This is the 21st century, right?

I just want to be sure, because I keep getting notions that we are in the stuck in some previous century at work.  On the one hand, our managers prefer to communicate with staff via email, as each side has a record of what has been communicated.  Sounds good, I think.  So, this week I snapped a few photos from my phone and sent an email to my time card worker, to show I had still been on jury duty.  I attached them to an email, written from my employer's email servers, to an employee also on the same servers.


I get a note back telling me I won't be paid because she couldn't open my attachments.  My god, they were just .jpg files!  I referred to my sent mail folder and verified. Yep, they are there, easy to read and everything. No problem. I suggested this worker call the help desk to help her open files that she doesn't know how to open.  Her response to me is that it was my responsibility to get the documentation to her in a legible format. I say I did. She says I should have faxed it to her.  How? I do not own a fax machine.  I mean, we are in 2010 and fax machines are so rarely used. I feel almost as if I were asked to use a rotary dial phone!  I need to find out if there is an app that will convert .jpg files to .pdf files on my phone. 

Beauty and assorted fun things

Walking to Berkeley Bowl East was a fun little adventure the other day.  While searching for a now closed cafe for breakfast, my friend and I came across an ad hoc art exhibit.  It was probably done by a homeless person, but why can't someone without a home be without art?  It was a sweet little exhibit and added a bit of cheer to an otherwise dreary ventilation grating.


Other news is also very exciting. My son, who is just starting his junior year in high school, just got his very first recruitment letter from an university.  It happened to be Washington University in St. Louis and it remarked on his remarkable academic achievements.  I sure hope he gets a selection of colleges from which to choose.  I would love for him to find a college that really suits him and isn't chosen as it's the only place that his family can afford.  I am so very proud of him!

Choices

Wow, some choices are extremely difficult and some are so much easier.

Been on jury duty for a murder trial since mid-July.  I must say, it is interesting, but very slow.  We have 4 counts to decide upon and we have been successful with 3 of them.  This last one is hanging us up.  We let the judge know of our difficulties and she is working on getting us more information, either from the law or from additional witnesses.  I am glad for that.

As far as TD goes, I am extremely frustrated.  He's gotten into a shelter and he has therapy and medications.  The ONLY shelter that was available to him is a Christian one, and I mentioned to him that he may have to just jump through the hoops that have been presented to him for a while, in order to survive.  I got an "I CAN'T DO IT" message back, about how he wanted to gouge out his eyes when he was in the midst of a religious service, even though we had talked about strategies to get through those times, by considering them as meditation times.  He then had the cajones to call me a hypocrite.  Does he want to sever all ties with me, cause that is one thing I cannot stand; to try to help someone and then get slapped for it.  Today we IM'd for a short while and he apologized, but got off a comment how its not fair to him that I want to take things day by day and that I cannot commit to being there for him.

On the other hand, I have glo, the youngin'  I have known for almost 10 years now.  His unfortunate trait is that he, too, drinks too much.  His drinking, though, is different. He has never once been rude to me, he has been respectful of me and polite, and he is smart, although a tad naive at times.  He also has a very literal and romantic streak in him.  The differences between these two people are night and day, and yet they both have similar issues.  They both have families with mental illness in them, but one family is extremely dysfunctional and the other family appears to function quite well, in their modest way.

I wish the jury choices were as clear to me as friendship choices have been for me lately.  Some things are far too difficult and others are far too easy.