Thoughts, Rants, and Musings

[Silverbirch]

They definitely have diffetent thought pricrssrs to most of us.

[Jibralta]

Jib, I was in a long-term relationship with a forensic psycholigist. He recommended a book to me written for layperson by Canadian, Dr Bob Hare who he had met.

 

Bob Hare was actually in one of the documentaries I watched!

[Silverbirch]

Bob Hare was actually in one of the documentaries I watched!

 

The book is good. Also, if you are interested in psychopathy, he recommrnded Ann Rules true crime books. The most chilling one is her book on Ted Bundy. She actually knew him personally before anyone suspected he was a serial killer. I could hardly put the book down until I finished it.

[Jibralta]

Working for Frank is ok, but he's sort of a clown. I'd really rather work for this other principal..... We'll see what happens.

 

Well that was fast!

 

We were FIRED from that wayward job. I am now working for the principal that I wanted to work for (Ivan).

 

I guess the client broke the news late Friday, after I'd left. On Monday morning, I noticed the owners seemed a little downcast, and Frank was going out of his way to avoid me. That's weird for him. It didn't take long for me to put two and two together.

 

After the operations meeting, Catherine came out of the conference room and over to my desk. She made this sweeping gesture towards the walls of my cubicle, where I had the project schedule and site diagrams. She said, "Take this stuff down, put it in a box, and bring it to me."

 

I was like, "Why? What's going on?"

 

She said, "We were fired."

 

I was like, "Oh. Well, that's not surprising." I started to peel the schedule away from the wall.

 

She said, "I just hope I don't get fired."

 

I said, "Well, that's a real concern."

 

She wandered off to be miserable.

 

I found out through the grapevine that I was being reassigned to Ivan, the principal I secretly wanted to work for. Later in the day, Mark called me into his office and told me officially. He apologized to me, because Ivan is notoriously difficult to work with. I'm not worried about it, though. Ivan is GOOD, and I am going to take this opportunity for everything it's worth.

 

Mark told me that I shouldn't feel in any way responsible for what happened. That felt good to hear.

 

Later, the finance guy (Paul), came over to my cube and gave me an earful. He said, whispering, "I didn't let them throw you under the bus. I beat it into Mark's head that you were doing what you were told. It was those two yokels who were pulling you in different directions. One would say one thing; the other would say the opposite. You were stuck between the two of them competing with each other. The really hilarious thing is that Catherine has to work for Frank now! Mark asked Ivan if he wanted to work with Catherine, and Ivan actually cringed. He said, 'I'll take Jibralta.'"

 

Yesterday, the principals and Frank went to meet with the client. They hoped to convince the client to come back to us, and also get them to pay us the money that they owed us. The client did not agree to come back, but Mark was able to convince them to pay most of the fee. Frank came to my desk after the meeting, super, super nice. Like, ridiculously nice. He was talking to me like I was a sad four year old. And I think he was trying to make it seem like the effort he put into saving the project had been enough, but that the client had already decided to fire us before the August meeting.

 

Frank and Catherine had each made significant code-interpretation errors, one after the other, which resulted in the design that we gave them. However, there were people within our own firm who had the correct knowledge and who could have been resources to them. Instead of reaching out to someone knowledgeable, both Frank and Catherine incorrectly decided that their own interpretation was correct. That's real arrogance.

 

Frank said to me yesterday, "I had no idea that Ivan had done hundreds of these buildings before! I would have asked him if I knew!" I thought, You've worked here for four years and Ivan's owned the freaking firm for 25 years. Did you think that he owned the firm by accident?? That he didn't know what he was doing??

 

Frank's title is "Director of Operations," but I suspect he is very new to that role, and was put there because Mark had more faith in his ability than Frank deserves. I think Frank is good at simple construction details. But when he is faced with a complex problem, the guy falls apart.

[Jibralta]

So, at work, the hierarchy above me is Catherine, then Frank, and then there are four principals.

