Dramaville

I went to bed around 10pm. Fitful, fish-flopping, unable to shut my brain off kind of sleep followed. It’s been horrible. So here I am at 2:45am wide awake. Not a good thing with a full day of work ahead and my last evening with Annie and Penelope.

I’m sitting here, praying and reflecting. At first, I was praying that God would just help me to sleep. Then I started asking, “Why am I awake?” I think it’s a combination of things. First, we met Rhonda (my best friend and wife of Steve who is now working with Nelson building the house) halfway between our homes/towns for dinner. I picked a Burger King in the halfway town that has a large play area so that Penelope would have a place to play. I was laughing so hard my cheeks and head hurt. But while we were enjoying all her antics I downed a couple large raspberry ice teas. So caffeine could be a part of the problem.

Another thing it could be is too much drama at work. There seems to be, inherent to the clientele I work with, a natural bent toward creating drama. But it’s not just the workers, it’s the director of the program as well. And I’ve been replaying yesterday’s drama over and over in my head—and I should be able to sleep because I’m exhausted by the whole thing.

The day started with the director of T-Net chewing the team out during their opening devotion time and then me out for production being too low, and venting about some other problems (that I had no control over). Venting barely describes the intensity of his anger (complete with a finger wagging at me—and way too close at that). He did come back and apologize, and yet even that felt like part of the drama.

I ended up talking with the acting Plant Production Manager (Ed is away this week—of course) and the CFO. They gave me a clear reality check: I am their employee and if Dan has a problem with the way things are being done, he needs to take it to the Production Manager. Their support went a long way to help get my head back into the job. Unfortunately, even though I was able to get my head back together a few team members were just not able and I felt like I spent a lot of the day “putting out fires.”

The good news is that we boosted our production yesterday, the bad news is that we may have overextended ourselves and made it hard to work today. We’ll just have to see what happens today.

Ok, I was able to go back and sleep for another hour. I think that was because I began to realize two things while I was typing this. First, Dan is bringing back the one guy who walked out in a fit of anger last month (or in April), who’s already worked here twice and not worked out. I began to wonder while I was typing if that move wasn’t a male territory kind of thing. This guy is the one that the really hard worker that Dan fired a few weeks back got into a fight with at the ministry’s transitional living apartment. A couple of the girls have a “thing” for the fired hardworking guy and Dan knows it. He and the FHG are really “pissing in each other’s oatmeal” and this has the icky feel of being another piece of that DRAMA! Ugh.

Another thing that dawned on me as dawn was quickly approaching was the possible meaning of a dream. I had been thinking about what I was going to have to do as soon as I get to work this morning: I have to set up to get a hot part out. Oh, wait I forgot to explain. In the midst of my firefighting in the afternoon, I checked my work email and found a request to get a part out because it’s “hot.” Great. So I talked it out with the team and we planned how to get it out first thing without too much disruption to our system. But in the dream I was having, I was building the wrong boxes. Now, you may have your own interpretation of the dream. What I realized and my answer came in association to the Drama of the day: I was focusing on the wrong thing and it was negatively affecting my ability to do my job.

So today, the drama gets parked at the door, no better, in the parking lot! We’re here to work. I refuse to get sucked in. I’m choosing to not go there. We WILL focus on the job!

I feel better right now. I’m still a little tired, but I think I’ll be ok. Annie and Penelope are coming for lunch today so I can show them the plant and show of my source of laughter these days. The very thought just put a huge smile on my face! So unlike yesterday when it was Dramaville and I didn’t really get any breaks or lunch—today Tina is taking lunch! Wish you all could join me.