Passages

I received word today that a dear friend has died.

Of the many things I have learned and come to realize about the wider world – and beyond – around us, recognizing – and accepting – gifts is chief among them.

Shelley and I were seeking treatment for her Stage IV melanoma at the IMAQ (now called CIPAG) Clinic in Tijuana, Mexico in March 2006 when we met Tee and Dee.  It was in the clinic’s treatment room, where the IV treatments are done.  I don’t recall exactly, but we weren’t very many days into the 21 day treatment program.  It may have even been that first day.

Tee was in a very emotional state when she came in to start her treatment and took a chair near Shelley’s.  When you are in the grips of a life-threatening disease, the niceties and social decorums are significantly shortened, and it doesn’t take long before you are sharing intimate details of your disease progression with virtual strangers, just like foxhole buddies under fire.

Tee’s condition was an aggressive form of inflammatory breast cancer.  Traditional treatments of surgery, chemo and radiation had been offered to her back home, but the prognosis was poor and she had turned it down.  She described being met with frustration and anger from the health providers as a result of her refusal to “get with the program”.  Instead she elected to try alternative treatments at one of the myriad clinics operating in the Tijuana area of Mexico.

When we met, Tee and Dee had just finished a week’s worth of treatment at another clinic.  The doctor there, after extracting an exorbitant sum in treatment costs, had pronounced Tee incurable and suggested she go home and attend to her affairs.  They were staying in one of the American hotels in San Ysidro on the US side.  These hotels essentially cater to Mexican clinic patrons and operate a shuttle service to and from the clinics daily.  As they rode the shuttle back, Tee was in tears.  A fellow shuttle passenger inquired after the reasons for Tee’s distress and, upon hearing what had happened, recommended that she try Dr. Castillo and the IMAQ clinic.

That, in a nutshell, was the story we heard the day we met.

We saw them again each day and Shelley and Tee would visit for the whole time they were getting the IV treatments.  Life stories were exchanged and a bond formed between the two women.  Dee and I would visit as well, discussing all manner of things, I suspect, in order to keep our minds off the reason we where there with our respective wives.  While we would all sit together at times in the treatment room, often it would be full of patients and those of us not receiving treatments would have to sit in the building lobby or out on the front patio.

As we were staying in a vacation rental and had a rental car, we offered to host Tee and Dee on outings now and then.  While the hotel offers shuttle service to grocers, restaurants and malls to provide relief from being cooped up in the rooms, I think it was with relief that they accepted the offer of dinner out or a walk on the beach.  One of the last day’s at the clinic, after treatments, we walked a few blocks south to a flea market together.

Shelley and Tee’s treatment programs ended around the same time, but their flight home was a day before ours.  It was a late flight and they had several hours between hotel check out and check in at the airport.  We offered to pick them up from their hotel, go to lunch and bring them up to our place while waiting to leave.

I remember walking out on Ocean Beach that day, a beautiful April day in southern California.  Feeling the breeze.  Tee had never seen the Pacific Ocean before.  Despite all that had happened and was happening to her, she viewed the world around her with an almost child like wonder.  At the airport curbside, our goodbyes to our new found dear friends took long enough that airport security had to come over and hurry us up.  With promises to keep in touch on the air, we watched them enter the terminal as we drove off.  It was the last time that Shelley and Tee would see each other.

A couple of letters would be exchanged and a couple of phone conversations before metastatic melanoma took Shelley in August of that year.  Tee wrote a heartfelt letter to Shelley at her old e-mail address after I had let them know of her passing.  They shared a kind of friendship that develops over years for most.

I continued to keep in touch with Tee in the weeks and months after Shelley died.  At a particularly low point in my grieving, Tee sent me a marvelous note that means a great deal to me.  As I made my way northward after my epic road trip, I made a stop at Dee and Tee’s in Idaho in December ‘06.  I had left phone messages to let them know I was coming, but they weren’t home when I arrived.  I debated with myself: Should I leave a note and go on?  Should I wait a while?

