, and finding out that I'm not who I think I am, so I'm in a perpetual state of "starting over."  I dress differently than me, and like different things than me, and love way more people than I do, and who am I anyway?  There are so many things I would like to be doing, is staying here going to my job every day really it?  What is holding me Here, really?  So, this morning decisions were made.  Within 2 years either she will be here or I'll be there.  Knowing that makes getting to sleep so much easier for both of us.

Meanwhile, ok, this is why I don't really worry about her.  Along with the horror stories of life as a broke, homeless unemployed single mother with no geographically convenient support group whatsoever, also come stories like this:  she is building her own house and having trouble with the decorations.  My granddaughter doesn't relate to the princess decorations she put up, so she has to update them with Dora the Explorer.  She spent 45 days at an Act for Change event, at which she made 4 lifelong friends and her daughter had a ball, and for which she created a Facebook page for daily following and gave the volunteers a way to stay in touch for the rest of their lives, for which I asked if she got paid?  Uh, no, she didn't get paid.  She sponsored the event.  Okaaaay.  And we wonder why she's broke?  Well, as it turns out, oy, she's such a mensch.  She's organizing her money better and ... actually, she's doing what I've been doing - learning to set aside money and plan how to use it.  She was actually able to afford the dentist when she was dying of pain with a toothache.  That's big.  When I come to visit no, I won't be sharing a room with the kid or sleeping in her office, but she has an actual guest room.  I don't know how we do it.

She's such an inspiration.  She told me she reads my August blog post every day.  Huh? I forgot what I wrote.  We both LOLed.  We even said to each other on the phone as we were laughing "LOL."  I'll have to go see what I wrote and see if it gives me daily inspiration.  

Meanwhile, I can stop worrying that my granddaughter will grow up before I meet her.  Two years will be plenty of time.

And while on the subject of babies, I got to Skype with Viv while I was in Miami.  She runs around and chatters now and has beautiful long black hair. But this is the most recent picture I have from June 2011.  She's standing!

Her grandma told me this story about her: She calls fish "sh" and giraffes "ff" and ducks "ck".  You get the idea.  So, when she saw a swan, you know a duck with a long neck, it was a "ffck." "Look ma, a f*ck!"

Charleston, South Carolina

I arrived in Charleston at the end of August for Erica's wedding on Sept. 4.  Here she is being the flower girl at my wedding:

On the bride's side there was her mom, her aunt (and my cousin) Linda, Phyllis (my (step)sister and Erica's um, 2nd cousin?), her Aunt Melinda (family friend), and me (taking the picture).

On the groom's side, there were these other approximately 150 people:

I don't know who these adorable people are, but they were playing with the props by the photo booth.

Here are my photo booth pictures with the bride:

I had never been to Charleston before and looked forward to meeting the groom and his familiy, visiting with my step-family who I had not seen in ages, and seeing the sights. We went to Ft. Moultrie (Ft. Sumter's sister fort, where the Civil War started, and the bride's mother and I did the historic walking tour at Charles Town Landing (where the wedding took place), and some other museum. I learned that King Charles not only imported into the Colonies indigo, tobacco and cotton seeds, he also imported ginger seeds, along with the entire slave based economy, from Barbados.  So, if a non-slave based economy had thrived in Barbados at the time, I may not have had the opportunity of visiting Market Street where the slaves had been bought and sold, or to visit any forts because there may never have been a Civil War.  For reasons long forgotten Folly Beach had been on my bucket list since the 80s, and I finally got to go.  The bride's mom and I waded in the warm Atlantic, had what had become our traditional afternoon drinks with the bride, and generally had a folly good time. Here we are at Fort Moultrie:

Charleston is beautiful.  Virgin forest is still in everyone's back yard.  You can easily see what the first settlors saw:  abundant forest everywhere, and so easy to chop down a couple of trees and clear off enough land for a house.  Some homes were lucky enough to be bordered by swamp with lazy weeping willows on one side and forest on the other - or unlucky enough, as flooding is a huge problem in Charleston.  The city is below sea level.  Often front yards have ditches where you would see sidewalks in any other city.  Us out-of-towners marveled that the bride and groom's family and friends were mostly all married, homeowners, had children and pets, and had as much employment as they wanted, 2 or 3 jobs. If you are looking for work and a spectacular lifestyle, consider Charleston, SC. And there's more - they have soft water!  


I had the best time, but the trip was emotional and tiring, and I returned home totally pooped. I'm re-thinking the idea of becoming a traveling vagabond in my retirement.  It was emotional because many long-standing misunderstandings came up that had to be clarified (which was wonderful, actually) but I ended up apologizing yet again, hopefully for the last time, for the  Mothership faux pas of my past.  Meeting all the bride's new in-laws, which are a loud, exuberant, big-hearted bunch, was exhausting, but left me feeling like I have a gazillion friends in Charleston.


One person I met, who is simply called "Sensei" (runs the dojo near them, is like a father to the groom and officiated at the wedding), walked into the house one day when it was filled with people (as it usually was) and sat down, unnoticed.  I asked him, "are you Sensei?"  He was, and it turns out is from Hawaii and knew the bowling alley where I was a waitress in 1969.  He even knew the name of it (even said it in Hawaiian), but I never knew its name.  It was "the bowling alley on Kamehameha Highway," just as where I lived then was simply "Wong's Village." Sensei did not know Mr. Wong, but he did know the bowling alley very well, and said they had great food there.  What a small world.


And speaking of great food, Sermet's on King Street (in the stylish shopping and dining area of Charleston) has the most delicious (and healthy) food, and if you go there you could end up getting your drinks made by this lovely creature:

Applying for the marriage license:

I left it up to the wedding photographer to take pictures of the actual wedding.  But I got their first dance:

The bride got exactly the wedding she wanted, which was for everyone she loved to be there, and for them all to have a great time. She arranged it all herself (with a wedding planner who told her she was her best bride), and they both paid for it themselves (the bar was one of the wedding gifts). The weather was great, and not rained out. It was the perfect wedding.

 

Oh, and they gave me the best room in the house (the bride's office)!  Sometimes I shared it with Ichi: