Mishaps and other haps

Most workplaces are cutting back in this lean, mean economy.  At my workplace, we’ve employed cost-saving measures to reduce operation expenses (oh, the jargon!).  Contract employees have been let go.  We’ve failed to rehire many regular, full-time positions.  Asking fewer employees to do more and paying overtime to get it done saves money over our hiring process.  Expectations are higher.  Employees are being asked to contribute their two-cents to improve every aspect of their work.

Next week, I will sit in a day-long meeting about the results from an employee empowerment class meant to direct attention to what employees need (or feel that they need) to do their jobs better and contribute more to the company’s success.

The session of the class a co-worker and I attended a few weeks ago ended with a dramatic statement from one of the teachers to the effect of “We’re bleeding money right now.  The company might not be around in five years if we don’t change the way we do business.”  Such is the way of motivating people in the financial industry, but our financial figures in this past year’s economy lend some support to his assertion.  Losing $1 billion from storms, plus another $1 billion in market losses, is not something you want to repeat every year.

That being said and the stress of the past few weeks aside, I feel very lucky now.  I have a good job that pays well and my company can weather losses better than many others in the industry.  I don’t feel that unemployment is pending for me.  My fiance just started a new job that is better than mine, proving that even in this economy, good things are out there if you are lucky enough to find them.

I found out today that yet another Madison-area employer is going to be shutting down its office in April and release a few hundred more job seekers upon the job market here.  I don’t think I know more than one or two people currently employed by this company (out of many I have known who have worked there in the past), but my condolences and best wishes go out to all job hunters right now.  It’s tough.

I have taken the next few days off from work and Michael and I will be joining his family for a trip out to the western edge of the state to stay and visit with Jack, a friend of the family.  Tonight I’m going shopping with Althea to pick up food for the trip ( I think Michael is going to help Bryan with the kids)– the menu was completely planned on Monday night during our weekly family dinner get-together.

In addition, I have most of tomorrow to relax and chill before we leave town.

It should be a good weekend and I will do my best to provide some kind of summary if I don’t get too caught up in trying to catch up at work next week.

Two things I am loving at the moment are:

Hot tea

Online banking

In years past, we’ve gone out, but this year we’re having a quiet little romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at home.  It works out pretty well since it falls on Saturday.  I have been thinking about recipes, but haven’t quite decided what I want to cook.  A tiramisu cake has been ordered.  No crowds, lots of privacy.

Why did I ever want to go out other years?  Maybe because it fell during the week?

We will be doing our last cake testing Saturday morning (well before the tiramisu cake).  I want to make some decisions relatively shortly and we are close, I think!

The past few days I have finally felt like I am over the cold I came down with in late January.  I think I might still sound a little hoarse or dry-throated when I talk a lot, but I have been coughing less and blowing my nose much less.

However, the viruses of winter have not yet been conquered.  At work we have been plagued with a computer virus since early last week and it has really created some problems for workflow.  As of today it’s still not under control and it sounds like they are going to try a few new anti-virus fixes tonight and tomorrow night to *hopefully* resolve the issue.  Then, I’m guessing, there will be much re-installing of software and minor patch-ups when people return to work on Monday.

I just can’t believe this has been going on for a week and a half now.  I have never seen a virus cause such major problems for a company that I have worked for.  Some employees have spent days completely unable to use their computers or work at all.  In our area, it hasn’t been that bad, but we’ve had some limited functionality.

So busy keeps getting busier at work– we’re going to be quite busy catching up from the virus and the backlog that keeps recurring in a department of two.  To explain, my co-worker has been on a project since the beginning of the year that takes her away from our area three mornings per week.  Between the two of us, we’ve had vacations, training, illnesses, weddings, and other reasons for being understaffed over and over since last summer.  I think this is just normal for us, though.  It really is harder to stay caught up when you have a very small department.

By the time I take a few days off at the end of the month, I hope we’ve at least recovered from this second virus of February!

Pretty much every year since *at least* my Freshman year in high school, I have kept some sort of paper planner or organizer to manage the events going on in my life … until this year.

I do have a wall calendar up at the office, but it’s only a token.  I don’t have anything written on it for the entire month of February, for example.  I mostly have it up as decoration since I wanted a calendar made from photos of my cats and had it produced in time to return to work with it at the beginning of the year.

In recent years, I had reduced my notebook-sized planner calendar for my personal life to a pocket calendar that fit into my purse.  This year I have no paper calendar for my purse.

I have gone entirely digital.  All of my important work calendaring is done in Microsoft Outlook since we use that at work.  All of my personal calendaring is done in Google Calendar and iCal.

OK, perhaps this does not eliminate or even reduce my reliance on calendars, but it does cut down on the paper baggage I carry around.  I have access to iCal on my iPhone, which I carry around with me anyway.  Google Calendar will probably win out when a good app shows up for the iPhone.  I share my Google Calendar with Michael and can schedule events on it that we are both involved with.

Yes, using an electronic calendar can affect other organizational aspects of your life.

We were pretty inconsistent about planning dinners last year and ended up either repeating a lot of meals at home or we’d get tired of cooking and eat out at restaurants.  Eating out gets old, even in Madison.  We also realized that this was an economically unsound thing to be doing while Michael was unemployed (for several months) after his old company was sold.

Homemade food pretty much always wins economically and in terms of how it tastes.  Even when I lived alone, I cooked most of my own meals and stored the leftovers to take to work for lunch or eat later in the week.  When I was starting out in the working world, my paycheck just wouldn’t have stretched far enough if I had eaten out every night.  Plus, I like cooking– trying new recipes and tweaking old favorites.  I don’t even mind clean-up as long as I have a dishwasher and to date, I’ve only lived in one place that didn’t have one (grad student housing– ugh).

We’ve been planning dinners much more effectively this year and for several weeks now I have been scheduling them on Google Calendar.  We shop for ingredients on the weekend and both of us can access my calendar to see what we will be having each night of the coming week.  It’s good to have a system.

There is some pampering involved in shopping for wedding services.  As far as 10/10/2009 is concerned, it’s mine and Michael’s show.  We are making the decisions and spending the (hard-earned) money.  All of the people involved in selling wedding services recognize that the affianced couple is key.  Brides and grooms are treated like royalty by the business people who want to sell their services for the Big Day.

Oh, everyone should have this experience once.  You don’t want to do it every year, but you definitely want to do it.

One of my favorite parts of shopping for the wedding has been meeting some of the creative individuals who work in and on these services.  They are part of more weddings every year than I will be in my entire lifetime.  Many of them work very long hours, particularly the business owners.

The pastry chefs, catering staff, and florists put part of themselves into their work.  You can see the different personalities of the artists and artisans reflected in the final products they produce.  And despite the long hours, they have lives beyond work …

Tonight we had an enjoyable conversation with Craig, owner of Craig’s Cake Shop in Verona.  We heard a potential love story in the making.

We also learned that Craig and his staff may make as many as 15-20 wedding cakes per weekend during their busy months.  Take a break, Craig!  Make that 7 1/2 hour drive!

Dinner and a movie …

Sometimes it’s good to take a break in the middle of all else and go out.

I’ve been looking forward to this all week.