And then something moved me to call their son.  I knew from our time in Mexico that their youngest son lived just down the road from them.  I called their house and learned that they were on their way home from Idaho Falls and would be home very soon.  So I waited, and spent most of the afternoon and early evening visiting.  I’m glad I did.

At one point, Tee shared a story with me about a widower they knew.  After his wife died, he didn’t think he would ever remarry.  But Tee told him, “You know, your wife needed you.  You just might meet someone else who needs you too.  You should remain open to the possibility.”  And later, this widower did meet someone.  And he did remarry.

Those words stayed with me and I kept Tee abreast of the progress I was making in my grief journey and, when I met someone new, I wanted Tee to meet her as well.

The trip to Idaho Falls in 2007 was the last time I saw Tee.  I continued to correspond with her but, over time, her e-mails declined in frequency.  Her e-mails became mostly chain mail forwards and the odd time that she did write a note, she admitted that she was in a lot of pain.

I thought of Tee from time to time, wondering how she and Dee were doing.  If she was still with us.  And today I received word that I need wonder no longer.  Tee passed away on October 20th.  Dee sent me a link to her obituary.  As I read it, I realized that there was a lot I had learned about her during our brief times together, but there was a lot I did not know.  I do know, though, that she was a very special person.  She was gifted in a number of ways.  She will be missed by all those whose lives she has touched.  I will miss her.  I hope she is at peace now.  Free of pain.  And re-united with her friend.

Tee and Shelley at Tijuana Flea Market, April 2006

 

Douchebags

Wikipedia defines douchebag in the traditional sense.  That is, a douche bag used in feminine hygiene.

But, it also defines douchebag as slang.  To wit:

Douchebag, or simply douche, is considered to be a pejorative term in North America and other English speaking countries. In some English speaking countries the term is not well known. The slang usage of the term dates back to the 1960s. The term refers to a person with a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions without malicious intent. It is generally used for males only.

The Huffington Post had a piece up the other day highlighting a short video from funnyordie.com entreating douchebags everywhere to unite and take a stand:

more about “We Are Douchebags from Slick Gigolo -…“, posted with vodpod

 

Interestingly, while searching for the Huffpost piece to find the link for this post, I found out that if you’re a high school student in the US and you write a personal blog post, at home, on your own time and refer to the faculty and staff at your school as douchebags it can have unintended consequences for your extracurricular school career.  Best to think twice before hitting publish, apparently.

The real reason for this rant, however, is because of our most recent encounter with douchebags, which was Saturday night.

Now, Saturday was Hallowe’en (or Samhain if you’re of the pagan persuasion).  So, Saturday and a celebration.  Reason enough for a par-tay.  No problem-o.

We have neighbours who live down the back alley from us and who tend to be, at times, a little wild.  They are about our age and have a couple of twenty something children.  Who seem to still live at home.  With their respective significant others.  And their children.

I think the “parents” must have been away this weekend.

It seems like the “kids” arrived out here after whatever Hallowe’en function they’d been to wrapped up.  It was around 10 pm.  They fired up the backyard fire pit.  And cranked up the tunes.  It was a bit loud.  Our bedroom window directly faced the venue for the festivities.  But, as I said, it was Saturday and a celebration.  While the noise was infiltrating our house a bit, even with all the windows closed, we were snuggled in bed watching a video.  (It was Snatch, by the way.  One of Guy Ritchie’s better efforts.)

Our video ended around midnight, but the strains from the party down the way indicated things were still going strong.  I cracked the landing window open and could hear, in addition to the throbbing beat, loud “Wa-hoo’s” like you only get when everyone has had probably a bit too much to drink.

Sleeping was out of the question and we weren’t totally tired and, banking on the whole “fall back” thing this weekend, we decided to view another movie.  Revolver was the second film of our Guy Ritchie double feature.

It was about 2 am (daylight time) when the second movie ended and we were both pretty tired.  However, the party-ers down the way appeared to be no where near ready to wind things down.

I couldn’t believe that no one else had lodged a complaint yet.  I thought about getting dressed and walking down there to get them to tone things down.  Actually, truth be told, I fantasized about walking in there with a pick axe handle and smashing stereo and speakers to bits.  I wouldn’t have been above knee capping anyone who got in the way, either.

