[Magdalen] Update - ws Re: Please, please pray.

[M J _Mike_ Logsdon]

>>>Is there any way that any of us can help? Other than by letting you know 
we are listening?<<<

I want to thank everyone for their responses and assurances of remembering me in this time of need.  I want to especially thank my local friend Brian for his comment quoted above.  Just knowing someone's listening (obviously, a lot are listening) is all that can really be offered in terms of help.  But that certainly means a lot.  I can't stress that enough.

Thursday my boss set up a meeting first thing Monday morning to discuss "work tasks".  (I do hate the words "task" and "tasks".  Assignments, yes, but tasks?  That implies a taskmaster, and in a public workplace, or any workplace, in my opinion, that's dicey from the get-go.)  Maybe what little bit I absorbed from the late 60s and throughout the 70s infected me with the belief there should never be an Overlord and Prole scenario.  Oh well.  In reply, via remote access to my email and calendar, I accepted the meeting with the statement that my Union representative would be present at all meetings until further notice.  Almost immediately, she wrote back that the meeting was being canceled and re-scheduled to involve others present also (all Executive, and certainly not including those who are "on my side" -- "quotes" because they can't weigh in in any form as I'm not in their chain of command).  Now happening on Tuesday afternoon, which gives me and my Union rep more time to prepare.  Topic is "Workload and assignments", but it could easily include many other issues, which I and Union rep need to have a script ready for.  We will.  Including the guaranteed (via MOU) right to step out of the room and consult before answering a question, many of which questions may be "taken under advisement" with answers coming later.  Advice so far is to do more listening than talking.  That's difficult for me.

Two big issues, both personal, remain for me.  What turned her against me so?  And, what with all my work for the last decade or more having been taken from me and given to fellow employees she has nothing but praise for (for now, says me), ... I've more or less lost what kept me going all these years, ie, "interest" in the work, if not actual enjoyment.  I at least found it interesting enough to shine and be well-regarded by the public that I've interacted with for so many years.  Now, put honestly, I can't seem to muster enough interest to care anymore.  Quit?  Sure.  But with no safety net yet, it wouldn't be a good idea.  Plus, she'd win (which I'm not exactly against, since I think she wants me out anyway, but with no safety net, etc).  I've actually got a question in with my old boss, whom she replaced, and with whom I didn't always have the best relationship, but, as they say, my worst day with him wasn't as bad as my best day with, ... etc.

Tomorrow's kind of a limbo, with acidic criticism always possible, and, these days, expected.  I also expect to come in and find the assignment I was working on Thursday when I had to go home, gone, with probably nothing to effectively do until the next day.  I always bring a book.

I've got some research to do in regard to my timecards now, accessible remotely to my great surprise, in regards to my time over the last couple years, so I'll bid you all adieu, for  the time being.

And, once again, thanks.

Mike.