DivaStyleCoach

Hey Everybody! Had to stay at work late, so I missed all the makeovers - GRRR!:wub: I'll have to check them out online or something - I'm dying to see what everyone looked like in their fancy clothes. I'm so GLAD they cut Felipe's hair - the 'bush' was getting to be too much for me...Tara looked great, and I'm glad they took the skunk stripes out of Kristen's hair. Ron still looks like...well, Ron - so that's no improvement where I'm concerned. Mike looked cuter than ever, and I'm so happy for him losing the most weight ever on the show. I'm of two minds about Laura - I understand why she didn't want to leave, but I'm glad she was voted off so she could heal completely and properly. I'm glad she got the help she needed. I think I would have cried my eyes out over Mike's brother - I hope he gets to either come on the show next season, or goes home and gets his butt in gear! He doesn't have to wait until Mike and his dad are home, he could be building up his stamina and strength right now! But then, if he could have done it by himself, he wouldn't be in the position he's in right now... Helen is looking good, too - though I agree with others that she's starting to ring false to me... It's amazing to me that with everything Kristin has lost, she still probably has nearly 100 pounds to go...amazing! I'm definately rooting for Tara to win it all...she rocks!

Yeah, I NOTICED that! :tt2: Pretty cool, if ya ask me... Just came back from my daily lunchtime walk...for some reason, the hill kicked my butt today - I was a couple of minutes slower at the top than last week, and the backs of my thighs were griping and complaining...guess I need to stretch more! Wonderful NSV - my DH commented on my "tiny waist"...yeah, I know, it ain't tiny yet, but it's nice to be referred to as "tiny". He does that a lot...makes me grin and giggle...:tongue: I my DH!

You're probably right, Mac - I can't quite remember from the preview, cause my eyes were all over the screen trying to note which characters were going to be in the movie! One is the guy with the playing cards - his name is Gambit - he was NOT a part of the original X-Men comic series, but came in around the same time as the New Mutants - wonder how many of the 'new' characters will be from various parts of the comic series, but out-of-order, so to speak... No joke...he is definately the hotness - a little short for me, but for him...I'd make an exception! :tongue: Is it totally weird, or is it okay to like Sabertooth (Wolverine's arch-enemy)? I can't help it, I like big, tall, roughnecks! Don't get me started on the hotties in comic books...:tt2:

PJTP...Hi yall! Had a wonderfully restful weekend...now back on the grind, in the weird place called my job... Had a great Easter dinner - four bites of ham, four bites of green beans, and three bites of mac-n-cheese. What used to feed me for ONE MEAL will last me the rest of the week as leftovers! :smile: Emotionally, I miss food - it was such a big part of my life, and why I was such a big girl! Now, I have to find other ways to occupy my time...went to see two movies this weekend with hubby: Taken (with Liam Neeson) and Knowing. Both were very good... Taken made me scared to send my daughter anywhere, and Knowing was just plain spooky. Hated the end - wish it had come out differently, but it wasn't my movie to write / edit / end. I won't tell anyone what happens just in case ya want to see them. Can't wait for X-Men Origins next month, and Star Trek! Ya - I'm a Trekkie from way back... Have a great week, everyone! DD goes off on her college tour trip tomorrow morning so it will be just me, DH and DDog the rest of the week. We'll get to see what life might be like once she's off to college...this will be interesting! :tongue:

They know a little of what happened, but not all of it. I told them about some of the "issues" they had with my performance, and they were shocked and surprised. Both of them are on my side - or at least that's what they say, and their actions do back it up. One of the girls in particular seems to be taking it harder - she actually said this morning that "the trust has been broken". They both see me as a peer, though most often in a supervisory capacity because of my title and because they are both temporary employees. I've had my emotional moments about this whole thing...normally I NEVER cry at work, but I've had a couple of moments in the bathroom when I let a few tears fall. I think its the personal feeling of betrayal and the feeling that I've been blindsided that are the worst. My supervisor did not even let on that she had this kind of problem with me - I thought everything was at least okay, if not perfect. I do know I've made a few mistakes in the past couple of weeks, but I NEVER thought it would get me hauled in front of the department's HR Director. That was, to me, over-the-top. If she can't handle supervising me (for whatever reason) then she should find another way, but doing what she did was just unconscionable (sp?). Now she tries to act like nothing has happened, but I'm not buying it. She'll need ME before I need her...my relationship with her is now strictly by-the-book, and I feel free to laugh, giggle and relate in a friendly manner with everyone ELSE in the department just the way I always have. I don't know what caused it, and I'm getting to the point where I don't really care - it's HER problem, but she has made it mine, so I'm going to document, document, document and cover my butt. As soon as I can find a way, I'm outa here - as far as I know, she's not going anywhere, and I'll get to the point where I can't stand to look at her anymore, so before it goes that far, I'll leave.:sad:

