(That should, of course, be said in the voice of the magician from Frosty the Snowman)
It seems like forever since I posted something.
You know all that stimulus money the feds are throwing around? Yeah, well, it all has to be reviewed by someone. Our office reviews everything the feds are funding in Michigan except for services. And all that money is coming with very short timelines. So, all of a sudden folks are finding themselves with big pots of money and need to spend it quickly. Projects were supposed to be “shovel ready” but what that means in reality is that someone has an idea and now they need to get all the paperwork done by Monday.
At work the volume of projects to be reviewed has picked up considerably. Even more though we’re seeing submissions by consultants who are completely unqualified to submit the information (I got one call from some guy who was deeply offended that I said he wasn’t qualified and might want to subcontract to someone who was. The longer I talked to him, the more I was convinced he didn’t have a clue what he was doing….) So, we get crappy paperwork submitted, there’s nothing in there that we can review (and this assumes that the lazy folks even bothered to read the regulations and find out what was required, or – heaven forbid – checked our website to see what they needed to submit) so we spend a lot of extra time sending their projects back to them for resubmission. And then answering the calls when they get their projects returned. I spend wayyyyyyy more time on the phone these days than I’d like. And everything has to be done NOW. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of us and a lot of federal bucks. So we’re getting rather swamped at work, plus most of it isn’t just the routine reviews, it’s a lot of dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing and expect us to do our job and theirs….by the time I get home I’m worn out. Sitting down in front of a computer at night to blog is just not going to happen much until things slow down at the office. Plus, the kids are wanting to stay up later because the sun stays up later. By the time we get them to bed it’s late, we’re exhausted, and we still have to do the dishes and make supper for ourselves.
Plus, there’s been the additional stress at work. The state’s broke and we’ll be taking some unpaid days off. I can live with that. Our budget is really tight with two kids in daycare, but we could have cut back (I’ve got a whole pantry of ramen noodles) and managed. The annoying thing is that you only find out at the last minute what’s going on. First it was 6 days. Then it was 6 consecutive days because of a union contract. Then it was 9 consecutive days because the state would have to pay us unemployment and that wouldn’t save them any $$, so they gave us more time off. And then it was 6 non-consecutive days because the union said “go ahead and do that.”
When it was 9 days in a row, I was planning to take up the kitchen floor and put down a new one. I had plans. Screw the household budget, I was looking forward to having two weeks off of work and away from the office (see the first couple of paragraphs above). Plus, the kids will need potty training sooner than we’ll be ready for it. Potty training in the upstairs bathroom makes no sense as there are a lot of stairs to get there, so we’re looking at the tiny half-bath downstairs. The sink in there hasn’t worked in two years. We were planning to re-do the bathroom (new floor, sink, john) and then I got knocked up and we never got around to it. So, the sink needs to be fixed. We have a sink and faucet downstairs ready to install. However, to do that, we need to move the pipes a little bit. And since the sink will hang on the wall with a pedistal stand, we need to redo the floor so that everything’s at the right height.
Except that there’s no way I can get the floor done quickly. There are three layers of floor and the bottom one leaves a big mess on the subfloor. So, since the days off aren’t consecutive, we can scratch that idea. We’ll just slap a new faucet in the (crappy) old sink and call it good.
Anyway, we’re all wondering what other consessions the union(s) will make to balance the budget. Next year’s budget is even further out of wack. We expect more furlough days then. Matt’s worried that if the library millage doesn’t get renewed next year, he could be canned. No point in spending a whole lot of money on the house right now…might just as well wait to see if we’ll even still be in Lansing in a year or two.
Plus, there’s the whole elimination of my department (History, Arts and Libraries). That’s still going to happen, but every week there’s a new solution proposed for how to do it. And with the predictions for the next fiscal year getting worse and worse with each auto bankruptcy, we’re all holding our breath to see what gets cut. Even if our own positions don’t get cut, we could still be out of jobs if there is bumping.
So, lots of stress, lots of exhaustion, and no real desire to sit infront of a computer. Doesn’t make for a very good blogger. Sorry.
