Since I got back from mat leave, I have been running a program for a client that I have worked exclusively for, for the last 7 years.

The program sucks.

It’s basically getting our program and the client’s program to talk to one another and neither of them want to.  Our customer doesn’t want to make changes to their system so we are trying to make our system work with theirs.  It’s a lot like getting a square peg into a round hole.

It’s hard.

So for the past six months, I have been tasked with getting it to work.

Along with implementing another really big client and dealing with two other smaller clients.

So I am busy, and stressed and really just want this system to work.

Thus far, we have not gotten over 35% accuracy of transmissions.  This week the target was 80%.

And I pushed and worked and reworked and tested and reworked and tested and reworked and retransmitted.  I dedicated so much time to getting the program to work this week but by Wednesday, I only managed to get the accuracy up to 38%.

It was so bad that the tech guy from my client’s office told me that he was going to get his resume together because things were so bad he didn’t see his job being around for much longer.

So on Thursday, I told my boss and his boss that I had only manged to hit 38% so far.  My boss said nothing.  His boss said a lot though.  She told me that I was not detailed oriented, that I was being pulled off the account.  The client thought that I was not competent or capable and with the failure of this project, it was obvious that I was best suited to be in a support position.  I needed to be like the other analyst.  She’s thorough and able to prioritize her workload and her having only one client was not a factor.  It was my job to handle all four of my clients and being overloaded was not an excuse.

They had hired someone to be responsible for and monitor my day to day operations and another analyst to basically take away all of my functions except for the very basic processes.

I was demoted.

I was dumbstruck.

I walked away.

I went and sat in my car and cried.

I called Beanz and I cried.

I didn’t know what to do.

So I went back to my desk and worked on the program that was the bane of my existence.

And you know what I did, I got that mother f*cker to work.  I took the accuracy to 78%.  The highest that the program has ever been.  As soon as it was confirmed, I told my boss and his boss.

They were pleased, nodded and kept working.

But it was what my temp did next that was the game changer.

She stopped the big boss as he walked by and told him what I did.  She bypassed my boss, and my bosses boss and put me front and center in front of the head honcho.

He high fived me.

Then he went up to my bosses boss and told her that he had heard about my good work and that she should be pleased at how well I handled the program.

That made her get out of her chair.

And she started to make a big deal about it.

So she ran out and got me some very expensive chocolate and took my picture for the company website.

It’s my “we stabbed you in the back but thanks” gift.

I’m still off the account.

I’m still getting a babysitter.

There’s still going to be another analyst.  And my bosses boss still thinks that she is the greatest thing ever and I am the bottom of the barrel.

My bosses boss is still bad mouthing me to clients behind my back.

But the big boss knows that I did what no one else was able to do and for right now that’s all that matters.

And yeah, my job sucks.

So far he hasn’t made it through an entire DVD yet but it’s expected.  We started on the 2nd DVD because the first DVD is harder than the second one.  The second one is the one that lets your body rest after going hard core at the beginning.  I didn’t think that Millhouse was physically ready to go hard core for an hour yet so I switched up the DVD’s.

My thinking behind doing it that way was this, Insanity is hard and in the 10 years that Millhouse and I have been together, he has never, ever, ever worked out.  He would go for walks every once in awhile but he has never even attempted to start a workout regime.

So this is a pretty big step.

For the first workout, he made it through the warm up and the stretching.  But he wasn’t able to keep going for the actual workout itself.

The second time, he made it through the warm up, stretching and about half of the exercises.

The next time we work out (which is tomorrow) he is going to push himself to make it through the entire DVD.  Right now there are no guarantees that he will be able to make it through the entire DVD tomorrow but at he is trying and that’s all I can ask for.

JFK was killed by the CIA.  Bigfoot exists.  Roswell.  Gluten allergies are man made to punish wheat farmers.  The moon landing was a hoax.

All of it.

I totally believe it.

What can I say?  I grew up with the X – Files.  I can relate to Mulder.*

My newest conspiracy theory involves work.  I think they are trying to get me to quit.  I don’t think that my boss or my bosses boss have it in them to fire me so they are trying their damnest to get me to crack and quit.

On top of everything that is going on right now with work, they are starting to exclude me from a lot of things.

Yesterday, when I was at home with Maks, my boss and his boss went to see a client of mine.  This wasn’t a scheduled meeting, it was more of a “hey, let’s go over and touch base with them” kind of meeting.  It’s not unheard of but it is very strange that they would go see someone about a program that I am currently running without me.

They didn’t even tell me that they went.

Today when I was talking to the client, the client told me that they had been over and they were asking a lot of questions about the clients comfort level with me and if they were satisfied with my level of service.

I waited all day for my boss to talk to me about this.

ALL DAY.

And nothing.

He never came up to me to tell me what I needed to improve, or what the client was happy with.

Nothing at all.

Mo suggested that they were impressed with my productivity and didn’t have anything that they needed me to improve on, so that is why they haven’t mentioned anything to me.

It’s a sweet sentiment.

But a highly doubtful one.

I know my boss.  This level of sneaky means they’re up to no good.  I know that they have hired a new person to be my babysitter.  His sole responsibility is to keep me in check and that really ticks me off.  I am not sure why they think that after 10 years I need to be babysat and it is rubbing me the wrong way.  I have told my boss that hiring someone to monitor me is silly, and he’s ignored me thus far.