And now, a look at how multiples CAN be handled successfully...there are pics and an article. Hopefully the link will come through okay...:sad: America's first African-American Sextuplets - essence.com

I hear ya, Tap...my 'paranoid radar' is up and active right now...no one hears anything but "I'm great! How are you?" I've even kidded around and joked with the object of my disdain today - since she's so 'sensitive' to my being 'unwilling to accept feedback' I've made sure to treat her like any one else here in the office. We'll see what a weekend away brings...I know for me, it will be VERY NICE to get out of here!:sad:

PJTP...I'm so glad its my Friday! :w00t::w00t::w00t: Work is weird - like everyone thought, it's a very strange atmosphere. The other folks in the office (managerial types) are staying away from me. No one's even said anything to me today except one person who asked for something to be copied. I guess during the managerial-types meeting yesterday I WAS the topic of conversation. It's sad, ya know...:sad: I'm doing okay...sad more than anything else. I feel betrayed and stabbed in the back - especially since I considered this woman my friend-at-work. Not best friends by any stretch of the imagination, but at least friendly. THAT is definately over now...I'm keeping her at arm's length from now on. You don't get a chance to do that to me twice! :tt2: Will document everything...extensively! Thanks to everyone for the advice and good wishes...I need them right now. I'm kinda depressed about the whole thing, but I put on my 'game face' and no one knows. My fellow clericals in the back room are very offended on my behalf and keep asking how I'm doing. :thumbup: More than anything, right now I feel vulnerable...and it's not a feeling I enjoy. Plain - thanks for the reminder about HR stuff - I'm going to check my contract and familiarize myself with the discipline progression - for me, knowledge is power, and I want to be sure I'm being treated fairly. I don't want special treatment, just want to be treated like anyone else would be... I don't think that's too much to ask.

Thanks, Slim...I really appreciate that! Sometimes stupid stuff will have you doubting your own value and knowledge...this was one of those times for me. I thought things were going pretty well before this... Thank you so much, Susan - I really needed that cyber-hug! :wub: My supervisor did say that she felt I "didn't take feedback well" - I take that to mean she's intimidated by me. We're similar in height, she's about 50 - 60 lbs below me (she had WLS also - bypass) and I guess I scare her. She's younger than I am by about 11 years - though I thought I always treated her with respect because of her position. She can be difficult to talk to - she is impatient and tends to cut off conversation quickly. She knows this and has mentioned it herself, so I'm not sure where this all came from. I think she's not very experienced as a manager and doesn't really know how to handle me. In thinking about it, I tried to review our interactions in my mind to see if I unintentionally 'scared' her at some point and I can't come up with a thing! :glare: Great advice, luluc - I'll do that right away. I have some spiral notebooks around that I'll be using from now on to document everything. I'll also off-site backup my emails to make sure there are no issues on the company computer. Yep, I'm a little paranoid on the system stuff - I know how those techies can be (since I am one)... Great advice, and thank you, Tap! :wub: I've been careful to keep her in the loop today, speaking to her as if nothing has happened. I think she was expecting fallout, but I'm going to kill her with kindness, so to speak. She won't be able to say anything about my 'attitude'...and my union rep did say that I may have to 'manage up' because she seems to have issues with that. I bet there's a great story there! Thanks to everyone for the expressions of support and advice - they are so welcome and appreciated! :wub::wub::wub: I'll be fine - like I told my union rep, I didn't make it to be 46 years old and not know how to handle stuff like this...they will not be able to say another blessed word about my job performance!:mad2:

PJTP...I am so NOT in a good mood!:glare::cursing: Just got back from the "meeting"...what it turned into was a bi*ch and moan session about my job performance. The past couple of weeks I've had a detail issue or two (lots of detail in this job) and I have slipped up a couple of times. That turned into "serious performance issues" and then morphed into a "you don't take feedback well"...WTF??? Well, at least I know why I've had that pain in my right shoulder for the past few days, it's because of the knife sticking out of my back! My supervisor took the opportunity to turn a couple of troubled days into a theme and made it seem like I don't do my job. I'm pissed, but resolute. I'll leave this place when I'm da*n good and ready, and no insecure idiot is gonna make me leave until then! So it's strictly professional from this point forward, taking extra effort to dot the i's and cross the t's, and I DARE them to say anything else about my job performance! I'm not happy, but now that I've calmed down, there was SOME validity to what they were saying - the past couple of weeks I've missed some details. It definately won't happen again, and I really don't think it had to go to this level. My supervisor said she didn't feel comfortable giving me feedback because I didn't recieve it well. She's referring to ONE incident where she told me that I couldn't express that I had challenges with the job because someone else in the staff meeting did. That person is the favored one, and just because she says something doesn't mean the rest of us can...ooookay...so I didn't. I expressed a little concern about my work load after the favored one bit*hed and moaned, and that turned into "we have questions about your ability to do your job." When she finished with that statement I asked if she was done. She took that to mean I wasn't listening and didn't tell me any of the OTHER concerns they supposedly had. That was over a month ago, and she's had plenty of opportunity to tell me if they had performance issues with me. She did not - instead, she does it in this meeting. WTF? Stuff that was brought up includes things that happened when I first started on the job in June of last year, which I thought had been covered already. Guess not... I'll be watching my back more carefully from now on, and making sure my performance is at 100%, no matter what. Guess 90% isn't good enough...