 

It seems I was wrong about this. Apparently, Catherine never answered to Frank! (Well, now she does, but not before.)

[Jibralta]

Something else that I've been thinking about.... Catherine has no problem presenting herself as an authority and making demands of people.

 

At the beginning of this job, I didn't question her knowledge--and why would I? She was my boss. I assumed the company hired her because she was good. She spoke with conviction. She had all of these construction details in CAD that she shared with me and other people who worked for her. I assumed she created these details, even though they were done in different styles. Now, I'm pretty sure that she just swiped the details from past jobs, and that they were created by other people. She doesn't really have knowledge or information. She pretends and deflects and thinks no one will catch on.

 

The detail drawings that she provided became a glut of information. There were literally hundreds of files. Carefully organized files, but simply overwhelming in number. And she never provided guidance on which details to use. So, they were useless. If I needed a door jamb detail, I wasn't going to open and explore 30 different CAD files to find it! It's totally impractical. Plus, there wasn't time!

 

Knowing her now, I guess she felt that she could say that she was providing guidance, even if 99% of the information she provided was irrelevant. If an issue came up, she thought she could say, "Well, I gave her all of the information she needed. She just didn't use it." This is sort of the tactic that she attempted to use with our client: just provide tons of drawings and they won't notice that they are undeveloped and incomplete.

 

Everything is a big show with her.

 

Also, it didn't matter to her that producing these inferior drawings cost me my peace of mind and my nights and weekends. She just didn't see it as an issue.

 

That's some gall.

 

It's especially ironic because Catherine likes to act like everyone is taking advantage of her.

 

A few months ago, she came out of a meeting, straight to my desk (as usual) and said, "They want me to do the scheduling now, instead of Frank." I was like, "That's great. Now we can get more people on this project" In retrospect, I also realize this was a major win for her because she was in competition with Frank. They were taking the responsibility from Frank and giving it to her! But instead of acknowledging this win, she acted like it was just one more thing she had to do on top of everything else.... I honestly don't know what Catherine does all day besides think about herself and organize CAD files.

[Jibralta]

There is a Greek guy at work, named Andrew. He grew up on one of the islands. I found out he was Greek about two weeks ago. Since then, he's been teaching me little phrases, like "Coffee is ready," and "Have a good week." I started to write them down phonetically. I plan to unleash them on my mom and my Aunt in November, and surprise them.

 

I've been busy, so my notebook with the phonetic phrases got buried on my desk for a few days. But yesterday, I unearthed it and decided to practice "Coffee is ready," on Andrew. He often stops by my desk to let me know (usually in English) that there is fresh coffee. So I figured I'd go to his desk, which is out of the way, to let him know that I'd just made a pot of coffee.

 

It turned out to be a sort of awkward experience. I said the phrase haltingly, but it was ok. The thing is, I was hyper and it really seemed to delight him. Or maybe me stopping by his desk delighted him? At any rate, this morning, he stopped by my desk and literally hung over the side wall. Looked at me meaningfully.

 

I was like, oh no. What the hell is this.

 

I said, "Hello."

 

He was like, "So, what do you do here?"

 

Thus began a drawn out conversation in which we established that I was not an interior designer. He told me several times that his last employer was "cheap." I felt like I was supposed to ask a question about the cheapness, but really I wasn't interested in chit-chatting. We randomly talked about software. Eventually, he went away.

 

I spent the next five minutes trying to rearrange the picture I keep of my boyfriend and me to be more obvious. But then I realized it was already in the most obvious place, and that moving it to, say, directly in front of my monitor, would actually make it less noticeable to others. So, I decided the best thing would be to bring in another picture of my boyfriend.

 

Andrew didn't stop by at all for the rest of the day, so I guess I was probably sufficiently aloof to make him uncomfortable.

