Following Up

Going back to my last entry I realized how absolutly right my Nay Sayer was. Oh the amazing time I had at this past meeting. In the middle of the night I remembered that I had forgotten to print out the forms where the scientists take their notes. Fortunatly Sonya is always in by 6 am so I knew that would be no problem at all. Next thing I forgot was to bring my own power strips. This is a fairly new procedure in the IC so I wasn't going to sweat it but I do have to remember for all my meetings coming up that the power strips are supplied and laid down by us and so the hotel will not do it for me. Actually it turned out to be more than ok that I forgot the power strips because I would have had to lay them all by myself and I am physically unable to at this time. Now onto what I feel was the worst part of my entire meeting. I was supposed to have a trainee there to assist me in the set-up of my meeting. I was actually pretty relieved despite our recent problems with the new people. I mean it was just nice to know that in an emergency I had back-up. After waiting outside for her in the cold for 10 minutes I decided to describe her to the concierge and the parking staff and to have the front desk let her know what room we were in. I went downstairs with all my meeting materials and began my set-up. As my meeting approached I decided to call Sonya and see if she had heard anything from the new person. And wow what a shocker there was no news. I was freaking out thinking this girl is prob. dead somewhere or really sick or something crazy bad. Then I get a call back from Sonya and guess who had just walked in the door. Oh yes, I was hot. I mean so mad I immediatly called our team leader and lost it on the phone. The worst part of it all is the girl was blaming me for not giving her the information for the meeting in e mail form. Oh I am sooooo sorry miss I have absolutly no work to do and don't have the good sense to be an adult who looks out for myself and ask a person what information I need to know. I mean of course I who has to be keeping track of my jobs, mentoring in contracts, and getting ready for my meeting should stop everything because I need to reach out to you. I don't know I was just livid. After a little bit of thinking time I decided that my job is not to be mad but to make sure that the IC has efficent ESAs so I called back and invited the girl to leave now and meet me at the meeting. I let her know that I will take responsibility in the sense that I did not reach out to her enough however she is an adult and needs to take initive because in the IC people are busy and focused on their jobs and responsibilities and may not be looking at what is concerning you. In addition my door is always open, e-mail always checked, and phone lines answered so I am available if she needs something but she has to come to me because my mind may not be in the same place as hers at that moment. I also explained to her that you can find meeting locations for everyone in the system and they are also written on our tracking board in the back and on top of that everyone else knew where the meeting was and how to get there so asking them would have helped her as well. I also explained that my inital reaction came from a place of worry which transformed into anger when I realized that she had been at work and didn't bother to call my cell phone to let me know of her decision (my number is right there on the wall next to her telephone). But this is an issue of miscommunication and since we have pinpointed it we both have learned what we need to do to ensure that this would not happen again. On that note I let her know that she was more than welcome to come to the meeting which hadn't started yet.
She gave me the biggest attitude on the telephone. She was just passing off everything I was saying which then really pissed me off because my attempt to be diplomatic and to say we both took fault but let's move forward was just passed off. After that I have to say I am pretty much done with her on any kind of social level. I will however still try to remain nice to her and just try to move past all of it not because I feel guilty at all but because she needs to learn and we have already discovered that she is a slow learner so I need to be patient and help her in any way I can.
In the end my meeting went well and I was able to get through this week pretty much unscaithed so I am pretty thankful for that.
A little back info. with our little troublemaker, she actually has been causing quite a bit of trouble around there and I don't know whether she falls into this stuff or if she is purposly causing it. I would like to remain positive and say that it is all accidental happenings but over the past couple months she has started a lot of fights. I just really hope something happens for her that makes her realize that this job is pretty nice and the people we work with are really great. It takes time people have shaky starts sometimes but that she can change that if she would like.

In other worlds, I have been really winding down this past week and have found myself pretty much unable to walk at times because there is a lot of pressure down there. He has dropped into the birth canal and is now just awaiting his time. Sometimes I will be walking along and feel that pressure and it sykes me out making me feel like he is just going to drop out while I keep on walking (ok I am so not that lucky to have a birth like that). Still the stage is set and all of this is just his little dress rehearsals. I am just hoping I can make it through my last few weeks of work. Actually I have 8 working days exactly--pretty crazy!!