This is turning out to be the month of doctors. I left work early yesterday and made an appointment with my doctor, both for the crud that I haven’t been able to get rid of in over a week, and the UTI that seems to be developing. Ugh. She gave me some antibiotics (which I had to wait two hours at the pharmacy for – it sure seems like every kid in our neighborhood is sick with something) and I slept better last night. While I still don’t feel 100%, there’s definite improvement over the way I felt yesterday. I feel like I can finally actually get some work done at work.
No call from the RE’s office yet. Waiting on blood test results… In the meantime, today is going to be a chance to put my One Little Word for 2014, CONCEIVE, to use. I have an interview this afternoon with my boss and our business office manager, in which we are interviewing a potential contract company. My boss asked me yesterday to come up with some interview questions. I was drawing a complete blank, honestly, because my brain was still not firing well. After googling the internet for ideas, and even polling my staff (“I’ll be interviewing a potential contractor, do you guys have any questions for them that you’d like me to ask?”) I picked up the phone and called a neighboring county’s human services director, since they’d recently worked with this contractor on a similar project. Finally I managed to put together a few questions that I hoped my boss would find intelligent and appropriate. This morning I got back an email with her finalized list of interview questions, and to my relief most of mine were on there, and they made up the majority of the questions, too. She did rephrase them some, but I feel better seeing that the ones I came up with were not completely inane. WHEW.I am challenging myself to conceive of a relationship between our county and this company, and try to ask questions that would help us do that. Today’s interview will be a chance to put it into action. But for the most part, I plan to sit very quietly and let my boss run the show. I can beg off still feeling sick and barely having any voice, but the truth is that one of the skills I really need to learn this year is to be quiet more often. I need to stop worrying about being perceived as not having anything to say – and not say anything unless it’s truly valuable. I tend to repeat myself a lot or pick on details that aren’t really relevant, and I do that to fill the silence and make a show of participation. But it isn't really a good use of anyone's time, so my goal this year is to make my participation more meaningful, and hold back when it isn't.In the meantime, if this contract is approved, I’ll receive a contract staff person this year. That means I have to figure out where this person will sit, what equipment they will use, and what tasks to assign to them. Lots of things I have to conceive of in order to get the most benefit... Since they’re temporary, I don’t think it's a good idea to assign them a caseload. But I figure this person can provide a lot of the tasks required behind the scenes, in support of the caseworkers… if this person can take those pieces on, my workers should be able to concentrate on just returning phone calls and solving problems rather than processing mail, working reports, and preparing docket files. That’s the plan, anyway. I hope it turns out well.My house is a wreck, so I’m really hoping I will feel well enough this weekend to set things back in order. The Christmas tree needs to come down, and the floors need cleaning. I probably ought to start thinking about a couple of SCA projects too. I might consider going to archery every week. I’m still torn on that, as I’m so tired at night and I don’t know how I’ll feel once I’m pregnant. But I guess after spending such a long time feeling stressed and exhausted and sick, I’m finally feeling more optimistic about my energy levels again. Hoping the momentum keeps going.
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