[Jibralta]

The Greek guy acted pretty normal today, friendly and not too overbearing. Maybe I misconstrued the whole thing yesterday. I know I get paranoid sometimes, when strange men get too friendly.

[Jibralta]

The IT guy found my work-journal today.

 

I send myself emails whenever stupid sh*t happens during the day. I find it cathartic. It also helps me keep my sanity because I can refer back to it.

 

The IT guy was replacing my computer when he found this journal of mine. He checked my sent messages to make sure my email signature was intact, and noticed "Aye aye aye" right above my signature. So he did a doubletake. And then was like, "What is this."

 

I looked and to my horror I saw my own words on the screen: "It seems like Catherine keeps looking at me. She’s been up from her desk, moping around like 10 times since she got here. I keep catching these long glances from her. Ugh. I have a feeling that she’s going to make me listen to something that she wants to say to me."

 

My inner thoughts and feelings were exposed! I said, "That's just something I keep for my mental health." But my emotions were in turmoil. Why couldn't he have found a less paranoid post?!

 

What really sucks is that yesterday morning I made a total ass out of myself by telling the IT guy that I thought Catherine had accessed my computer while I was at a doctor's appointment the day before.

 

What happened was, I had noticed a new folder in my Quick Access window. I didn't recognize this folder and clicked on it. It went straight to Catherine's folder on the shared drive.

 

Folders show up on the Quick Access window when you recently access them, or when you pin them. I didn't remember pinning this folder at all. And I certainly hadn't accessed it that day.

 

But when I showed the IT guy the next morning, he showed me that it was pinned to my Quick Access window. Then I realized I may have actually pinned it there myself a couple of months ago.

 

So that was totally embarrassing.

 

And THEN the very next morning the IT guy sees my vent about Catherine! Ughh. I probably look totally crazy to him now.

 

I thought about deleting that ongoing email, but I'm sure it's backed up on the server a million times. I might as well be loud and proud in my private work journal. They're just vents, anyway.

[Jibralta]

A couple thoughts about Frank:

 

He has been MUCH nicer to me since the loss of our client. Before that happened, his behavior towards me in general was very strange and I couldn't figure it out.

 

I still don''t have him totally figured out, but I do know the following:

 

1. He acts silly and flippant when he gets upset.

 

2. When he is overwhelmed, he lashes out.

 

I think much of this behavior is tied to his self image. I think he needs to feel like he LOOKS like he is in control.

 

I think Frank plans to roll right over on Catherine, which doesn't show a lot of character on his part. I don't have much sympathy for Catherine, but I think Frank was just as negligent and incompetent as she was in this whole ordeal.

 

Franks recent kindness has made it easy for me to get past my anger & frustration towards him. I don't want to be his buddy or anything, and I really don't want to work with him again. But I think we can pleasantly coexist.

 

Catherine's recent woe-is-me attitude makes it much more difficult for me to drop those feelings. I'm not here to function as her audience. So, it's going to be a holding pattern with Catherine for a while.

[Jibralta]

It was a nice run of Catherine-free mornings until today, when she came to my desk.

 

I was talking to my coworker and I tried not to notice. You know, when Catherine isn't coming to see me, she stomps by my desk. When she is coming to see me, she walks silently.

 

Another thing before I go on.... I noticed that Catherine looks straight at my desk when she enters the building in the morning. I sit within sight of the door, and whenever I hear it click open, I tend to look up. Whenever it's her coming in, she is looking straight at me.

 

In order to avoid early-morning eye contact with Catherine and stave off her desk-lurking, I've taken to keeping my head down behind my monitors and glancing between them at the door when I hear it click open in the morning. That way, she can't see my eyes and can't interpret a meaningless glance as a "come hither" statement. But she came over anyway, incessantly.

 

Since the project failed, she's come over less and less. I think this might be the first week where she hasn't tried to come over at all (until today).

