Of Supervisors and the Universe

Before I share my day of census driving with my supervisor, I want to share yesterday's horoscope. For one, I find it hard to believe anyone actually talks or thinks this way, yet quite possibly it describes my days better than I can? Just for enjoyment, from Beliefnet.com and do make note of the last 7 words:

The fishy Pisces Moon has us swimming in two directions today, revealing the opposite forces in our lives. Mars enters dualistic Gemini, offering us an escape from the eternal dance between the crosscurrents of rational logic and irrational feelings. This quantum leap is driven by a magical biquintile from the Sun to the spiritual Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune superconjunction. Luckily a solid Mercury-Saturn sextile adds a measure of common sense to the mix.

That has to be inspired! Now I'm trying to figure out if I used common sense yesterday, but since I appeased the Case-Count Minor Gods (also known as Regional Office) and cracked out a few assignments, I think I did okay. One thing about employers - if you overachieve too often, they'll expect it as a norm; then when you have a 'regular week' they'll be upset at your low performance. If you keep expectations reasonable, you can avoid this self-created trap.

Strange how that works, but it seem if you have a day of excessive bloomin' energy you're better off siphoning it into something for yourself than using it in your employment and raising your boss's expectations for the next day. Been there, our shift threw extra trucks - unloading at Wal-mart some years ago - while short of help, wore ourselves out in the effort; next day Super said, "We did it once, we can do it again!" - Sure, the crew was the one throwing freight, not her, and we were all still recovering from extra demands of the previous night.

To add irony to insult, I later found out that supervisors who could get the work done with fewer than recommended employees - i.e. run short crews routinely - received a bonus. Guess who had to pick up the extra work when the shift was 2-3 people short? Now guess who didn't receive a bonus... I know, the American Way. I could have worked up to supervisor, gotten off the physical end of the work, and reaped the bonus benefits of running short crews - just demanding more sweat from another to enrich myself seems wrong. We did get cheap plastic pins "We're #1!" in recognition, yee-ha! I was so grateful... :)

And now we all want to know how my day with my census supervisor went, don't we? I'd worked late in the night - 2 a.m. - on an assignment the night before, so I was in a slightly fogged state when I met up with her. The first thing we did was move her vehicle to a parking lot that wouldn't care if it was parked there all day, and then I drove us into the back roads 40 miles away. I was thinking kind thoughts the whole time, though she is more representative of the above-described supervisors and I am, as always, lovable old me - if slightly sleep-deprived foggy.

Among other things, we talked about my aging car and how well it was running. The first stop was 'next to nowhere' - I shut off the car and went to the door, but no one was home. Turned the key to drive on and had nothing. Repeatedly. We got out and twisted cables, my supervisor took off a shoe to bang on them (couldn't find a rock in the drive, oddly enough), but the car wasn't having any of it. Rather embarrassing, to be broke down in a stranger's yard with no one home with my supervisor, but wha'cha gonna do? Sure, I could have tried applying Reiki to the engine, but why make my supervisor believe I'm totally nuts?

We managed to push my little car out to the road - I was steering with the door open and my supervisor was pushing in front (Jim, I know this is something you'd have liked to see!) and the driveway was a good 20 yards to the road. I do have triple-A for such situations, and she had a cell phone, so I called for assistance. General thought was, even if they jumped the battery, if the alternator was malfunctioning, we could be stranded again along our route -- too much for me, being stranded with my supervisor once was more than enough!

About an hour later the truck arrived; flatbed, hooked up my car and towed it on board. We got to ride back to town in the tow truck, and this gent too was 'country' - my supervisor helped him figure out how to use his cell phone to call his boss and report our situation. I mentioned we were kind of back-roads...

Once we were closer to town, my supervisor jumped out - joyfully, I think - to catch a ride with her brother-in-law to her vehicle, and the truck dropped my car (and me) off at my house. The rest of the Day of Sharing was cancelled. I think the Universe knew I needed a nap, so my car took one for me - even as I thought 'fuzzy pink positives' at my supervisor.

Sure, put the charger on the battery and the car started right up. I decided the battery might be the culprit, in that I haven't replaced it since I've owned the car - about 4 years. Also, the battery light wasn't lit as if it were decharging. The next day I bought one at NAPA and had them install it for me.

If this had occurred 'one start' sooner, we'd have been in town and she would have used her car to drive us around these roads; I wouldn't have gotten my nap to make up for lost sleep. I didn't have the cases mapped out well and had planned on doing this as we went; I knew one case was even further 'backwoods' than the one we stalled out. Much of this area doesn't receive cell phone signals, so we could have shared a nice hike back to civilization. (Never mind I've seen bears and a few wolves - I could outrun her if I had to.)

So - I got lucky. We'll try again next month. As it was, my 'shoe glue' failed as we were pushing the car, but my supervisor didn't notice one heel was flapping along with a stalled car. It would have been totally 'backwoods' if I'd pulled out my emergency duct tape and fixed it on the spot, but I avoided further embarrassment during this incident.

Truthfully, I think the Universe gave me what I needed.