I really do believe that they are doing all these things to push me to the edge so that I just throw in my cards and leave.

That way the company doesn’t owe me anything.  But I’ve invested too much of myself into this job to just throw it away.

If I am going to go, it will be on my terms.

*Except for that whole sister getting kidnapped by aliens thing.  I don’t think that my sister ever got kidnapped by aliens.  My sister is an alien.  And that’s not me being mean, ask her.  She’ll tell you.  She’s not only an alien, she’s the queen alien.  Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away her minions are pining away, awaiting her return.

Yesterday I got a call from the daycare.  Maks had thrown up three times and had a 108f fever.  I had to come and pick him up right away and take him to the urgent care centre.

That freaked me out.

Maks was fine when I dropped him off at daycare in the morning so I wasn’t sure where this sick child came from.  When we got hime from the daycare, he was really tired.  He fell asleep in the car on the way to the hospital and that has never happened before.  That was a sign something was wrong.

When we got to the hospital the intake nurse, commented that he really did have a high fever and that she would push us through.  She gave him some advil to bring down the fever and had him put on a mask in case he was contagious.  Then we had to wait to be seen by a doctor.

4 hours later, Maks was still waiting to be seen by a doctor.

Everyone to had come in before us was seen by a doctor.  People that came in after us were seen by a doctor.  Millhouse went to ask the nurse when Maks would be seen and we were told he was on the list but was a low priority.

So we called our family doctor and asked if they could fit us in.  The receptionist told us to come and she would have the doctor wait for us.  We went 30 minutes away to our family doctor and got in to see him right away.

Maks temperature had dropped to 102 by this time and my family doctor wasn’t too worried.  He came him some tylenol and recommended rest and lots of fluids.  He also told Maks he could have as many popsicles as he wanted, Maks loved that part.

So we came home, gave Maks some more medicine, and everyone went to bed early.  Maks stayed home today even though his fever is mostly gone, he hasn’t thrown up in over twelve hours and he is back to his normal busy self because we wanted to make sure everything was all right before we sent him back to school.

To say that I am less than impressed with urgent care, is an understatement.

He is impressed with my weight loss on Insanity and he wants to see if it can work for him like it has worked for me.

I have a feeling that he is going is do awesome on him and lose a lot of weight.

I just think that he needs to apply himself and not cheat.  If he cheats, then it is not going to work.  You have to make the decision to be dedicated and not stray from a diet and workout plan.

I know that the first month is going to be the hardest.  It was the hardest for me.  It was harder to change my diet than to start my exercising but there were so many times in the first month that I wanted to quit but I didn’t.

And that is when I started to see results.

I hope the same happens for him.

It’ll make sticking to the program so much easier.

It’s on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

That’s where we keep his bottles, his juice cups, his drinkable yogurts, his regular yogurt and fruit.  It’s pretty accessible for him.  He can reach in and grab what he needs from the fridge and be on his way.*

But lately, I have been finding some interesting things in the fridge.  In the last week I have found: a pack of pens, a kleenex box, and my cellphone.  It seems that Mats trades off what he has in his hands at the time for what he wants to get out of the fridge.  So if he goes into the fridge for a bottle and has a pack of pens in his hands, he leaves the pens in fridge and takes the bottle.

So I start finding some interesting things in the fridge.

It makes going into the fridge for a bottle of water an adventure, every time.

*Just a disclaimer – Mats cannot open the fridge on his own.  If he needs something from the fridge, he does have to ask a grown up first.  Once we know what he needs, we’ll open the door for him and he is let into the fridge to get what he wants.

Millhouse went with him.

That wasn’t the original plan.

The original plan was that Maks and I were supposed to go together.  We both like comic book movies and I thought that it would be a good chance for the two of us to spend some time together and do something silly.

That didn’t happen.

When I asked Maks if he wanted to go to the movies with me, he said no.

He said that he wanted to go with Millhouse and if his dad was not going with him, then he didn’t want to go at all.

If I went instead of his dad, he wasn’t going to go.

My heart broke.

And I stayed home.

It was a rude awakening for me today, to know that my boy just didn’t want to go out with me.  It hurt because when it came time to do something fun, I wasn’t even an option.

His dad was the only option.

It’s the suckiest feeling in the world.

Maybe I’ll go by myself to see the Avengers next week.

We went ahead and invited his entire class and a select few from his previous class.  Our reasoning behind this was because he hasn’t been in his new room for very long, he really doesn’t have many close friends in there yet.  We were worried about hurting other kids feelings.  We didn’t want the kids that weren’t invited to the party to feel bad so we invited the entire class. And we wanted to make sure that his buddies from his old room didn’t feel slighted so we sent out some invitations to the kids that he is really good friends with in his old room.

Now, Millhouse and I figured we covered our bases when we did  this.

We figured wrong.

So far ONE child from his new room has said yes.  ONE.

But all of Maks’ buddies from his old room have said yes.  So now I feel bad.  I know that there are other kids in his old room that he wanted to invite, and that want to come and I don’t know if it would look bad if I send out the invitation to them now.

I wish that instead of inviting all of the kids in the new class, I invited all the kids from the old class.  I have a feeling that Maks would have a way better time with them than he would with the kids in his new class but I wanted to be fair to all the kids.

but I think by doing that I ended up not being very fair at all.

That’s what Mat said tonight.

It was the first time that he said a string of more than two words together.

And it was freaking fantastic.