This is where we part company - abuse takes many forms, and some of them take YEARS to show...just because she has a number of children and they are all relatively well, that does not mean that she's prepared to handle the preemies. Bringing the President into this is just so far afield that it doesn't even register... She created this circus environment - she should suck it up and deal with it. Her priority should be taking care of the children and proving that she CAN be a good mother to them, not in seeking celebrity everywhere she turns. I pray for the babies' sake that all turns out well, but I just don't have a good feeling about all of this. I think she's in WAAAY over her head and can't admit it...:smile:

Midlife moment...that's too funny! :smile: That's quite alright...we should definately tell folks at the meetings that we're on LBT and how to find us there in case they want to feel like they "know someone" here when they jump in. I think we should definately promote LBT, because I would not be nearly as successful with my band without my online fam!

Definately an Escalade - with 24-in spinner rims! :wub: ROFLMBO...:mad::wub: Oh Fanny - that's just PERFECT! Came in to work this morning and found a note from my supervisor: "I was told that I was not clear enough in my description of the meeting. We will be meeting to discuss your performance in the position." WTF????? More updates after the meeting - this is really getting my dander up! :smile:

PJTP...Thanks for all the good wishes...rabbit's feet, lucky charms, prayers, influence from the ancestors and the elements, all are welcome! :sneaky: :thumbdown: :mad2: I just heard back from one of our union reps, who will be there for the meeting tomorrow, and sent the HR Director an email to let her know the union person would be there, so SHE isn't blindsided. Here's hoping my fears are totally unfounded, but in this current business climate (and they just had a round of job cuts and layoffs in my part of the university) it pays to be safe, not sorry.:confused:

PJTP... My apprehensions about my job seem to be dead on...I've just been told that there is a meeting scheduled tomorrow at 9:30 am with the Director of Human Resources for the part of the college that I work for, and that I am to attend. It's about the "upcoming changes in my job description" (quote not exact) because we are moving from a paper application to an electronic one. I'm curious and wary, because a change to my job description should probably also have been cleared through our union. I fired off an email to my union person, and they will have someone there at the meeting with me. I'm sure that won't go over well, but at this point, and with all the changes going on around here, plus the history of acrimony between my employer and the unions, I'm not taking any chances. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know I don't want to walk in there and get blindsided. I half-jokingly asked if I needed to wear my asbestos underwear, and when I got a confused look from my manager (she's from Trinidad and may not understand the phrase) I asked if I was in trouble. She didn't give me a really straight answer, just said that the meeting was to make sure that everyone was clear on expectations. I'm VERY wary of this...not sure why the short notice, but I'm going in there loaded for bear, so to speak. I'm going to bring a copy of my latest performance review with me, and have a pad and pen for taking copious notes. Any changes that are to be made probably should be made in writing for the protection of all parties. The fact that we're meeting with the HEAD of human resources and not the lower-level contact person that I always talk to on hr issues makes me very wary. We'll see what happens...I'm wearing my power suit tomorrow for additional confidence! :thumbdown:

I LOVE researching my family tree...my mother's family is easier to find than my dad's, for some odd reason. I am French / Creek / Jewish / Caucasian / African-American on my mother's side, and African-American / Choctaw / Caucasian / ? on my father's side. I'd love to pair a visit to my DD in Virginia when she starts school with a genealogical research trip to find more about my father's side of the family. He was born in Richmond, but I don't know much beyond that. It's hard to find the records sometimes... Complicate the mixed ethnic heritage with the fact that a lot of names / records / places were lost during the bad old days of slavery, plus a lot of my older relatives are now "gone to glory" and you have a very curious puzzle that I'm only too happy to try and unravel! :thumbdown:

