Category: progress

Oh man, now I’m stuck in here…

The wayback machine, that is.

After my post yesterday, I got an email from my best good friend. Turns out she was in the wayback machine yesterday too, but for a whole different reason.

Still a resident of Las Cruces, over the years, she’s given me an on site report on all the things changing in that sleepy college town. Yesterday she saw a sight that made her incredibly sad and she had to tell me about it in email.

Remember how I talked about NMSU being a land grant college?

What that meant to a business major such as me, is that if you walked down the hill toward the Ag College, you would find a big open pasture in which actual cows roamed around, grazing on the actual college campus.

With the wind from the right direction, you were reminded, frequently enough, that you did, in fact, attend an agricultural college.

Personally, I always liked that. Tied us to our roots. Kept us humble.

Once upon a time I even had to help round up a truckload of calves that were being moved to a different pasture. Those buggars had managed to break free. Tiny criminals. If you know anything about calves, you know they don’t naturally have that herding instinct yet.

It was like herding jello. Or the Tasmanian devil. Or some combo therein.

Sadly, the cows haven’t roamed the campus of NMSU for several years, and that open land went pretty much unused.

Until former university president, Michael Martin, agreed to annex that pastureland to the City of Las Cruces for the purpose of building a convention center. In exchange, the university gets money back from events hosted there.

I’d heard this was coming. My friend and I talked at length about it when I visited in February.

As of yesterday, ground has been broken. Construction is underway.

They made my best friend cry. That makes me cry.

There is some quote about not going quietly into that good night. But anymore, I’m not sure it’s worth the calorie expenditure to holler into a hurricane.

Change must happen. At the end of the day, it’s not about the memories, it’s about the dollars. As an NMSU trained businesswoman, I should know better.

Photo by Clay Mathis of NMSU. Source.

Replacement Parts

Sorrowfully, I had occasion to visit with my dentist of twelve years today. He’s a good guy and when you have that kind of trust with a dental professional, you don’t take it lightly.

The reason for my visit today wasn’t an easy peasy cleaning and check up, no. A couple weeks ago I bit down on something hard and felt pain shoot up the side of my face.

That *can’t* be good.

So I was unsurprised when the good Doctor told me I had three cracks in my tooth. The same tooth that was home to not one but two fillings.

Feeling myself headed for “you need a crown”-ville, my dentist looked at my xrays and said, “good news, we can use the machine.”

The Machine?

What the [insert dental-fear inspired curse word here] is “The Machine?”

I guess if you need something more than a drill and fill, but something less than a crown, they have this cool device that takes a scan of your scraped out tooth, then creates a puzzle piece-like filling that slips right in there.

It’s milled out of a block of dental porcelain right there onsite, same day.

So the dentist drilled out my tooth, and then I read a magazine while the machine churned and groaned and soon enough, they showed me the little piece of tooth looking porcelain. Add a little dental glue and ta daa! New tooth!

As The Machine worked, my dentist talked about science’s ability to make new body parts, like my homemade tooth. He said, “I laugh when people get up in arms over athletes using steroids to increase their body’s capabilities. In ten to twenty years they will be making new joints, ligaments and tendons, you name it. Athletes can be created, and steroids will be looked on as quaint.”

I replied, “That’s weird, man. In a good way, but weird.”

Oh well, in about an hour and a half all in, I was fixed up and sent on my way with a droopy drool-y smile and a bit of ache in my freshly manufactured body part.

Weird.

Image from The Searcher’s Flickr Photostream.

Whoa! Refreshing!

Things you would never have heard from the former administration:

“I take responsibility for this mistake,” (President Barack Obama) told Fox News.

Doesn’t matter what it was for. He took ownership.

Damn. He’s going to make me like him.

Source.

Perspective is a beautiful thing.

So, really, this new job is blowing my mind. I knew that changing jobs after almost ten years at a rather quirky company would be difficult. Challenging. Would test my bounds.

It’s been all of that and more.

I’ve been here two months and I’m still struggling. They promised the learning curve here is at least six months, but me, being both impatient and a chronic overachiever, feel like I should be up and running fast. Contributing to the work. Being useful and value added.

So far I’ve been mostly a bump on a log that asks a LOT of questions and says, “Are you sure?” upon hearing the mind-blowing responses. Oh, yes, this is a very backwards organization.

Last week I sort of had a breaking point. I wasn’t feeling great physically and I had my second “called into the principal’s office” to be told “what you did wasn’t *wrong*, it just wasn’t The Company way.”

You know the drill, you are right but you are still wrong. Won the battle but lost the war. And other platitudes.

I went home demoralized, a new hole punched in my self-esteem. I cried on The Good Man’s shoulder. Considered packing it in. Wondered how I could have had a successful fifteen year career in my chosen field and still can’t get it right in this two-bit flea circus.

So the weekend came and went. I got some sleep. My immune system kicked in, and I started feeling better, physically at least.

I made my way to work Monday, and it wasn’t so bad. Tuesday came and went. That brings us to today, Wednesday.

Starting my day, I was reading the headlines and saw the latest report on the doings of our new President. The story was about Obama needling the Washingtonians for shutting down schools due to ice. Said that his Chicago daughters play outside in that kind of weather.

It was a fun, humanizing story. But it also made me think.

This guy’s got a new job, too.

And if he makes a misstep, it’s not only reported to the world, it impacts the world.

He doesn’t just get called into the boss lady’s office for a talking to, he’s got real issues.

So maybe, for as freaked out and demoralized I am about this new gig, it could, definitely be worse.

I mean my coworkers both in my own organization and across the board, including my predecessor, want me to succeed. Everyone is trying to help me get acclimated. I don’t have to take the slings and arrows of Congress, snotty media and opposing party’s interests. I don’t have to remember what I promised last year during the interview and then deliver.

No one is watching my first 100 days, other than my immediate manager.

I don’t live under the hot fire of the magnifying glass.

Then again, Obama’s also got a horde of advisors. Maybe I need more advisors.

Hmm…

Happy MLK Day!

I am grateful to Dr. King for many, many things.

I am also grateful for my new employer because they give employees the day off. This is the first employer I’ve worked for that honors this day.

So Happy Birthday to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It is, indeed, a happy day. I wish Dr. King would have been able to see the historic even that happens tomorrow. The realization of much of his dream.

2009 is filled with lots of possibilities. And that’s the first time I’ve felt that way in a long time.