But, that’s not the way we do things in Canada.  So, rather than get dressed, I did the next best thing.  I called in a complaint.  Since it was late at night and the situation involved a drinking party, an RCMP constable was dispatched.  The constable called me from the road as he headed out here to the country and I supplied him with additional detail.

He was going to telephone the house first to see if he could get them to tone it down and, failing that, he planned a personal visit.

I’m not sure which approach he wound up using, but in a short while, the music faded away.  There was still loud talking and laughing but between fatigue and melatonin I was finally able to get to sleep.

 

Beyond Belief

I have mostly resisted the tendency of our society toward mourning sickness.  My position is that I have enough trouble distributing my emotional reserves amongst my family and friends, so there is no way I’m going run on empty for the sake of people I don’t know, never met, never knew existed.

But the news out of Iraq in the wake of the worst attack since a series of suicide bombings against Shiite neighborhoods in April 2007 killed 183 has me totally disgusted and a bit angry.

These sickening suicide bombers have accomplished the same thing that Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirators did when they murdered innocent children by bombing the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

From the New York Times:

There were conflicting reports of the deaths of children at the Justice Ministry’s day care center. A police official stationed at the Ministry of Justice, Hussein Issa, said 30 children had been killed, but other officials said the number was much smaller. Most were in the center’s playground, close to the street, when the bomb went off, knocking down protective blast walls.

“There were children killed in the swings, others who died right where they sat on the see-saws,” said Usay Ednan, a 33-year-old taxi driver who lives nearby and said he was among the first rescuers.

Can you imagine your child, at play in a playground, happy and obliviously having fun in one moment and then blown to bits in the next?

How can anyone, regardless of their political or religious fervour, consciously plan and execute the kind of wanton destruction that will assuredly bring death to innocent young children?  What kind of human does this?

And, further, what kind of people would aid and abet such monsters?  Offer food and shelter and concealment?  How could anyone harbouring such monsters look at themselves in the mirror and say, with a straight face, “I am doing the right thing”?

I listened to a young Pakistani man on CNN this morning, who had been grievously injured by a suicide bomber in Islamabad, talk about what he would like to see done about the Taliban terrorists.

“The police, the military, should kill them all.”

In Iraq, the people must come to a similar conclusion. 

Open letter to the people of Iraq:

If you want change, if you want this senseless violence and death to stop, then you must act.  Each and every one of you.  Don’t harbour these monsters.  Don’t protect them.  Don’t be intimidated by them.  Turn them out.  Turn them in.  If necessary, execute them.  Don’t wait for others to do it.  You must clean up your own community.

Think of the brutal murders of the young and innocent.  Think of your children.  You must act, and act now,  if you don’t want to have to bury your own children.

 

Blog Update

I’m not all that big into “housecleaning” this blog, but I decided to freshen that dreary header photo up top.  The panorama photo above is of the harbour at Gibson’s, BC on the Sunshine Coast.  The photo(s) were taken on Boxing Day 2006 (Boxing Day is the day after Christmas Day if you don’t know) and it was just before brother-in-law Dan and I went for a kayak paddle along the coast.  It was a lovely time and there’s not much that’s more peaceful than being out on the water and under your own power.

 

The Job Track – Conclusion

Continuing on from part 3.

We talked about “natural break points” in the project; milestones where a hand off to another person could be smooth and seamless. He was going to talk to folks “up the food chain” to gauge receptiveness.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on getting my deliverables for the project into order and setting things up for an orderly transition. I’ve also been keeping AJ up to speed on developments as well as providing forecasts of the timing of my potential availability.

But, as is always the case it seems, circumstances began to intervene. Some late scope changes, introduced by management, on top of spending plan adjustments induced by the global credit crisis have introduced delay after delay. We’ve revised the project schedule and execution strategy several times now and deferred as much as we can without significantly affecting the project end date.

We’re still on target for completing the bulk of the engineering by the end of this year or early next year. Although some other contracts will still need to be engineered, they are smaller and this would be one of those “natural break points”, and the one I’ve been working toward.

