Character Counts

It is easy to live up to a set of beliefs in good times. Sometimes, you need to see a person under some stress to get a well rounded picture of their character. In the corporate world, there are times when you may have an opportunity to toss someone under the bus. In so many situations, it is not about fixing a problem but finding someone to blame it on.

One of the things that happens when a corporation kicks people to the curb and makes it clear that they aren’t really wanted anymore is that things are left undone. The people who are left behind often are handed things to sort out. It sucks but it happens.

Don’t want to get into the real details but some of my folks were cleaning out their desks yesterday and came across some files that needed to be sent off site for archiving. Our normal procedure was to hang on to stuff until (a) we were sure it wouldn’t be needed or (b) we had enough to fill a box to be sent away. Neither condition had been met so they dropped the files off with instructions about what to do.

The manager of the group that absorbed our responsibilities sent an email to multiple people complaining about all the work that just got dumped on him (he included a picture of the offending files) and how he can’t possibly get it done without help. And then he added a line about not understanding why they hadn’t been archived properly.

See, this is a CYA move and those just suck even if they are sometimes politically necessary. You launch a pre-emptive strike so nobody can later blame you for why the files weren’t sent away. And blaming a group that no longer exists and can’t fight back is even better.

One of the people who got his email is a friend of mine and she was telling me about it. I convinced her to copy me on it so I could respond and explain our process and answer the open questions he left in his email. What burns me is that I’m in the office and dealing with mail at least 4 days a week – granted I’m not there all day but I’m around. Think you could have talked to me first rather than sending an email without even copying me.

Anyway, according to me friend, he came around later looking for me to admit that he was told why things hadn’t been done but he was just looking for help. Now, I’m probably getting a little defensive about a single line in an email but why add that if all you wanted was help and you already knew the answer to the rhetorical question you were asking. Stuff like this is why I have no real desire to jump back into the corporate world.

I was going to talk about my dance lessons last night but then this came up and I just had to vent a bit.

We finally got back to the Cha-Cha. Maybe I should take back some of what I said about the coach because I seemed to be getting that whole body rotation thing even though I really didn’t understand what I was doing. I just tried to remember to turn my body and not move my arms and it seemed to be working. At least that’s what JoNY told me. The other part was the connection on a different part and that I remembered and could do so that worked out well also. We did the pattern to music once and managed to stay relatively on time.

We also worked on the Bolero and I’m still struggling with the whole timing around the lunge and oversway. It feels like there were four actions on three beats and I was trying to sort all that out in my head. The only thing I sort of knew was to step out strongly on my left foot after the pivot and then stay on the left foot but just rotate my body to get the oversway. There’s the last part where I kind of snap her back into position which happens on some in between beat so the whole thing is like a quick-quick-and. Since I still don’t fully understand how all the moving parts work together, I have to think about it which ends up putting me behind. Then we worked on my arm styling. I guess I need to take up more space so she wants my free arm extended during most of the pattern. Fingers together and thumb down. Which doesn’t feel natural and then I start to think it doesn’t look natural. And then I tell myself to stop thinking and just get the arm out there.

We also worked on Fox Trot which doesn’t have a lot of new stuff except the open naturals which is still a bit of a problem. We get into it from an explosion, so we are side by side. I’m supposed to roll her in and pick her up in a shadow position with my right arm on her rib cage and then we go right into the turns so the challenge is getting the connection fast enough so I can really power through the first turn. And then keeping it strong during the whole pattern because I just feel my arm start to drop which put some torque on my wrist. I eventually figured out that I could get my right arm on her relatively quickly as she starts to roll in so I can have that connection ready to go. Now, without getting too graphic, lets just say that there’s a fine line between the proper connection and what would be considered inappropriate touching. And, as she’s rolling in, there is the danger of trying to connect too quickly which did happen once. In the real world, this would likely get you slapped but we just moved on.

We finished with Swing and we ended up tossing the last step in the pattern. She kept forgetting it and thought we were at the loop anyway. And, we counted the number of figures in the pattern and we were at 7 when OwnerGuy said he usually just used 5 in a pattern. So we dumped it because we have the three Silver III figures so we didn’t need it.

We still haven’t discussed Showcase again. I know she’s got a heat sheet already primed and ready to go with the number she wants me to do but it hasn’t come back since I said I wasn’t sure anymore. And, I’m still not sure. I know we don’t have a complete Tango and some of the other ones are still works in progress. Yes, getting them on the floor would be best but I just don’t have that good feeling yet. Then again, my doubt level always peaks right before Showcase and that’s where we are. Probably best to just bite the bullet and sign up and deal with it later.

Well that’s a wrap for today.