Within the last week I've watched or read two things discussing the idea of alternate universes, multiverses, whatever. The first was over at AccordingToHoyt, where several of the commenters discussed their own experiences slipping back and forth, or at least that was how it seemed to them, as well as being the best explanation for how things ended up where you knew you hadn't left them. You just slip over into the next universe where the you there had made that slight change.
Tonight on Netflix, I've been watching Prophets of Science Fiction, and more to the point the episode on Philip K. Dick.
This past weekend I was trying to find my fleece jacket. I distinctly remember coming into the house and taking it off, because it was just a bit too cool outside for me to have left it in the car. After both I and my husband spent five minutes scouring the downstairs for it, I gave up, went out to the car, and there it was on the passenger seat.
Now that could just be put down to bad memory.
But yesterday I went down to the basement to check the bubble on the boiler. Whenever I go down to do that I always check the level in the fuel tank. I rounded the corner to the boiler, looked over at the tank, and panicked because the bubble thingy wasn't there. When I went over to the tank to check the damage and see if I could figure out how it had been knocked off I found it, a quarter of the way further down the tank, right next to the intake pipe. You can't read it from any distance where it currently is, but I've always been able to see it from the other side of the boiler. There are boxes making it hard to stand next to where it currently is, but I stood right next to it just a few weeks ago when I was confirming that the level was half-way down, as it appeared from across the room.
An alternate universe is the only logical explanation.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Bad news and its silver lining.
The bad news. I got downsized on Thursday morning. I've known that my job was not secure, but all the librarians in the new multihospital group figured we had a bit of time, and we were making our case for why they needed more than two or three librarians for 5 hospitals, three of them teaching. But HR and the bean counters won the day.
From when HR showed up at my office to when I was being shivvied out the door was less than 10 minutes. I had to make an appointment to come back later to clear my office out. They wouldn't even let me sign out of the ILL module and forward on the requests I was working on. Someone someplace else is going to be upset as these things sit in limbo for three working days. The three other librarians who are being let go got 30 days notice and a severance package. I'm getting a severance package too, but only two weeks pay in lieu of notice. This is supposedly because the hospitals haven't completely merged yet, and I fall under different HR rules. Which seems a bit odd, because the HR department has supposedly been consolidated.
However....
I am sad that I don't have a job, and so far I've only found two or three jobs within commuting distance to apply for, and the others would all require relocating, probably without the family until at least this coming summer.
I am ecstatic that I no longer work for that company.
I'd noticed recently that when I took off the lanyard with my badge at the end of the day, it was like getting rid of a 10 pound weight. I've been unhappy there for a while, although with the reorganization, it was looking like I might actually get to do more and be more than a glorified file clerk. To add insult to injury, the day after I was let go, on the radio and in the paper, I find out that I was middle or upper management. Since my job may have required an MLS, but was classified as administrative and clerical support staff, I'm a little confused. Did I get promoted after I was fired?
More importantly, can I put this on my resumé?
From when HR showed up at my office to when I was being shivvied out the door was less than 10 minutes. I had to make an appointment to come back later to clear my office out. They wouldn't even let me sign out of the ILL module and forward on the requests I was working on. Someone someplace else is going to be upset as these things sit in limbo for three working days. The three other librarians who are being let go got 30 days notice and a severance package. I'm getting a severance package too, but only two weeks pay in lieu of notice. This is supposedly because the hospitals haven't completely merged yet, and I fall under different HR rules. Which seems a bit odd, because the HR department has supposedly been consolidated.
However....
I am sad that I don't have a job, and so far I've only found two or three jobs within commuting distance to apply for, and the others would all require relocating, probably without the family until at least this coming summer.
I am ecstatic that I no longer work for that company.
I'd noticed recently that when I took off the lanyard with my badge at the end of the day, it was like getting rid of a 10 pound weight. I've been unhappy there for a while, although with the reorganization, it was looking like I might actually get to do more and be more than a glorified file clerk. To add insult to injury, the day after I was let go, on the radio and in the paper, I find out that I was middle or upper management. Since my job may have required an MLS, but was classified as administrative and clerical support staff, I'm a little confused. Did I get promoted after I was fired?
More importantly, can I put this on my resumé?
Monday, November 11, 2013
Further proof that we repeat history if we have not learned it.
“We are taxed in our bread and our wine, in our incomes and our investments, on our land and on our property not only for base creatures who do not deserve the name of men, but for foreign nations, complaisant nations who will bow to us and accept our largesse and promise us to assist in the keeping of the peace – these mendicant nations who will destroy us when we show a moment of weakness or our treasury is bare, and surely it is becoming bare! We are taxed to maintain legions on their soil, in the name of law and order and the Pax Romana, a document which will fall into dust when it pleases our allies and our vassals. We keep them in precarious balance only with our gold. Is the heartblood of our nation worth these? Were they bound to us with ties of love, they would not ask our gold. They take our very flesh, and they hate and despise us. And who shall say we are worthy of more? … When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.” — Cicero
Someone put this up over at Hot Air, apologizing to veterans for American becoming so stupid.
I wonder, how much of our decline can be traced to the removal of the teaching of the classics in our public schools?
Someone put this up over at Hot Air, apologizing to veterans for American becoming so stupid.
I wonder, how much of our decline can be traced to the removal of the teaching of the classics in our public schools?
Remembrance Day
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)