However, a couple more circumstances have revealed themselves in the last one or two weeks. One is that the final authorization for my project is being further delayed. Because we didn’t get funding early enough this fall and also because winter came very early, we’ve pushed the start of field work out to next spring.

The other? We’re in the midst of a baby boom. I wrote briefly about this before, but it seems that about a third to half of our group is going out on maternity leave. Mat leaves here can be up to one year long. This means that the number of available engineers to whom I could hand off this project is dwindling.

My leader is now struggling with resources and, when I went to discuss recent developments with him, he said that he may have to look at external hiring. Unspoken, to some extent, was the fact that a backfill for me would also have to be an external hire. And, also unspoken, that is a difficult thing to convince business leadership is necessary in order to support a move such as the one I want to make. Interestingly, what was spoken was the dangling of another major project here – a plant modification with a scope estimated at $40 to 50 million. I think my leader hopes that would sway my interest sufficiently to make me give up on the mega-project.

It’s not. Remember exit strategy?

So, I believe that my leader will not be doing as much pushing for me from here on out. My only other hope is AJ. I sent him an e-mail outlining the latest developments and my impressions of the situation here. He knows I am willing to commit for the duration, which is out to 2014 or 2015, and includes a lengthy stay in the Middle East.

I am hoping that AJ can do some pulling.

 

The Job Track, Part 3

Wow, this is taking a lot longer than I initially figured it would to work out something.  Anyways, continuing on from Part 2.

In the background of all this, another factor was in play. Our site had been fingered to become, nearly lock, stock and barrel, part of a new joint venture company. Spinning off from the corporate parent into a separate and stand-alone enterprise, it had all the appearances of making the jump to a mega project pretty much impossible. It’s a good thing we were being accorded a retention incentive over the next three years. That was going to have to be my trade off for staying put.

To top it all off, another of those old “circumstances” came into play. Earlier, a colleague had resigned and by mid-year no takers had been found to fill his role. It was an important one too, part of a team responsible for about $60 million in projects.

Looking around, my leader couldn’t help but notice my now staying put ass and decided to discuss this “opportunity” with me. I pretty much had no choice but to accept the offer of this new job. I figured, “What the hell?” It was going to be something new to learn, technology-wise, and, in the high profile major project work sense, it was about the only “game” on site. The only downside? It counted as a “move”. My “time spent in current job” re-set back to zero in mid ’08.  This becomes relevant in a bit.

But, the JV deal fell through. Not only that, those of us who were headed for the JV had been immune to the 10% work force cuts at the parent in late ’08. When the deal fell through, that immunity was gone. Any of us could become a part of the “ten percent”. I was panicking slightly, and scrambling to cover all potential bases.

Among other things, I dashed off an e-mail to AJ, asking if the offer (and the job) was still open. It was.

When I called my leader into my office to chat shortly after all this transpired, he looked to be filled with trepidation. I was not sure why as I went ahead and launched into an explanation of all the reasons why I was having (yet another) change of heart about the Middle East job. While not exactly thrilled, he was relieved. It seems he had feared that I wanted to “express interest” in a separation deal. On the subject of a release to transfer to the mega project, however, no promises could be made.

In the meantime, my leader announced his retirement. He was, it turned out, part of the 10%.  Hopefully it was voluntary.  A project manager in my group was tapped to take over the group leadership role and, as he started transitioning in to the leader role, we discussed my mega project ambitions.

“You backed out of taking this assignment a few months ago, didn’t you? What has changed to make you want to go for it now?”

Ann and Dee now had their PR cards and in doing some research into the conditions for keeping PR status, we found that the PR holder had to be physically present in Canada a total of three years out of five. (Bummer!) Unless the PR holder is absent from Canada while accompanying their Canadian spouse for overseas employment. (Shaaaaa-wing!) This time out of the country while accompanying their spouse actually counts toward the time physically present in Canada needed for PR status renewal (every 5 years).

And so, the dance was under way again. After a bit of consideration my (new) leader said it really wasn’t possible for me to leave. Local resourcing was a problem. The project I’m currently on was too important to the business and the site. I’m already the third person in my current role on the project due to maternity leaves and resignations and the project is not at a good place for a hand off.