 

For the first part of the week, I felt like she kept trying to catch my eye. I avoided this like the plague, to the point where it became awkward not to look up at her. I still didn't allow her to catch my eye. I was afraid she was going to try to land a weirdly intimate, overly meaningful apology on me.

 

By the end of the week, those efforts seem to have subsided. Maybe this explains why I looked over my monitors at the door (instead of between them) when I heard the door click open: my guard was down! I saw her quickly look away from me. I was like, "D'oh!"

 

Soon after, I got into a conversation with my coworker, and that's when I heard Catherine softly pad by my desk to stand behind me. I played dumb until my coworker pointed over my shoulder at Catherine and I had to turn around. I was like, "Hey, what's going on? How are you doing?" Catherine said, "I'm fine." Then she proceeded to tell me how Mark had reamed her a new one yesterday, and how there was yet another meeting about the failed project today.

 

It's remarkable to me that she seems to think another meeting is not warranted. The company lost a big contract and future work. I said, "They have to do that, Catherine. They have to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn't happen again." She said, "I am going to have to sit there and defend myself." I said, "Well, you need to show them why you're not to blame. Get all of your ducks in a row and argue."

 

I happen to think she is very much to blame, but I see no reason to tell her that.

 

Catherine also complained about an argument that she had yesterday, with our electrical engineer, John. I had actually heard a bit of the outburst, but ignored it. I'm not surprised that those two are turning on each other. John has a bitter temper, and Catherine has no respect for engineers. Plus, both of them had big parts to play in the demise of our project. It kind of reminds me of the book White Fang, by Jack London, where the wolves turn on the weakest wolf and kill him as he's licking his wounds.

 

Anyway, I guess John didn't fill out a form for permits, and wasn't going to until some time in the future. I said to Catherine, "Why don't you just fill it out yourself?" She was like, "I was going to, but I shouldn't have to do someone else's work." I was like, "Why get into a power struggle over something like this? It's just a simple form." She then said, "And as the project manager, it's my ass if he doesn't do the work"

 

I thought, did she not hear what I just said? I said, "All the more reason to fill out the form yourself. These power struggles have to stop!"

 

Oh my god, I have so much to say on this subject. Why is this person in a position of responsibility?

[Jibralta]

Frank came to my desk this afternoon and sweetly asked how I was doing, if I was keeping busy, etc. He talks to me now like he is talking to a little kid.

 

I was like, "Yes, I'm doing great, thanks." *smile*

 

It's like someone flipped a switch in this man. What I really think it is, is overcompensation for his rude and unfair behavior towards me early on. He still doesn't actually respect me. Instead of treating me like an incompetent, he is now treating me like an emotional basket case.

 

It's pretty funny, really.

 

I don't think this guy has a mind of his own. I think he thinks what he is told to think, and when someone doesn't tell him what to think, he makes stupid judgment calls.

[Jibralta]

I've devoted 11 pages of this journal to my new job! And I am sure to write even more, as I revisit those posts and try to make sense out of everything that's happened since I started. But for now, I'll just say that things are MUCH better. MUCH.

[reinventmyself]

That must feel good. Glad things are settling down some.

From the looks of things, it's because of you setting some firm boundaries.

Up til now it's seems they've been testing you.

[Jibralta]

I keep posting these lengthy blurbs in the What are You Listening To thread. I might as well post them here, since this is my online journal.

 

I just listened to I'm With You, by Avril Lavigne. This song came out when I was 25, and I related to it back then. I don't relate to it anymore, but I can see why I related to it at 25. At that age, I was still trying to work out my place in the world. I was beginning my career. I was starting to understand which friendships were valuable, and which were not. And, while I wasn't dating anyone seriously, I did long for a meaningful relationship.

 

As I listened to this song just now, I watched bits and pieces of the video. I saw this one scene at around 1:30, where this dude starts to ogle her, then apparently grabs her. She responds by shoving him out of the frame and walking on. This made me laugh. It also made me recall a situation I was in when I was about 20, when I had to smash a guy into a piece of furniture.

