Humane Resources

I have had the most bizarre entanglements with our good City's HR department this week. It defies credulity. But I swear, this really happened.

The City laid me off a month ago, effective June 30. But they (somebody, somewhere) screwed up and they laid me off wrong. In effect they gave me incorrect information about my status, rights, and options, and so they had to lay me off - from the same job - again.

That news came Wednesday, June 22. The corrected letter was supposed to come the next day, June 23.

It arrived June 27. Um, sort of. As long as you're not too squeamish about what "corrected" means.

My boss, who may or may not be implicated in this foul-up, was conveniently on vacation. So his boss, the Bureau head, who is himself being fired (um, given the chance to resign under political pressure) had to handle it. He called in our HR coordinator to "make sure he (Bureau head) didn't get it wrong." Do you hear the background orchestra playing discordant minor chords yet?

The letter they gave me said I was laid off, my position eliminated, as of June 30; please reply within 2 days. The attached form gave me three options:

- Bump someone less senior than me "as described in the letter." The letter described no such thing.

- Decline bumping rights and get laid off.

- Decline bumping rights and enter the redeployment program.

The reason the letter said no such thing is that I did NOT have bumping rights. So, none of the three options actually were valid.

I asked the HR coordinator ("Vincent the Magnificent") to explain the discrepancy. He said he didn't see any. What was so confusing, anyway?

The Bureau head insisted that the Layoff Coordinator come down and clarify the issues. Vincent the Magnificent said he'd "see if she was available."

Bureau head: No, you need to make it happen.
VtM: I'll try.
Bureau head: No, look. This is important enough, it just needs to happen. And I want to be there. I'm available from 3 to 5.
VtM: I'll ask her.

An hour later, Vincent stops by my cube.

VtM: Can you meet at 2?
me: Yes, but Bureau head can't.
VtM: We have to meet without him.
me: If that's okay with him.
VtM: He knows.

1:30 PM, Bureau head stops by:

Bureau head: So you're meeting at 2?
me: I guess so. They said you're okay with it.
Bureau head: (grimacing) No, I want to be there. I can make 2:30. Can you reschedule it?
me: Okay.

Needless to say, HR refused.

So Bureau Head recruits one of his deputies to sit in - a real bulldog named Don. Here's part of the 2:00 meeting:

Me: Can we go over these 3 options?
Layoff Coordinator: I'll write a new form. It will only have the correct options.
Don: I think what we need here is an explanation of what the options are.
Layoff Coordinator: There are two. Layoff and redeployment.
Me: Okay. Let's start with redeployment. What is that?
VtM: Basically that is a program of retraining workshops such as resume writing, career coaching, and interview techniques; and, you get placed on the redeployment list so that if a job comes open that we think you might be qualified for, you get priority consideration. [This service is good for 3 months, according to the papers they've given me.]
Me: Okay. What workshops are coming available?
Layoff Coordinator: Well, we don't know. The last set just finished and, well, we had to cancel them due to lack of interest.
Me: Well, that speaks volumes.
Layoff Coordinator: Vincent could set up some one-on-ones for you.
Don: (eye roll)
Me: OK, can you get me a list of what positions are coming available on the redeployment list?
Layoff Coordinator: We don't have such a list.
Me: Can I make a suggestion?
VtM and LC: (empty stare) Okay.
Me: Create one?
Me and Don: (Laughter)
VtM: You don't need that in order to make a choice.
Me: Of course I do.
VtM: That information is not important. You either choose redeployment or layoff.
Me: What? How am I supposed to choose, then, without information about which courses are available or which positions would be available?
VtM: That doesn't matter.
Me: Probably not to you. It does to me.

Later I found out that my benefits expire 3 days from that point, too. I had been under the impression that they extended into July. I called the Benefits Office (also part of HR) for the umpteenth time in the past week to please send the proper forms so I can get this done without a break in benefits. This morning I get a voice-mail from Benefits (2 days left):

Hello, this is Debi in Benefits. You'll be happy to know that I mailed the forms to your home yesterday. If you have any questions, please call.

Okay. I have a question. What in the hell gave her the idea that mailing the package made any goddamned sense? My office is in the same building as hers and I had told her in every single message that it was urgent.

The Layoff Coordinator also let me know that no redeployment courses would be offered in the next 3 months for which I would be eligible for these services.

What do you think I should choose? Lobotomy or hari-kari?

Brezny rocks

From Brezny to me and all my fellow Scorpions:

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Introducing Adrienne Rich at a poetry reading
in San Francisco in 2004, Frances Phillips turned to her and said, "Thank
you for your lovely, irreverent, unsettled, curious mind." It was a fitting
tribute to a poet who for 50 years has stirred up good trouble with her
rowdy yet disciplined work. By the end of this week, Scorpio, I would like
to feel justified in saying the same thing to you: "Thank you for your
lovely, irreverent, unsettled, curious mind." Now get out there and pull off
the most healing mischief you can imagine.

Isn't that perfect? :-D

Realists

A Realist is a person who is looking backward.

Nice site

Check it out.

http://www.highlysensitivesouls.com/blog/?p=22

Write Fully Now

What once was a dream is now coming true. Each day falls like another domino: fragile, unsteady, insignificant hurdles, doing nothing except waiting to be swept away, leaving a clean slate for the expression of new creative passions. Soon the blank pages and empty screens will be my mind's bed - white sheets waiting to hold newly invented sweaty bodies clutching together with hope, love, lust, and passion. Or holding guns, pointed nervously at each other's foreheads. Or steering cars, painting canvas, driving nails, drinking vodka, spanking bad children and kissing good ones - or vice versa. Even, sometimes, manipulating spreadsheets, designing systems, measuring performance, reporting finances.

The day job is soon over. What has been my evenings' pleasure moves from sideline to center stage. If I can bear the lonely hours wherein I have no companions over the cubicle walls, if I can withstand the constant barking of the dog or the quiet of my home office's four white walls, if I can think clearly enough in solitude to create books and articles worthy of the masses - then this enterprise will succeed in the normal sense of the word: pay my bills, feed my belly, buy my beer.

But even if it does not bring in sufficient cash to maintain my current lifestyle, it will be a success from at least one perspective. I have always wanted to do this for a living. If I do not do it now, I probably never will, and I will lie on my deathbed with regrets. Not only for the novel never written, but for the tragedy acted upon my life's stage: the failure to follow the dream.

I have no intention of dying with such regrets. It's time to write. Now.