Running On Ice

Oerstadt: I told you earlier I have a destiny, a purpose. Satan reasons like man, but God thinks of eternity. Well, I prostrate myself before a world that's going to hell in a handbag, 'cause in all eternity, I am here and I will be remembered. That's destiny. A bomb has a destiny, a predetermined fate set by the hand of its creator, and anyone who tries to alter that destiny will be destroyed.

—Deja Vu (2006)

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I've had two pretty crappy days at work this week. I don't know that it's going to improve any. Yesterday I went into the office and there was a bunch of turmoil going on. There was a city-wide meeting of principals going on, after which they would break up into their area-based groups for further inservicing. Nobody knew whether they were going to be presenting any of the materials to the principal, or if they were just going to assist homehow, or what. My boss goes into Overdrive Mode and has me edit an existing PowerPoint presentation with the relevant material, plus he grabs another couple of people to put together a folder full of handouts, a pre/post test for the staff development end of things, and a few other details. All of this because nobody bothered to tell him whether or not he was presenting any of this material. He and I worked from about 10 am until after 2:00 putting the whole thing together. I have to say, we did a pretty good job. However, at about the time we were ready to leave, the AAO calls my boss and tells him that his sole responsibility is to deal with the pre- and post-tests. However, she'll also need some help on the PowerPoint. I look in the closet and see all of the projectors are there. So I grab a projector and an extension cord, and all the materials that we were given by North Avenue last week. Pack it onto a folding hand truck and take it to the elevator.

Which is, naturally, out of order.

So I have to get this hand truck of stuff, which includes a $1500 digital projector, down three flights of stairs. Fun!

The presentation was taking place at the Professional Development Center, which, after a couple of years' absence, has returned to the building at 2500 Northern Parkway. This part is a pretty sweet deal for me, because I live practically walking distance from this place. I get to PDC and it turns out that I didn't have to bring the projector; they have these training rooms now which have PCs connected to projectors mounted to the ceiling. The images get projected onto this smart board jobbie to which you can take a stylus, and it basically acts like a big tablet PC. You can click on an item projected on the board  and have the computer react appropriately.

So I spent four hours working on a presentation that didn't get used, went to a building to be the guy who helps the guy who's handing out and collecting quizzes, plus running the presentation stuff because nobody else can figure it out. Not the most productive use of my time. This part was all after school hours, incidentally: I got home at 6:00. And I therefore didn't get to work on the presentation I KNOW I'm doing next week because of all this.

And this is all because our new AAO wouldn't return her phone calls over the weekend, or during the day Monday until literally the last minute. In short, we spent a bunch of time making her look good that day and I have no real feeling that our efforts were truly appreciated.

Today, I had a very long IEP meeting at a school, which I can't talk too much about (confidentiality and all that), but the short version is that I got sandbagged into the team making a decision that I think is inappropriate for this student at this time. The team, I'm sure, is more than happy not to have to deal with this parent anymore as a result of this decision. Not to mention her advocate, who figured he could discuss medication because he works in a pharmacy. Naturally I took the time to ask, and of course he's not a pharmacist. "But I've worked in a pharmacy for fifteen years."

Like that carried any weight for me. I could spend fifteen years in a garage but that wouldn't make me a Corvette.

The only bright spot on my horizon is that I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon that will practically guarantee that I'll get home at a decent hour.