Hi Glouc, I've been at the university just about 2 years, with this particular department just under 1 year (June will be a year). No proof of weirdness, but I do have independent corroboration of the file challenges from last week - I suspect it's been going on longer than that, but can't prove it. :mad2: Relationship with my manager - it's weird. :confused: We have some things in common, but more not. She's younger than I am by about 10 years, better educated (she was an attorney before stepping back into admissions work). We're both WLS patients - she had a bypass, me the band. We used to talk about our victories and challenges, but not so much now. I'm not sure if she's getting pressure from above, or our 'friendship' wasn't what I thought it was. Maybe I'm just feeling emotional today - normally stuff doesn't bother me like this, but the past three weeks or so I've been getting what feels like a lot of "your work isn't up to par" messages from above. Don't have any overt, in-your-face signals that someone's out to get me, but ya never know. I'm in no-woman's land between being part of the clerical crew and being just below management. Level C and D (most of the clericals here) are pretty plentiful, I'm the only level E (just below management). The managers are non-union. I'm the newest non-manager in the department. When the layoffs at the university were announced, our union rep came to see all of us and said that unless our jobs were eliminated (not just reassigned) our contract said we couldn't be laid off. It's nothing big - no big blow ups or upheavals, but just a general sense that I'm not living up to their expectations. Nothing firm, but maybe that's coming this afternoon. Who knows? I'm going to try not to stress about it and get myself all worked up - if they are determined to get rid of me, there isn't really much I can do, but I'm also not going to tuck my head between my legs and run. :thumbdown: I'll take a wait-and-see attitude before I go into battle mode...:sneaky:

PJTP...I'm having a "to hell with it day"... I generally like my job, and most of my co-workers. But recently, it seems like I can do nothing right. The work I prepare isn't good enough, the files aren't right, there's stuff missing (that I had nothing to do with - filewise) etc, etc, etc. When I'm trying to get stuff ready for committee, I'm finding random files thrown in with the stuff that IS ready, and if I don't find them before I take the files down, it looks like I don't know what I'm doing. I've got a meeting with my supervisor this afternoon, and I'm not sure what to expect. This is not something that happens to me a lot - normally, my performance is never questioned on any job that I have. It's just this one where I feel like I'm climbing uphill and can't gain any ground. Because of all the layoffs going around, I'm feeling really paranoid - like I'm being targeted. That old saying "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean people AREN'T out to get me" is running through my head. I've got to get out of this office for just a couple of minutes to clear my head before I either kill someone or collapse into a teary heap on my desk. Add to that the fact that I nearly PB'ed on canned fruit this morning, and it's just not a good day so far... I'll be back later...

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple...a lot of porn sites also bring viruses and such with them. As a former IT Director, I can't tell you the number of times I've been asked to rebuild a friend's computer because one of their kids (or maybe the hubby) downloaded something from a porn site (or just a site that featured naked women) and along with the pictures came a virus. If she's okay with him looking at it, perhaps he should get his own computer to do so, that way she will not run into it, and they can share his activities on his computer, where no household files (think bills, banking, finances, investments) could be compromised. Just one more angle to consider...

Sunshine - I've heard whispers during the "goodbye" hugs from the trainers before the decision time every week after weighing in, but sometimes they don't listen. It will be interesting to see if they try and influence this week's vote as well, or if they try to play peacemaker with Ron, Mike and the rest of the group...

Sounds like an abusive relationship to me...I wonder if he is paying "penance" for something, or she's just that obnoxious? Ya almost want to call a domestic violence hotline for the guy, but I'm afraid they wouldn't take it seriously...I almost feel for the guy, and I don't even know him! :eek: I know my DH wouldn't take that for very long...but it's taken him a while to get that way. Let's just say the ex-bi*ch did a real head job on him, and I had to do some repair work to his self-esteem. No one should be treated that way...

PJTP... We should add that to the "You know you're a Bandster..." thread... You know you're a Bandster when...you eat the same thing 4 days in a row because cooking a "normal" size portion means 4 days of leftovers! :eek::wink::w00t:

Nice to see ya, Ceradad - my DH and I own a timeshare near Orlando as well. We almost sold it this year, then decided that with DD off to college, we'll finally get to USE it more. The past two trips got cancelled because of DD's school stuff going on...:w00t: I'm looking forward to my vacation this year - July in Florida for a family reunion...thanks to my band, I'll be in much better shape to wear a swimsuit this year! :cool2: Thinking about another timeshare in the Richmond, VA area where DD will be in school - then I can go visit her every year if I want, plus I have "roots" in that area...so it would be nice to have a 'home base' to do genealogical research from...

Thanks, Slim...DD really is a wonderful kid - no one's perfect, and we've had our moments, but I am torn between wanting the best for her (getting out and spreading her wings) and not wanting to lose my friend! I know I'll be a teary mess when she leaves...it'll be hard not to make HER cry...we are both puddles at times. DH is so much better about this stuff - at least on the surface. He plays strong, but I think when she goes, he'll be in a bit of a funk for a few days. Then we'll realize we have some extra freedom and the fun will begin again!:smile2:

Hi Chris! What meeting did I miss? I went to the LapBand meeting in New Haven on Temple Street - is there another one?