 

I was staying at my then-boyfriend's house. He was this tall lanky dude named Leonard. We were both drunk. Leonard's roommate and his roommate's girlfriend were home.

 

Right before we went to sleep, Leonard started to flip out for no apparent reason. He was obviously very upset about something, but no one could tell what it was. I tried to approach him to soothe him and calm him down, but he turned around and hit me! Don't ask me how I did this, but I actually picked him up off the ground and slammed him into his night stand. The roommate and the girlfriend were cowering on the other side of the room. Leonard stayed on the floor until he calmed the F down. Then we went to sleep.

 

Cray cray.

 

[Jibralta]

Oh, the lyrics to this song are so sad and lovely.

 

Liz Phair

Table For One

 

 

I'm walking down in the basement

I'm leaning on the washing machine

I'm reaching back through a hole

In the wall's insulation

 

I'm pulling out a bottle of vodka

Replacing that with a pint of Jim Beam

I'm lying down on the floor

Until I feel better

 

It's morning and I pour myself coffee

I drink it till the kitchen stops shaking

I'm backing out of the driveway

And into creation

 

And the loving spirit that follows me

Watching helplessly, will always forgive me

 

Oh, I want to die alone with my sympathy beside me

I want to bring down all those demons who drank with me

Feasting gleefully

On my desperation

 

I hide all the bottles in places

They find, and confront me

With pain in their eyes,

And I promise that I'll make some changes

 

But reaching back it occurs to me

There will always be some kind of crisis for me

 

Oh, I want to die alone with my sympathy beside me

I want to bring back all those moments they stole from me

In my reverie,

Darkening days end

 

Oh, I want to die alone with my memories inside me

I want to live that life when I could say people had faith in me

I still see that guy

In my memory

 

Oh, I want to die alone with my sympathy beside me

I want to bring down all those people who drank with me

Watching happily

My humiliation

[Jibralta]

I heard this song when I was in graduate school, now at least 8 years ago (damn). I used to get up butt-ass early and grab coffee at starbucks before schlepping to my studio. I heard this one such morning, while adding milk and sugar.

 

When I hear something I like, I hunt it down relentlessly usually via lyrics. This was much harder in the days before google, but I did pretty good.

 

Anyway, this song is called Autumn Leaves. It is performed by a woman named Eva Cassidy, who died of cancer shortly after the performance in this video. She was so magnificently talented.

 

[Jibralta]

I am just telling you how generally people react when you tell them about crazy plans ( in my experience). I've been laughed at for these kind of things countless times.

 

This reminds me of when I had the crazy plan to quit my (very decent) job and go back to school full time to completely change careers and become an architect. I made the decision when I was 28 and started taking small steps toward that goal. The steps were small because I didn't have a lot of guidance.

 

One day, I went on a date with this Bulgarian guy. He had taken a lot of interesting risks in his life and became very successful at a young age. At our first dinner date, I told him about my plan to quit my job and go back to school. I had organized it well financially and discussed that aspect at length. But as I mentioned earlier, my actual steps in the direction of my goal had been quite small.

 

He said to me, "I see that you have this well planned. And after listening to you, I believe what you say and that you can do it. But what have you actually done to accomplish this goal?"

 

That question was like a lightening bolt to my heart. It lit a fire in me. It showed me exactly where I stood and I instantly knew what I had to do. My baby steps changed to strides.

 

My relationship with that guy didn't last, but I still feel a lot of gratitude towards him for lighting that fire under my ass. If he hadn't taken me seriously and challenged me like that, god knows how my plan would have played out. I could be sitting here right now, still unrealized and frustrated.

[IAmFCA]

This reminds me of when I had the crazy plan to quit my (very decent) job and go back to school full time to completely change careers and become an architect. I made the decision when I was 28 and started taking small steps toward that goal. The steps were small because I didn't have a lot of guidance.