I accepted these arguments without rebuttal.

I thought about it for a night and a day.  I recalled all the times I had taken what was offered and what was good for the company (and not all that good for me).

I went back to see him. I had to explain further, that this overseas assignment was more than just an exciting and engaging, not to mention exotic, opportunity. I said, “This opportunity is a keystone to my exit strategy.” I went on to say things like, “I don’t think I can gut it out here for another six years.”  I allowed that, after leaving, I didn’t really expect to come back to this site.

He was remarkably sanguine while receiving these rebuttals and counter points to his previous closing the door arguments.

He pledged to see what he could in support of my cause.

Good deal.

…to be continued (and hopefully concluded).

 

The Job Track, Part 2

Picking up from yesterday.

I asked for a personal leave the day AJ offered me a new role on site. I took the role, but I needed some time to take care of myself.

I came back to work a little over two months later at the start of 2007. Although somewhat better, I was still a long way from what could be considered my “A game”. I went through the motions for pretty much a year or a little more, living pretty much on my past reputation and a bit of what must be a genetic gift – “blarney”.

The new job was in a different business, a different technology. Simpler, really, than what I had been working with the past eleven years. The plant was about the newest on site and had always been regarded from every other plant as a glittering palace of sorts. Xanadu. The Taj Mahal.

In reality, I found it to be a classic case of “The grass is greener”. It’s not. Not really.

AJ landed a job that took him back south in mid ‘07. Home. He’s a native born Texan. At his going away party he told me that if I was ever interested in a project job, to let him know. He’d be glad to have me on this team. So, I essentially had a standing invitation, were circumstances right. Amazing, I thought. He had definitely seen me at my worst and hadn’t really worked with me much at my best. Made me think about the kind of impression I must have made over the years. Something I rarely consider as I go about doing my thing.

I didn’t give AJ’s offer much thought after that. By then I was sponsoring my new wife and step daughter for permanent residency in Canada.

I didn’t give it much thought, that is, until late in ‘07 AJ landed a project manager job on the Saudi Arabian project. He called me soon after to see if I still had any interest in working on a major project.

I talked it over with Ann and we decided we should go for it. In a way, it was coming back to an old track. There had been a time, a few years earlier, when the discussion around the empty nest table had gone in the direction of the possibilities of an assignment or job in the Middle East. It would only have to be an ex-pat posting of about five years or so. Long enough to accumulate a sizable enough nest egg to return home and launch a new entrepreneurial enterprise.

The toughest thing was going to get a release from my current role and business. Normally you are supposed to be in a job for at least three years before requesting a change. I was looking at slightly less than a year. And in a job to which I had been redeployed. Talk about coming off as ungrateful.

But what was there to lose? I had discussions with my leader and got the ball rolling on the process. Truth is I had to make veiled threats. The job market was hot in our area at the time and virtual legions of engineers were pulling their freight and moving to greener pastures. And this in spite of retention incentives.

Despite my leader’s initial downplaying of the possibility of my successfully getting the new role, he was actually soon well on the way to accommodating my wanton wishes, even to the point of lining up a backfill.

Then a combination of a schedule slowdown on the MidEast project, a reluctance to add staff and an attack of “cold feet” kicked in. At the time, the immediate relocation was to be to Houston, TX. At home, we weighed the pros and cons. Ann and Dee were barely settled in here, with Dee just getting accustomed to her school, making friends and all that other kid stuff. Applications for permanent residence were in the works but had not yet been approved. It didn’t seem like it was really worth it to uproot everyone and move to the US Gulf Coast where we would almost be prisoners indoors due to the hot and humid climate. Worth what? More money? More money seemed to be the only pro against a long list of cons and that was the least of all motivators.  So, in the middle of ‘08 I essentially put the brakes on everything I had set in motion six months before.

…to be continued.

 

The Job Track, Part 1

I was working under a NAFTA permit for an independent refiner in the US Midwest when I was offered a job with my current employer. My quest for an employer supported green card was going nowhere and after three and a half years in a small Kansas town we were weary of the place, the mindset and not a few of the people.