 

One day, I went on a date with this Bulgarian guy. He had taken a lot of interesting risks in his life and became very successful at a very young age. At our first dinner date, I told him about my plan to quit my job and go back to school. I had organized it well financially and discussed that aspect at length. But as I mentioned earlier, my actual steps in the direction of my goal had been quite small.

 

He said to me, "I see that you have this well planned. And after listening to you, I believe what you say and that you can do it. But what have you actually done to accomplish this goal?"

 

That question was like a lightening bolt to my heart. It lit a fire in me. It showed me exactly where I stood and I instantly knew what I had to do. My baby steps changed to strides.

 

My relationship with that guy didn't last, but I still feel a lot of gratitude towards him for lighting that fire under my ass. If he hadn't taken me seriously and challenged me like that, god knows how my plan would have played out. I could be sitting here right now, still unrealized and frustrated.

 

Love love love this story so very much. Inspiration! You found it! You saw it when it was in front of you! You acted on it! And you passed it on!

 

BRAVA!

[itsallgrand]

Loving the inspiration on the board !! Love your story and I really enjoy the music/ stories to go with them too.

[SherrySher]

I always love reading your posts, even if I don't comment. You write so well and your stories are always very interesting and entertaining.

 

Thank you so much for sharing them with us.

[Jibralta]

So, an interesting microcosm (loving that word today) of Catherine's reality-free modus operandi has manifested recently.

 

There exists a food-drive competition called "Canstruction," where competitors build themed sculptures out of canned goods. After the competition is judged, the sculptures are disassembled and the cans are donated to a food bank. A couple of months ago, Catherine sent an email to everyone in the office, inviting people to form a team and compete.

 

At the time, I was still in the midst of the doomed townhouse project. On the day of the first meeting, she came to my desk and asked me to participate. I said, "I'm too busy." This was absolutely true, but I also didn't want to participate. I was desperately trying to increase distance between me and her, and after the hell I was experiencing in the townhouse project I didn't want to be part of anything that she was going to lead.

 

A couple of people did show interest in the competition, and I saw them meet at least once in the office while I was there.

 

Fast forward to last Friday: Catherine sent out an email asking for people in the office to participate in the construction of the Canstruction sculpture in a couple of weeks. The email was worded in a way that suggested we were all expected to help out. The sculpture would consist of 6,000 cans and be 10 feet high. Some of the work would take place during office hours, some after hours. She hoped it would be done by 8PM on the designated day. It sounded like a huge disaster to me and I started thinking of excuses right away.

 

Along with the email, she circulated a 3D model of the sculpture they planned to build out of cans. I couldn't help but notice that some of the cans were sort of hanging out in space, with nothing to support them underneath. But I figured they had a plan to address that gravitational impossibility.

 

Not so.

 

A day or two later (this opened like a scene in a play) I was talking to the IT guy in the early morning. One of the structural engineers wandered in. As he walked past my desk, something dropped from his grasp. The IT guy and I walked over to see what he dropped and to help him pick it up. The structural guy said, "Oh, it's nothing, it's just these cans for the Canstruction competition." I was like, "Oh, are you guys doing a mock-up?"

 

For the sake of brevity, I'll sum up the gist of the conversation:

* They don't know how they're putting the sculpture together

* They don't know how the cans are going to be attached

* They don't know how they are going to support the cans from underneath

* They don't know what size cans they are using

* They don't even HAVE the cans

* They haven't met in at least a month, if not more (the engineer did stay for the meetings only to see Catherine leave)

* All they have is a stupid 3D model

* The structural guy has been left to figure out how to out the whole thing together, by himself

* Unsurprisingly, Catherine is marching steadily forward, into disaster, saying everything is great.

 

I can't believe she sent out that email with things being in the state that they're in!! Does she think people are going to have a great time hauling and hoisting 6,000 cans with no plan??

 

Let's just think about the small problem of obtaining 6,000 cans. Let's assume $0.80 per can.

* Where are they getting $4,800?

* How many trips to the food store are they going to need to make?

* How about loading and unloading the carts and car(s)?

* What is the time commitment?

 

They should have started a can drive months ago.

 

Catherine is just sitting there promising that things will be done, providing no support, comprehending no reality.

 

I CAN't wait to see how this is gonna play out...

[Jibralta]

I can't believe she sent out that email with things being in the state that they're in!! Does she think people are going to have a great time hauling and hoisting 6,000 cans with no plan??

 

People are just going to stand there with a mountain of 6,000 cans and not have a solid plan as to how they are supposed to go together to form this sculpture.

 

Chaos.

 

It is so amazing to me that she is a licensed architect and yet unable to effectively coordinate this effort. I really think she's used to people swooping in and saving her ass.

 

That could happen here, too. There are a lot of competent people in our office who are probably very quick on their feet under circumstances like these. And Catherine is well-liked because she's quite nice and not a bad person at all. And she kind of plays the victim card a little. It's hard not to want to help.

 

I remember when I first started, thinking that Catherine must have been through a lot and that being transgender, she still faces challenges every day. She had that air about her, and I admired her for her courage and tenacity. But then I got to know her better and ended up questioning a lot of my initial assumptions.

 

I do think she feels like a victim, but I also think her 'victimhood' makes her feel entitled to things that she's not entitled to. She takes advantage of other people's good graces, all the while simpering and acting.... I don't know.... weird. I no longer admire her. In fact, I find it difficult to respect her.

 

Something I've realized about myself: I don't have to like you to work with you. I don't need you to like me, either. I just like to work. And if you've got a sh*tty work ethic, you're in my way and I can't stand you--even if I like you as a person. This sort of thing has actually caused me to cast aside friends.

 

Anyway, I'm curious to see how other people who have worked for Catherine feel towards her. But that's not exactly an easy conversation to have. At least not at this point.

 

In my heart of hearts, I hope that nobody swoops in and solves the Canstruction problems for Catherine. I hope she is forced to deal with this mess by herself. I want her incompetence to be obvious to everyone. Having an irresponsible person with her level of responsibility in this profession is just plain dangerous.

[Jibralta]

Ha!

 

The big boss put the kibosh on the Canstruction project. This tells me that I don't work for idiots. Well, there are some idiots, but ultimately the real leadership is sound.

 

I was a little worried because the company was willing to donate our time to this mess (in Catherine's email, she said there would be a charge code for the project).

 

This morning, I heard a couple of the Canstruction team members talking about something that happened late last Friday. But their voices got lower and lower and I couldn't hear everything. Then the structural engineer came in and joined the conversation. I heard one girl (a really good architect) say, "I gave her all of my research, and lists of the supplies I thought we would need, and she didn't do anything with it."

 

Man, I know what that's like!!

 

Later, I snagged the structural guy and asked him if he'd completed his mission to design the structure. He told me that Mark had cancelled the project on Friday afternoon, but that nobody had told him--he almost came in over the weekend to work on it! Fortunately, he spoke to one of the team members and found out it was cancelled before he sacrificed his weekend.

 

That makes me so mad. It wasn't so long ago that I was sacrificing MY weekends working for Catherine!!! I can't believe she almost made that happen again with someone else.

 

Nobody has officially announced that the project was cancelled. I think this responsibility falls to Catherine, since she is the team captain. But Catherine has not let people know that help is no longer necessary.

 

What the hell?

 

Anyway, I think Mark's decision shows solid common sense. It would have been extremely costly and ultimately unsuccessful. A total waste of money and an embarrassment to our firm.

[Jibralta]

Just found this again after about 13 years of it being out of reach. Some awesome human being posted it to youtube. It's a long, lovely, ambient piece by Projekt Erde called 11:11.