The job offer looked like a dream in the offing. Although we had to move back to Canada for it, the company was a big multinational*, and the possibility for an employer sponsored move back to the US on a permanent basis loomed large.

But that was all before George W. Bush, 9/11/01 and everything else that has occurred since those halcyon days in the middle ‘90’s. Eventually, the US changed and we changed and the idea to permanently relocate to the US was, well, permanently dropped.

The years passed, quickly it seems in retrospect. Career opportunities would arise, real nice opportunities too, but then circumstances would change and I’d have a discussion about choices. More often than not I elected the choice that was better for the business or the company and less in my own interest. It didn’t matter to me at the time. Circumstances in my personal life outside of work would often weigh in those decisions too. But I think those times when I opted less for me and more for the employer ultimately took a toll. And, eventually, by the time we were becoming empty nesters, I was ready for a major career re-direction and change.

Then fate inserted itself, as it is wont to do, with a terminal melanoma diagnosis. We didn’t really believe it was terminal, not at the outset. But the path forward to overcome this most vicious of cancers meant that I had to suck it up, pull it together and stay with my steady and reliable job and benefits. These were things we would need were we to vanquish the beast.

Regular readers already know that we were not successful.

Around the time that my first wife died, the plant I was working in was targetted for permanent shut down. Half of it had already been shuttered and I was pretty sure that I was going to be slated for redeployment, although such matters were pretty far outside of conscious thought at the time. By the time I was widowed, I was certain that I would have to be redeployed.

I remember when my then leader, AJ, came to discuss my options with me. I haven’t ever worked for a better leader than AJ, ever, and he was genuinely sympathetic to my situation and was keenly interested in securing ongoing meaningful employment for me.

I was still in shock, mostly, but I had the presence of mind to ask if there were going to be any packages**.

AJ’s reply? “Not for you.”

Damn.

…to be continued.

* Nowadays, the descriptor would be “global”.

** Per daisyfae’s observation, adding that the “package” sought was of the severance variety.  I knew the answer would be “No” but I had to ask.  I came to grips a long time ago with the fact that my demographic is one that will never be given an incentive to leave early.

 

Seduction Style

Well, a little too busy right now for other than lazy blogging.  Copying from Ærchie’s Archive today:

What is your Seduction Style?

Your Seduction Style: The Charmer

You’re a master at intimate conversation and verbal enticement. You seduce with words, by getting people to open up to you. By establishing this deep connection quickly, people fall under your power. And then you’ve got them exactly where you want them!

What Is Your Seduction Style?

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

 

Company Culture

Our employer is a company now highly dependent upon work processes. A colleague told me today about this past weekend’s Dilbert strip. (It’s probably true of most workplaces, but Dilbert creater Scott Adams has uncannily drawn Dilbert strips about subjects going on in my workplace at the time it was happening. It’s almost like he works here.)

 

I’m going to admit right off that I did not write the following and I can’t identify the author, but it’s a bang on assessment of company culture and applies so well to the state of things today:

There is a risk in any company culture.

 The chimpanzee theorem:

Put twenty chimps in a room.  Attach a banana to the ceiling and place a ladder in order that the chimps could reach the banana.  Make sure the ladder is the only way to get to the banana.

Install a sprinkler system that starts spraying ice-cold water as soon as a chimp tries to climb the ladder.  The chimps will very quickly learn not to use the ladder.

Next, shut off  the sprinkler system, so that climbing the ladder no longer has any consequences.  Replace one of the original twenty chimps with a new one. 

The new chimp will immediately try to reach the banana by using the ladder, but will get beaten by the other nineteen chimps … without knowing the reason for the beating.

Replace a second original chimp with aother new one.  This second new chimp will also immediately try to reach the banana using the ladder, only to be set upon by the other chimps and the chimp beating the hardest is the one that was beaten himself, the first new chimp.

Keep replacing the original chimps until none of them remain.  From now on, no chimp even thinks about climbing the ladder.  And if one tries, he will be dealt with by the others. 

The most peculiar fact now is that no chimp actually knows why the ladder must not be climbed.

…and this is how a company culture starts.

Pure.  Genius.